Best Uses Of Your Chase IHG Free Night Certificate

One of the best annual credit card benefits is the free night certificate you get annually from the Chase IHG card on your card anniversary. The card only has a $49 annual fee and the free night certificate can be used at any IHG property. Your free night is valid for 12 months from the date of issue (you must book within this time period. Your stay can be after it) and covers a standard room night rate and applicable taxes. It isn’t hard to find an IHG hotel that costs more than $49 a night, making it easy to recuperate the annual fee and making this card a long term keeper for most people.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the best uses of this free night. Some things to keep in mind:

  • Even a ‘bad’ redemption is better than no redemption. A lot of times people hold out waiting for that absolutely perfect redemption, rather than just redeeming it for something that is good enough. As the saying goes ‘perfect is the enemy of good’.
  • Planning your trips around these certificates is a mistake. Yes, Bora Bora is amazing value for this free night certificate. That is until you start accounting for how expensive Bora Bora is to get to, how expensive meals are and the fact you only have one free night (two if you’re a couple). This hobby is all about reducing your travel costs, using this certificate for a weekend getaway to a city you’ve always wanted to go to? Great use! Using it to visit a city with a hotel that costs $500 a night that you have no interest in going to? Bad!

Best Use Based On Cash Rates

Pointimize has been nice enough to share some data with us (you can view more of their data here). For those not familiar Pointimize has a hotel award search tool that provides a lot of information (e.g prices in  Cash, Cash + Points, and award night using Points. As well as real time award availability). Below is a list of IHG properties ranked by their average cash price. The table also includes the country, city and highest cash price as well. In some cases the number of data points is small (e.g 1. You can see these properties because the average cash price and highest cash price are the same) and in other cases it’s quite large (e.g 500+). In any case this should give you some ideas on what IHG properties have the highest cash price.

 

InterContinental Properties

InterContinental is generally considered IHG’s most luxurious brand with prices to match. If you look at the table above you’ll notice that the majority of properties are InterContinental. IHG provides a full list of InterContinental properties here. Pointimize also provided this list:

 

Airport Hotels

This is a strange one, but I think one of the best uses for IHG free night certificates especially if you’re single is an airport hotel. The advantage of redeeming at an airport hotel is generally you only want to stay one night there anyway so there is no hassle of having to move properties or pay excessive amounts for additional nights.

Final Thoughts

Thanks again to Pointimize for giving us access to this data, obviously the more people that use the site the better these types of data reports will get. If readers are interested we can do something similar with other hotel brands and also look at the best point redemption based on the cash rates. If you’ve redeemed an IHG free night before, where was your favorite redemption and why? If there are other data sets you’d be interested in seeing, let us know and maybe we can get access to publishing them.

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46 Comments
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Rick
Rick (@guest_560547)
February 14, 2018 14:21

They’re missing InterContinental Le Moana Bora Bora. A few others as well.

tassojunior
tassojunior (@guest_548809)
January 8, 2018 16:44

Mardi Gras.

Jeremy
Jeremy (@guest_530025)
December 4, 2017 13:25

So if I have two certs expiring in February, I can book something a few months out, my certs for next year will post, and I can add the other 2 nights for a 4 night stay? always use mine at IC times square and hit some shows over a weekend (very convenient for this) but this could open up other ideas…..Jamaica all inclusive or aruba come to mind…..

Chris
Chris (@guest_530144)
December 4, 2017 16:22

I don’t think the IHG Properties include all inclusives, that’s Hyatt unless I’m mistaken (Ziva/Zilara) . The ICs tho can be stacked in 4s in 2P mode – Via the method you just described… The only ‘catch’ is you have to ‘hope’ your rooms are still available when booking the 2nd set of nights.

Jeremy
Jeremy (@guest_530761)
December 5, 2017 13:17

Holiday Inn Resort, Montego Bay is an AI…just checked and it’s eligible for free night….it’s close to Ziva too, I’d likely add a few nights there and make it a week-

Chris
Chris (@guest_525959)
November 28, 2017 15:16

For Xmas last year, I got my brother a ‘Gift’ of Free Night at the IC Monterrey… It cost me $59, and I printed what the rate would cost on the card – an astounding $849 a night in January! We’re staying with him in San Fran, and doing a mini trip down the coast… My wife’s Free Night Cert will cover our own room.

Parents said I ruined Xmas as there is no way anybody else could touch those #s.

tc
tc (@guest_525991)
November 28, 2017 16:24

How does that work?

Chris
Chris (@guest_526637)
November 29, 2017 11:20
  tc

I used my Free night under my Name, and my wife used hers and said ‘ My Brother (in law) will be one of the guests. ‘ We’ll be checking in together so there shouldnt be any issues… But Ive booked a room for my parents before and they had no problem. You just tell the Front Desk in advance that ‘so and so’ will be checking in under our reservation.

Earl Lee
Earl Lee (@guest_530082)
December 4, 2017 15:21

Which property is IC Monterrey? I don’t see it on the IHG website.

Chris
Chris (@guest_530142)
December 4, 2017 16:20

InterContinental Clement Monterrey, the 1st US property on the list =)

Brent
Brent (@guest_525771)
November 28, 2017 08:55

I’m going to guess that State College hotel is entirely due to football season and will be very cheap the rest of the year.

Jose
Jose (@guest_525735)
November 28, 2017 07:18

My wife snd I, are using the free night at the
Intercontinental Sydney were the rate is presently
$611 per night. Great view of the Harbour from
A corner room.

Josr
Josr (@guest_525734)
November 28, 2017 07:18

My wife snd I, are using the free night at the
Intercontinental Sydney were the rate is presently
$611 per night. Great view of the Harbour from
A corner room.

stvr
stvr (@guest_525656)
November 28, 2017 03:24

The IC in DTLA is missing from this list. Probably too low.

Also, there’s no possible way the IC Wellington is high on a list like this. Consistently around 150 USD per night. Must be a computer glitch.

calwatch
calwatch (@guest_525631)
November 28, 2017 02:15

I guess there’s another player in the “optimization” space since I’ve been using Hotel Hustle for some time.

somy
somy (@guest_525586)
November 28, 2017 00:34

Is there a way to use the free night of a spouse without the spouse being present?

calwatch
calwatch (@guest_525635)
November 28, 2017 02:39

They could just add you to the reservation.

somy
somy (@guest_525994)
November 28, 2017 16:30

If I am added to the reservation and I check in first, would they never ask for the original night owner’s ID even at check out? Sorry, kinda new to all this.