IHG quietly reprices 700 hotels; the US bears the brunt
IHG repriced roughly 700 hotels into new award categories, delayed from January 14 to January 25, 2019. About 79% of the changes pushed points requirements upward, with 387 of 448 US changes increasing in cost.
IHG opened 2019 the way hotel programs love to: with a spreadsheet nobody asked for. Roughly 700 hotels move into new award categories — originally slated for January 14, delayed a stub to January 25 — and about 79% of the changes push the points required upward. When four in five reprices go against the member, that’s not a rebalancing, it’s a devaluation with paperwork.
The US takes the outsized hit: 387 of 448 American property changes increase in cost. For Indian IHG Rewards Club members, that’s precisely the redemption geography where aspirational stays live.
What had been a stable award chart, carried over largely unchanged from 2018, is stable no more. And IHG wasn’t done — this was the first shot in a pattern it would repeat later the same year with a fresh 75,000/100,000-point top tier.
Our take: quiet category reprices are the hotel industry’s favourite nerf because no headline number changes — just 700 individual prices, 79% of them the wrong way. Hold IHG points at arm’s length: earn them cheap, burn them fast, and never plan a year ahead on this chart.