Good afternoon everyone. I just read about the new IHG One Rewards program and decided to try to book a free night certificate Annual Flex Night Award for an IHG hotel than cost more than 40,000 IHG Points per night. Every year when you pay the annual fee on your Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card or Chase IHG Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, you get an Annual Flex Night Award. The Annual Flex Night Award can be used at any IHG property that costs up to 40,000 IHG Points or can be used in conjunction with IHG Points to book an IHG property that costs more than 40,000 IHG Points. Even though I didn’t actually book the award, I went through the entire booking process and the process was quick and easy. To get started, sign into your IHG account and click on the 1 Free Night link.
You should see an IHG Rewards Premier Card Annual Flex Night available to use, along with the booking period. Remember to complete your stay by the expiration date, which is the last date in the booking period. You may also see an old Annual Flex Night Award which used to be called a Premier IHG Rewards Credit Card Anniversary Night. Then click the Book Free Night button to continue.
I picked a random date in New York City and made sure the IHG Rewards Premier Card Annual Flex Night circle was selected. I then clicked the Search button.
I then sorted the results from High to Low (most expensive hotel at the top) and changed the Display Price to points. The InterContinental New York Times Square was the most expensive hotel available for my search, costing 72,000 IHG Points per night. I then clicked the Select Hotel button. As a side note, I stayed at the Kimpton Muse Hotel in November 2021 and didn’t love it as much as other Kimpton properties.
By default, only the Anniversary Free Night Flex box was checked, but if you want to see the points price side by side, make sure to check the Rewards Nights box and then click the Search box to refresh the results.
A standard room at this hotel is 72,000 IHG Points or a Chase Anniversary Night + 32,000 IHG Points. I then selected the Select Room button.
I was then given the option to book with 72,000 IHG Points (if I had enough IHG Points available) or use an Anniversary Free Night Flex + 32,000 IHG Points. I selected the second option and clicked the Select Rate button. As a side note, you can also use Points + Cash to pay the remaining amount, which is a cool feature. If you do, you are essentially buying 5,000 IHG Points for $30, which is 0.6 cents per point (CPP). Sometimes you can buy the IHG Points for 0.5 CPP when they go on sale.
On the checkout page, it shows the total price of my stay is an Anniversary Free Night Flex + 32,000 IHG Points. I didn’t actually need this reservation, so I didn’t go any further than this page, but the entire process was quick and easy.
If you have any questions about booking an IHG reservation with an Annual Flex Night Award from your Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card or Chase IHG Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
We had four of them left over.
Just booked four nights in Santorini in May for all four plus around 100K points. Cash price would have been around $2700. One of the certificates is being used about three days before it expires. :)
Hi Billy, that is a great redemption! I’m glad you were able to use all 4 certificates before they expired. Just curious, what would the fourth night free benefit cost you for those same 4 nights?
Not sure – it was never bookable like that. One of our nights accounted for around 50K extra whereas the others required fewer extra points. It’s at a Mr & Mrs Smith property. The IHG website doesn’t specify what kind of room you’re getting when you book with a certificate or points (at least in this case). It turns out that our two of our four nights are in a ‘standard’ room and other others are in a ‘premium’ room. No way of knowing that when I booked one them, and that’s also (according to IHG) why I could not try to book 3+1 free as a four-night stay on points would never appear (it showed the cash rate despite our flexibility).
So, when you book Mr and Mrs Smith properties, if the less expensive rooms are sold out, you’ll never know; it just gives you availability for what’s currently available. In our case, we’ll spend two nights in one type of room, and then move to a better room for the next two nights. We’re ok with that.
Ahh that’s makes sense. You can try contacting the property and see if they can combine / link all the reservations so you can stay in the same room the entire time.
If i have the $49 IHG AF card, this booking strategy won’t work right? I can’t find free flex night on my search.
Hi Tim, I believe the free night certificates from the $49 Chase IHG Select are not the flex variety, so you cannot top them up to book hotels about 40k points.