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.
- Priority Club 10,000 points (generic offer) = $67.
- 650 sets and 130 presale sets.
- Priority Club 25,000 points (Holiday Inn offer)= $167.
- 420 sets and 90 presale sets.
- Priority Club 25,000 points (Crowne Plaza offer)= $167.
- 125 sets and 25 presale sets.
- Priority Club 40,000 points (InterContinental offer)= $267.
- 300 sets and 75 presale sets.
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)
