Holiday Inn Express Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE – Review of Hotel & Room 112.

by
John Ollila
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As I was flying to Dubai and my destination was actually Abu Dhabi, where I needed to be the following day, I decided to spend a one night at this Holiday Inn Express (HIX) hotel. I am quite familiar with the brand as I have stayed at few newly built HIX hotels in the United States over the years. Normally it is value for money and without the glamor.

holiday-inn-express-dubai-internet-city-reception

Also, I had to get my fourth different InterContinental Hotels Group brand stay to qualify for the brand multiplier promotion that they were running last year. I was thinking at one point whether I really should stay at this hotel or just leave. Of course you don’t need to STAY if you want the stay credit. Checking in is enough.

holiday-inn-express-dubai-internet-city-lobby

Location

This hotel is located close to the Dubai Marina but there really isn’t anything in the immediate area for touristic purposes.  To be fair this hotel is not geared for tourists but for business travelers visiting the nearby companies/educational institutions.

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InterContinental Hotel’s Group (IHG) Priority Club 1st Quarter 2012 Promotion Announced – Double Points or Miles – 2X More.

by
John Ollila
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IHG Priority Club just announced their latest promo that is valid from January 23rd to April 30th, 2012. You can get double points or miles starting from your second stay. You can start earning from your first stay if you stay at Candlewood or Staybridge Suites.

intercontinental-hotels-group-1q-2012-promotion-double-points-or-miles

Please note that you can combine this with the promotion that I wrote about on December 16th for 5K/10K/15K Priority Club points for 3/7/15 nights.

This promotion doubles the number of base points/miles you can earn from your stay that is dependent of the brand.  During the promotion period you will earn 20 Priority Club points per USD at Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and Hotel Indigo’s, and 10 points per USD at Candlewood and Staybridge Suites. For InterContinental hotels, it means another 2000 Priority Club points per stay regardless how many nights you stay or how much you spend is during the stay.

Please note that the number of base miles earned depends of the airline. You can check the various airlines and the number of miles earned per USD spend here: http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/1/en/c/2/content/dec/pc/0/en/miles/us/airline.html.

You can register for this promotion at https://secure.priorityclub.com/hotels/us/en/global/offers/q112/pts_mls.

The participating airline partners for this promotion are:

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Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, and Starwood Preferred Guest Promotions for January, 2012.

by
John Ollila
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1 Comment

Please refer to February hotel promotions update: February Hotel Promotions Update: Carlson, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott/Ritz-Carlton, and Starwood

By now all hotel chains except Hyatt have announced their first quarter 2012 promotions. Here are the Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, and Starwood Preferred Guest promotions.

Hilton HHonors

Hilton HHonors has two ongoing promotions that should be combinable. “Resort Escapes” – you can get one free night certificate after contiguous five nights stay and second one after another five.

Hilton 'Escape to a Resort' Promotion

The other promotion is “More Points” promotion that is basically extra 1000 Hilton HHonors bonus points per night + 5000 extra bonus points for two night contiguous weekend stay. Weekend is defined as Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night. You can earn one 5000 bonus points per weekend.

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InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) Priority Club to Adjust Redemption Rates.

by
John Ollila
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5 Comments

It is the time of the year again when hotel groups tend to tinker with their redemption charts. In 2010, when Hilton devalued their program, IHG even saw it as a marketing opportunity and launched a Luckiest Loser campaign. This time, however, it is IHG’s time to devalue theirs. We’ll see if Hilton will run a campaign to “give” back to IHG.

Here are the numbers; 25% (1125) of the hotels are going up, 20% (900) of the properties are going down, and 55% (2475) are staying the same. There are more than 4500 hotels under the IHG umbrella.

The new redemption rates are effective on January 18th but the old point rates are bookable by phone until March 18th. Would it be nice to know what hotels are going up and which ones are going down? It certainly would but IHG won’t disclose it. Apparently, this is for their competitive advantage according to a spokesperson. Starwood and Hyatt both publish a list of hotels that are changing categories and members then have time to book using the old rates.

Here are the new redemption levels for various IHG brands. I have highlighted the new levels.

priority-club-new-redemption-chart

For comparison here’s the old one.

priority-club-new-redemption-chart-old

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InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Priority Club Last Minute Rewards Nights Are back for January.

by
John Ollila
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priority-club-last-minute-reward-nights-300Every first full weekend of each month IHG has selection of their hotels for 50% fewer points per night. The catch is that you need to book the hotels on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday for the coming weekend. There really isn’t time to plan anything around these sales, but if you happen to be close by, it can make a nice weekend getaway.

This time there are 80 participating properties of which half are in the United States. The number of InterContinental’s in the selection is fifteen from 20K to 15K Priority Club points per night. One of flagship properties in Moorea is included. If you have reward nights reserved there this coming weekend, now it is time to rebook and save half the points used.

priority-club-last-minute-reward-nights

If you have reward nights needs this coming weekend and you have some Priority Club points, it makes sense to check the following link: http://www.priorityclub.com/rewards/us/en/redeem/catalog/hotel/last-minute-reward-nights. For some reason it seems to time out on some browsers. If you get time out, try a different browser or session.

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InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 5000 Bonus Points Offer for Finland and Denmark – IKP50.

by
John Ollila
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Yesterday, I was browsing the PriorityClub website when a banner of 5000 bonus points for stays in Finland and Denmark came up. The terms and conditions also didn’t indicate that one would need to pay for any “inflated” price to get the points, as is often the case. I decided to look into this, because I was going to be in Helsinki next week.

priority-club-escape-to-finland-and-denmark-and-earn-5000-bonus-screen

IHG has been revamping their websites recently and often the links are broken. When you try to click any of the hotel specific links, you only get 404 error:

priority-club-escape-to-finland-and-denmark-and-earn-5000-bonus-points

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How Do I Decide The Hotel Where I am Staying At?

by
John Ollila
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1 Comment

First of all, I don’t believe that there is a right or wrong way. I kinda have my rule of thumb. Since 2004, I have had more than 300 hotel stays early. Normally, I choose a hotel from Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, or Starwood collections due to the fact that I have the top tier status with all of them.

Last night I was researching hotels in Kiev, where I was supposed to be later today. I will write about my experience with PS (Ukraine International Airlines) at some later date that made me change my plans at the very last minute.

Ukraine, where Kiev is the capital, is one of those interesting former eastern bloc countries that still have relatively low standard of living, but where hotels are very expensive. The city is hosting a football tournament next year and quite a few new hotels are coming online, including Fairmont, Hilton, and Sheraton.  Hopefully this will bring the prices down.

So, last night when I was looking at the hotels I had to make a choice between a Hyatt Regency Kiev and the InterContinental hotels. The Hyatt had a best available rate of 330 euros and InterContinental 295 euros per night. Both hotels had award inventory available as well. Hyatt at 18000 Gold Passport points and InterContinental at 30000 Priority Club points per night.

hyatt-regency-kiev-rate-sheet

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InterContinental Hotel Group’s (IHG) Priority Club Bonus Points Promo for 1st Quarter 2012

by
John Ollila
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3 Comments

Priority Club Offer RegisterationThe 2012 promos are slowly strarting to be introduced. IHG’s Priority Club just launched their stay/nights based bonus points promotion for the 1st quarter of 2012. Normally Priority Club member is targeted to one of these based on their stay history, but that doesn’t prevent them for registering one of the other offers if they decide to do so.

Please note that you can only register for ONE of these, and once you have registered you cannot change it.

Depending how many nights you expect to stay during the first quarter of the next year, you should choose 3, 7, or 15 nights version of this promotion.

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InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Releases Latest Round of Point Breaks – Discounted Hotel Awards for Only 5000 Priority Club Points Per Night – Rate Code IVAN

by
John Ollila
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4 Comments

These Points Breaks are one of the best aspects of the IHG’s Priority Club. They are highly discounted hotel awards, for the next couple of months, released four times a year. When IHG first introduced this program, it was promoted quite heavily. For the past couple of years not so.

InterContinental Hotels Group Points Breaks

So the deal here is that, regardless of the brand, the reward night only costs 5000 Priority Club point per night. This is exceptional value considering that some of the InterContinental hotels on the list normally go for 30000 Priority Club points per night or more.

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InterContinental Hotels Group Friends And Family-Program

by
John Ollila
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Pretty much all the hotel groups have a friends and family program for the friends and family of the associates that work at the hotel. What differentiates InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) program is the fact that it is open for anyone.

With Marriott and Starwood the associate needs to fill out a form that is either given to the traveler or faxed to the destination hotel. With IHG, however, all you need is to have the printed rate voucher that you might be asked to present at the time of checking in.

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InterContinental Two Nights For The Price Of One Offer – Ongoing IDEX1 Rate Promotion

by
John Ollila
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This is a good rate promotion that I have taken advantage of numerous times over the years. It is valid at limited number of properties in United Kingdom and Europe, and is typically available closer to the arrival date than further out. You pay the best available rate for the first night and the second night is free. You need to use rate code IDEX1 to book this special rate, or use the link that you can find below.

This rate is eligible for Priority Club stay credit and points. Sometimes this rate, however, posts as a non-qualifying one, but a quick email (or two) to the Priority Club service center normally straightens things out.

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InterContinental Hotels Group Bright Lights – Bright Cities Promotion 7500 Priority Club Points For Two Nights Stay

by
John Ollila
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I really have to confess that I am always bit skeptical when hotels are running bonus points promotions and all the rates are not eligible. In this case you have to book a special 7500 Priority Club bonus points rate. Comparing rates have been complicate as well when choosing this promotion. You can only check the Best Available Rate without opening another browser.

For demonstration purposes I chose one hotel in each of the five promoted cities and chose a two night stay from 18th to 20th this month. I wrote down the special 7500 Priority Club bonus points rate, the best available rate, advance purchase rate if available, and the AAA rate. In all cases the bonus points rate was the highest.

Conclsuion
I rather take the savings and book either the advance purchase rate or AAA rate if available. These bonus points are rather expensive and not worth it.

InterContinental Hotels Group Offering $100 Flight Credit For Two Night Weekend Stay

by
John Ollila
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1 Comment

InterContinental Hotels Group appears always have innovative marketing campaigns. They just announced on Twitter their latest Black Friday themed promotion, where one can earn $100 flight credit for two nights weekend stay.Of course it isn’t that easy. There are few hoops for one to go through to actually collect the credit. This promotion is only available for residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

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InterContinental Hotels Group Last Minute Reward Nights Promotion

by
John Ollila
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InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced this past spring their latest reward night promotion in addition to point breaks. Every first full week of month they would announce rewards night special at 50% discount for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday stays for the same week.

This promotion is a great way to save points if you can take advantage of it.  The booking window is really short Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for arrivals the same weekend. Of course you really cannot plan anything around these specials. If you happen to be traveling in a city where they have them or living in one and thinking of having a staycation, it is a great way to save big on Priority Club points.

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