IHG trial? Pay more points for premium rooms

Here is an interesting find by a friend of mine: IHG might be trialling award redemption for premium rooms.

If you look at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Chicago O’Hare Airport, all their rooms type are available to book with points.

This isn’t new. Some IHG hotels, for unknown reasons, open up their non-standard room inventory for award redemption. Pricing however, is always the same across all room types at the same hotel.

Rooms at this property are priced differently as follows:

• Standard – 36,000 points / $213
• King Suite – 41,000 points / $224
• Two Queen Suite – 49,000 points / $258

This is likely a conscious decision made by IHG, making me think that they are experimenting with a new idea. I don’t find it too surprising, given that premium room redemption is already a thing with almost all other hotel programs – Hilton, Marriott, Accor and Hyatt. As IHG’s award pricing is already highly coupled with the room rate, it shouldn’t be hard to implement.