As IHG One Rewards devalues, which hotel schemes still offer outsized value on peak dates?

IHG One Rewards, the loyalty programme for Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, InterContinental etc, appears to have quietly devalued its redemptions.

It’s difficult to be 100% certain about this because IHG has no reward chart these days. The points price is roughly based on the cash price, so unless you tracked the old cash rate for a hotel it is hard to compare like for like.

For example, a New York booking I have with IHG for October was 61,000 points last month. The hotel now costs 71,000 points. Is this a devaluation or has the cash rate gone up? I don’t know.

However, if you look at this Flyertalk thread, it seems clear that a devaluation has taken place, especially at hotels which were being more generous than our 0.4p per point target valuation.

I’m not sure that 500,000 points per night for a Six Senses is reasonable:

Or closer to home:

It wasn’t that long ago (10 years?) that IHG capped reward nights at 30,000 points per night. A friend of mine moved into Holiday Inn Wembley for a period because it was just 10,000 points per night ….

Which hotel programmes offer the best chance of outsize value?

Let me define what I mean by ‘outsize value’. What I fundamentally mean is …. which programmes have a fixed or capped reward chart, so that if you happen to need a hotel on a peak night in a peak city, you can get a good deal?

It’s worth noting that, whilst I see ‘getting outsized value’ as a big deal, you might not. If you always redeem your hotel points for weekend stays in Northampton, you are unlikely to ever find cash rates out of control and points offering you salvation. For me, with a travel diary that tends to bounce around Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Dubai etc, and usually midweek, it is important.

Here are my rankings, top to bottom:

1st – World of Hyatt

Hyatt is alone among the ‘big six’ hotel groups we cover in still having a published reward chart.

Each hotel sits in a category and, whilst there are peak and off-peak dates, you know the maximum points price required. Even better, Hyatt guarantees to offer rooms for points if standard rooms are still bookable for cash.

I was delighted to use 8,000 Hyatt points instead of €350 per night for Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg in May, a show which sells out the entire city. Similarly, 45,000 points for the $1,500 per night Park Hyatt New York is always a good deal.

Hyatt is the one hotel scheme where you should seriously consider – during a bonus promotion of course – buying as many points as you can each year. Sadly the annual purchase cap of 55,000 points is very low.

Even better, Hyatt offers exceptional value suite upgrades for a small number of points. If you do end up paying a crazy cash price for a hotel, you might as well do a cheap suite upgrade and make the most of it.

2nd – Hilton Honors

Hilton did ‘flexible’ reward pricing the right way.

The cost of a reward night is linked to the cash rate, so points prices are lower when cash prices are lower.

However, all hotels still have a points cap. The caps are not published but they are there. Last weekend I booked my brother into Hilton London Park Lane for 80,000 points despite cash rates of £600+. This got me double my target value of 0.33p per Hilton Honors point.

Here’s an example from the new Small Luxury Hotels partnership. This 240 sq m overwater bungalow at Milaidhoo Maldives (website here) is $2,500 for cash but is capped at 130,000 points per night (1.5p per point):

It’s actually an even better deal than it looks, because Hilton does ‘5 nights for the points of 4’ on redemptions if you have any level of Hilton Honors elite status. You’d be getting 2p per point on a five night stay.

However unlike Hyatt, Hilton (and Marriott and IHG) do not make unlimited numbers of rooms available for points. There is always a risk of the limited inventory being booked up on the night you need it.

3rd – Marriott Bonvoy

Few people know that Marriott Bonvoy still has points caps in place for hotels.

The caps are set at a higher level than Hilton so it is harder to get outsize value. However, when cash rates have gone crazy, you are still likely to find value in a Marriott Bonvoy redemption.

We have a European resort booking next month where cash rates are €2,000 per night. We booked for just over 80,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night, getting 4x my target value of 0.5p per point.

Here is Courtyard Oxford at 23,000 points or £519 – another example at over 2p per point:

4th – IHG One Rewards

Following the changes to reward pricing last week, IHG is now a lot closer to offering ‘fixed value’ redemptions at around 0.4p per point. Getting a lot more or less than this is tricky.

The only cap on points pricing is the one that sets a maximum of 500,000 points per night as the Six Senses example above shows.

Given our target value of 0.4p, you’d need to find a hotel selling for over £2,000 per night before you started to get ‘outsized value’ from IHG!

5th – Radisson Rewards

Following the 2022 devaluation, Radisson Rewards offers around 0.15p per point when redeeming.

This value can change, which is why Radisson is not at the bottom of the list, but in reality it has only moved downwards since 2022.

There are no points caps. The points needed for a room are the current cash price divided by whatever rate (usually 0.15p) that Radisson has decided to use that day.

The upside (and Accor works the same way) is that you can book any category of room at any hotel with no availability issues. If you can book it for cash, you can book it for points. The problem is that, on a peak night, it will be a LOT of points.

6th – Accor Live Limitless

Accor offers a fixed 2 Eurocents of value per point redeemed.

The scheme is useless on a peak night in a peak city, because the points required are linked directly to the cash rate.

I want to be clear – I am NOT saying that the Accor scheme is ‘worse’ than the other schemes discussed here. In fact, it is arguably better than Radisson and IHG because I don’t expect Accor to change the 2 Eurocents number. It is clearly publicised in all their marketing materials, whilst Radisson and IHG can (and do) amend their ‘pence per point’ value downwards whenever they feel like it.

All I am saying is that Accor (and IHG and Radisson) is not the scheme to be in if you use hotel loyalty points to protect you from being stuffed when you need a room on a peak date.

Conclusion

In a perfect world, World of Hyatt should be your preferred hotel loyalty programme.

Unfortunately, with only a quarter of the hotels of the big boys, and with the points being very hard to earn in the UK (no credit card, no Amex or HSBC transfer deals), it’s going to be hard to get a lot of use from it.

For most HfP readers, Hilton Honors is probably the best option for someone who wants to hold some hotel points in reserve (or can get them via an American Express transfer) to get a good value points room when faced with high cash prices.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

---

Hotel offers update – April 2025:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

• Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 29th May 2025. The annual purchase limit is also increased to 240,000 points pre-bonus. Click here to buy.

• World of Hyatt is offering a 25% discount (equivalent to a 33% bonus) when you buy points by 14th April 2025. Click here to buy.