IHG Rewards Club 2017 Category Changes
While some hotel loyalty programs like Hilton HHonors have moved to incremental quarterly award chart adjustments, many companies only change the categories of their properties once per year. With the new year brings new categories for many properties. IHG Rewards Club has just released the list of their 2017 changes including about 650 properties that are moving either up or down. These changes go into effect on January 15, 2017.
Observations
The full list is contained within this PDF document and it is hard to wade through given the number of properties, but here is what I noticed:
- The vast majority of properties that are changing are in the U.S.
- Most of the properties changing are Holiday Inn Express or Holiday Inn brands on the lower to middle-end.
- Even more properties are joining the 60K tier that was introduced last year. Among them are Intercontinental hotels in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington DC, Okinawa and Syndey.
- The 55K category is shrinking with only one addition, but the loss of 3 properties that moved up to 60K.
- China is a mixed bag with some IC hotels going up a category and some going down.
- India is getting cheaper pretty much across the board.
Conclusion
Thankfully IHG didn’t slip in another price increase surprise like we saw last year. This list is full of minor adjustments without many surprises. Did you notice any properties on the list that are a value or a surprise? Please share your thoughts on the IHG Rewards Club 2017 category changes below!
HT: Doctor of Credit
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Man there are some seriously sour grapes commenting all over this site these days…
[…] IHG Rewards Club 2017 Category Changes: Top Tier Grows & 650 Properties Changing Up or Down – More top tier properties and increases on the low end during this annual category change. […]
Curious nobody has yet taken the time to do an assessment even of the raw basics — like just how many properties went up, how many went down. Really lazy or too fast to the draw, too fast to say, move along now, nothing to get upset about. My quick scan suggests the changes are nasty and overwhelming to the upside — and that this is in effect not “minor adjustments” — but a wholesale, major devaluation. But without anybody taking the time to crunch the actual numbers yet, doing a comparison to previous rounds of “adjustments,” that’s merely a seat-of-the-pants guess. (either that or I’m really bummed out that nearly all my Caribbean favorite are going up… yes, slightly you say….. I’m not drinking from the IHG corporate swill.)
Haha corporate swill. Let’s just say the reality is that more properties will go up than down. Maybe I was just happy because they didn’t stealthily add two new categories like last year. I have no relationship with IHG and you can look back to last year’s post to see just how I love to spin their devaluations.
But probably 2018 will see 1-2 category additions
Let’s hope not but you are probably right!