15% off reward nights at new IHG hotels, and buy points at 0.48c

IHG started a new hotel promotion last year, where you get 15% when redeeming reward nights at participating new hotels. The hotel list is refreshed every three months and the new one just came out.

Simply book and stay at any of the participating hotel by August 31st, and the price shown is already reduced.

Here are the European hotels:

• The Halyard Liverpool
• Holiday Inn Express Liverpool – Central
• voco Manchester – City Centre
• Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport
• voco Leicester
• Holiday Inn Express Heilbronn
• Crowne Plaza Haifa

15% off is a good deal if you plan to visit these places within the next three months. It also provides an arbitrage opportunity to buy points: Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport has lucrative Points & Cash pricing on quite a few dates:

Book the fewest points option then cancel. You’ll be charged $98 and 20,000 points will be credited to your account. It is effectively buying IHG points at 0.49c, cheaper than when IHG runs their 100% bonus sales.

(Update: on rare dates you can buy 25,000 points for $119 – 0.476c!)

Such inventory tends to go very quickly though, so move fast if you are interested. Reminder: you won’t get the brand bonus for paying with an IHG credit card, as it’s not charged by an IHG hotel. However, its merchant category for Amex appears to be under Travel, and that might trigger a bonus on certain cards.