How to Stay Up to 16 Nights at an InterContinental Hotel for Free

What do you get when you combine 80,000 IHG points with their Pointbreaks promotion? Free hotel stays totaling more than ~$4,000.

The IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card welcome bonus offers 80,000 IHG points after spending $1,000 within the first 3 months (OFFER EXPIRED).

IHG’s PointBreaks promotion is a list of hotels that offer rewards nights for 5,000 per night. The list includes locations are all over the world.

You can book 16 free nights with 80,000 IHG points.

Introduction to PointBreaks

PointBreaks is one of the best IHG hotel promotions available and it allows you to book select hotels at a heavily discounted award price of 5,000 per night. This is huge. Consider that reward stays at InterContinental hotels normally cost 30,000 to 50,000 points per night.

With PointBreaks you can get stays at InterContinental hotels for up to 90% off the normal reward night price.

IHG releases a new list of PointBreaks properties every few months, with the last one out in November.

The current list is set to end on January 31st and I would suspect the new list preview to be released a few days prior (possibly January 28th if it’s similar to last year). Hotels on the new list should be bookable and go live within the first week of January (according to what an IHG rep mentioned over the phone).

Once the list is live, you will be able to book stays at any of the participating hotels for only 5,000 IHG points per night. I would book quickly and book any stays you could potentially use because availability can run out. Even if later you decide you no longer want the room, you can always cancel later down the road.

My PointBreaks booking tips:

1. Book SOON if you see a hotel you may want to stay at. A hotel’s availability can drop off the PointBreaks list quickly.

2. Book separate one night stays for your stay. This way if you need to alter the length of your stay, you can do so while keeping the PointBreaks rate for the other nights.

IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card

The IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card has a 80,000 point welcome bonus after you spend $1,000 within the first 3 months. The annual fee is waived the first year.

You will need an IHG Rewards Club account to enter your number in the credit card application, if you don’t have one you can easily open a free account (Click on IHG Rewards Club/Join).

I love this card and will pay the fee every year because it gives me a free night each year after the first year that I can use at ANY IHG hotel! This means I could stay at hotel that costs ~$900 per night such as the Intercontinental Bora Bora Thalasso!

Now lets move on to see how this credit card can be worth ~$4,000+ in free hotel stays.

How to Get up to $4,000+ in Free Hotel Stays

As I mentioned above, each PointBreaks list usually has several Intercontinental hotels available and stays at them can easily run ~$250 per night.

With 80,000 points you could get up to 16 FREE nights in a Pointbreaks hotel as a night costs only 5,000 IHG Rewards points! This means that you could get 16 nights in a Intercontinental hotel for free.

For instance on the last list, the InterContinental Johannesburg Sandton Towers costs ~$257 per night in the spring. If you were to book 16 nights during PointBreaks you are getting $4112 in free hotel stays.

This article is mostly a primer for the upcoming new PointBreaks list. It is one of my favorite promotions and I always look forward to what new hotels are going to be included. I am crossing my fingers for some InterContinental locations in Asia so I can book at least a weeks stay on my upcoming trip.

Have stayed at some amazing PointBreaks hotels? What hotels do you want to see on the new PointBreaks?

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