The first full weekend of April means Priority Club Last Minute Reward Nights are available this weekend Friday April 6, Saturday April 7 and Sunday April 8 at 50% standard reward cost. 103 hotels worldwide participate this month with 86 of these hotels in the U.S. Read More…
Priority Club points packages for sale Monday April 9 are the first offer of the five weeks of Daily Getaways travel sales sponsored by the U.S. Travel Association and American Express. This post covers details of how Daily Getaways sales work and analyzes the value of the Priority Club points offers.
Friday, March 30 I published a way to buy 60,000 points and Priority Club Platinum status for $460. On Monday, April 9 you can buy 75,000 points and Priority Club Platinum status for about $451 through the Daily Getaways offers. Priority Club points purchased through the Daily Getaways offers are elite qualifying points. You can buy just 60,000 points and lower the cost of Platinum status to $361 if you want to take a gamble there will be availability to buy from two different Priority Club offers during the Daily Getaway sale.
It is possible to buy 500,000 points for $3,000 through the Monday April 9 Daily Getaways, but perhaps an unlikely probability that you can be fast enough to buy the maximum set of points from each of the four offers before they sell out.
Although Priority Club points in the past two years did not sell out as quickly as other hotel loyalty points that do not have backdoor options for cheap points purchases. I explained the Points & Cash procedure for buying 10,000 points for $60 in the March 30 post. Daily Getaways is a good opportunity to acquire a large number of Priority Club points, up to 500,000 points, at relatively low cost ($60 per 10,000 points) in perhaps a more acceptable method than booking and cancelling Priority Club Points & Cash reward stays to build your account balance.
Buy cheap Priority Club Rewards points at Daily Getaways April 9, 2012
There are four offers to buy points from Priority Club on the first day of this year’s Daily Getaways beginning at 1:00 pm eastern time April 9.
Presale starts at 12 noon ET. You only need to Like IHG Facebook to gain access to Presale where a specific number of sets of points are available.
4 Priority Club points offers. You may buy up to 5 sets from each offer.
This Daily Getaways offer is advertised as “Stay 1 night at a Crowne Plaza for $167.” The sale is for 25,000 points and these points can be used for any Priority Club reward you choose. The points are valid for reward nights at 4,500+ hotels in all IHG brands: InterContinental Hotels, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Priority Club and other hotel loyalty programs selling points use the Daily Getaways to promote their hotel brands within the loyalty program
Presale Registration through Facebook Likes
A new feature of the Daily Getaways sales for 2012 is the opportunity to register for a Presale by liking the Facebook pages of participating vendors. This is really easy since the link is right on the sale page. The Presale offers begin at noon eastern time zone for one hour before the regular sale. There are a specific number of packages offered in the presale hour and the regular sale.
Priority Club Points Offer #1 – 10,000 points for $67 (AmEx = $60.30)
650 sets of points. 130 sets of points available during pre-sale.
Buy 10,000 points for $67 or AmEx $60.30. The price for all Daily Getaways offers is 10% less if payment is made with an American Express card.
You can buy up to 5 sets of points for 50,000 points with this offer.
Priority Club Holiday Inn Offer #2 – 25,000 points for $167 (AmEx = $150.30)
420 sets of points. 90 sets of points available during pre-sale.
The Holiday Inn sale has more sets of points so this is the best link if you want to buy a large quantity of points. You can buy 25, 50, 75, 100 or 125,000 points through this single offer. The Crowne Plaza deal below is the same offer and price, but fewer items for sale so your chances are better to try this link first, unless you want more than 125,000 points, in which case, you should try the offers with fewer items first and then come to this sale.
Priority Club Crowne Plaza Offer #3 – 25,000 points for $167 (AmEx = $150.30)
120 sets of points. 25 sets of points available during pre-sale.
This Crowne Plaza page sale has the fewest items for sale. Start here and buy fast if you want to maximize purchases and try to buy more points from the other offers. Remember you can use the points for any IHG brand hotel and there is no requirement to Crowne Plaza your hotel stay.
Priority Club InterContinental Hotels Offer #4 – 40,000 points for $267 (AmEx = $240.30)
300 sets of points. 75 sets of points available during pre-sale.
This is a good offer if you want a quick 80,000 points and Priority Club Platinum elite without messing around in two Daily Getaways Priority Club sales. This is also the offer if you want to buy big at $1,200 and go for 200,000 points in a single purchase.
200,000 points is a nice safe deposit box of points for hotel stays. I generally recommend you have a plan in place when buying points. But since IHG Priority Club just increased the points needed for hundreds of hotels in January 2012, you can be fairly confident the points won’t devalue much this year. There are several hotels around the globe where 200,000 points will save far more than $1,200 on a 4 or 5 night stay.
Priority Club also regularly offers discount hotel reward nights at 50% and more off with PointBreaks, Last Minute Reward Nights, and the one day sales they tested in the past couple of months.
Here is the calendar that currently displays the first two weeks of Daily Getaways offers. I’ll blog about many of these offers over the next six weeks.
Strategies for the Daily Getaways sales:
The aspect of these sales I did not see mentioned in most of the blog posts this morning is how few people can take advantage of these deals. If there was a one item limit per person, then about 1,800 different people could buy some Priority Club points at a discount through the Daily Getaways.
The actual rules allow a single person to buy 5 sets of points from each of the four offers. Everyone trying to maximize these offers could result in fewer than 400 travelers buying these cheap points.
My point is you need a plan and be quick on the mouse when the sale starts if you want to get the best deals.
Last year when Hyatt points were on sale for $250 ($225AmEx) for 24,000 points, the sale was locked up within seconds and the points sold out within a minute. It then became a matter of reclicking and a few people got into the sale over the next few minutes while for most buyers the Hyatt Daily Getaways were over by 1:01pm.
Daily Getaways Strategy
1. My experience from the past two years suggests once you click on the Daily Getaway offer to purchase an item and you actually get into the purchase webpage, then you are locked in with the option to buy up to the maximum number of items for sale with the offer. Usually once you access the purchase page, then you can relax and breathe as you make your purchase, unless you are speed buying and planning to try and buy from more than one offer.
It appeared to me the past two years that getting access to the purchase page is the primary challenge, but once you are in, then at least one set of points is reserved for you while you enter your credit card payment information.
2. There are a limited number of points sets available and a maximum quantity limit for each offer. The number of items plays a strategic role for the buyer. If you want to maximize points purchases then try for the items with fewer sets for sale first and then go to the items with more sets. Some of these sales are gone within the first minute and you may find it difficult to buy the maximum number of items before they sell out.
3. Some offers suggest points are for a specific hotel brand like Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn or InterContinental Hotels. These are brand marketing efforts only and when you buy Priority Club points you are free to use the points for any hotel brand reward stay on points or other purpose you choose.
4. Daily Getaways prices are 10% less when payment uses American Express card, the travel sale co-sponsor.
Related Post:
Why are Daily Getaways Dealing Travel April 9-May 11? (April 2, 2012)
Priority Club has a special offer of 20% to 50% bonus points for points purchases made online from March 30 – April 30, 2012. IHG Priority Club Platinum elite can be yours for $460 along with 60,000 points in your account through this sale offer. This offer allows a member to buy 75,000 points for $575. The normal limit for buying points is 50,000 points per year.
[April 2, 2012 Update: Daily Getaways is a travel sale offering the opportunity to buy up to 500,000 Priority Club points on Monday April 9. This sale allows you to get 75,000 points for $461 and Priority Club Platinum status. My April 2 post in the link discusses strategies for buying points through the Daily Getaways flash sale.]
Earning 60,000 points in a calendar year means IHG Priority Club Platinum Status for the rest of 2012 and 2013. Read More…
The new list of Priority Club PointBreaks has been released for hotels stays through May 31, 2012 at 5,000 points per night. Read More…
March 29 and the current list of 5,000 points PointBreaks reward nights ends in 48 hours with no new list of hotels posted yet.
Priority Club did a trial run of Thursday flash sales in February and March 2012 where participating hotels offered discount reward nights, but last Thursday when I checked for a new set of one-day flash sales, this message appeared instead:
Thanks for checking out our special One Day Only Hotels Deals. This offer was only a test, so we don’t have any more 24-hour deals lined up, but we’re using the results to develop new discounted Rewards offers for the future. In the meantime, check out our special deals like Last Minute Reward Nights and PointBreaks, or explore the hundreds of options available to you for redeeming your points.
The flash sales only included a dozen hotels around the world, but at least there was a long reservation period even if the booking period was so short that I missed a couple of the sales. These sales were up to 75% off standard reward rates.
I have an itchy reservation finger and several trips planned over the next two months.
I need some PointBreaks!
Last Minute Reward Nights should be back next week for stays Friday, Saturday and Sunday April 6-8 at 50% off reward rates.
Priority Club Rewards, the loyalty program for the InterContinental Hotels Group, offers targeted bonus point offers for guests who stay a specific number of nights or stays during the calendar quarter from April 1 to June 30, 2012.
You register for the promotion using this Priority Club link and enter the code for the promotion you want. Important to note that you can only register one code. Think about your travel plans carefully to pick a nights target within reach.
The three codes listed above are the promotion codes requiring fewest nights for that bonus points level.
Here are other Priority Club codes for “nights” bonus point offers posted on FlyerTalk:
1 Night = 1 Stay, unless you stay more than one night.
There are also some targeted stay codes posted on FlyerTalk this week.
Who is the Priority Club target member for these bonuses?
I don’t recall ever personally receiving one of these Priority Club Rewards emails with a promotion code for bonus points after a certain number of nights or stays.
I am an IHG Priority Club Rewards Platinum member. I always register for one of these offers using the codes posted on various sites. Generally I sign up for the easiest promotion to earn like 5,000 points for 3 nights. These bonuses usually show up in my account promotions list. My offer status shows I registered the past two quarters.
I see as of today, March 16, I have 15 nights left to earn the Q-1 bonus after 3 nights by March 31 for 5,000 bonus points. This has been a slow travel quarter for me. Next quarter ramps up hotel stays greatly. I might want to try Code 1387 for Q-2.
2011 Q-4 I was signed up for 10,000 points after 8 nights. I didn’t earn that bonus either.
You can check the Priority Club promotions you are registered for by clicking “My Offer Status” on the left side of the page after you login to Priority Club Rewards.
Priority Club is piloting a weekly Thursday One Day Reward Sale at 12 hotels globally where rates are 50% to 75% off the standard reward rate for 24 hours. The sale starts at 12 am midnight EST on Thursday and continues through 11:59pm EST Thursday.
Thursday, March 15 One Day Sale
12 hotels
There are 5 international hotels and 7 USA hotels.
InterContinental Cleveland on a discount reward and a day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is one of my bucket list vacations. I should check airfare.
The best feature of these Priority Club Rewards One Day Sale listings I prefer over the Last Minute Reward Nights is the long booking window of March 15 to May 14. That makes it reasonable to plan an airline ticket and hotel stay dates if there is a great hotel stay deal.
Link: Priority Club One Day Sale
Next weekend is the first full weekend for March and that means Priority Club 50% discount Last Minute Reward Nights are back for 84 hotels globally. These half price reward nights are only available for Friday, March 2, Saturday March 3 and Sunday March 4. Bookings must be completed by Thursday March 1.
Two properties that catch my attention are the InterContinental Chicago and InterContinental Park Lane London each at 25,000 points per night.
Holiday Inn CHIANGMAI
5,000 pts.
Holiday Inn Express GUADALAJARA EXPO
5,000 pts.
Holiday Inn Express and Suites AKRON REGIONAL AIRPORT AREA
5,000 pts.
Holiday Inn Express and Suites CHESTERFIELD – SELFRIDGE AREA
5,000 pts.
Holiday Inn Express and Suites CLAYPOOL HILL (RICHLANDS AREA)
5,000 pts.
Candlewood Suites CHICAGO-WAUKEGAN
7,500 pts.
Priority Club Rewards keeps trying special reward night discounts and this one has to be the most limited time and places sale yet. For today only, Thursday, February 23 through 11:59 pm EST, there are 12 hotels available for booking reward nights with reward discounts up to 75% the standard rate. Some hotels offer dates from February into April and some only for two weeks.
Priority Club 24 hour sale link.
USA
Here is a spreadsheet with the ten largest hotel loyalty programs worldwide and all their airline partners for earning miles and points-to-miles transfers.
Hilton HHonors is far and away the biggest program for airline partnerships. That can be a major factor for a frequent guest earning miles from hotel stays in a frequent flyer program where there might be few opportunities to earn miles other than flying.
There are 8 airlines that only partner with one of these ten programs.
[click on image to see full-size in new window]
I will follow up this post with comments and details on airline miles differences in earning rates between different programs.
This seemed like a useful table to create as I work on my series of hotel points-to-miles exchange rates across loyalty programs for a selection of major airlines.
Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates
