Use the IHG Premier to credit the most expensive night with dynamic pricing

IHG has gone dynamic. That means that there is no longer a fixed award price set for any hotel, and the price you pay in points will vary depending on the night. This has been widely reported – you can read about some great options on Frequent Miler, OMAAT, VFTW, so I won’t list them here, but there are loads of deals.  Some properties will have Tuesday at 20k points and Wednesday at 40k+ so it could really pay to price your trip over many dates. That got me thinking…how would the 4th night free feature work with the IHG Premier card from Chase. It’s a great feature, and what I discovered is even better – it discounts the literal 4th night instead of an average. Let’s check it.

In fact, if you have the same combination of IHG cards and elite status as my family, you could actually stay 5+ nights for the same price as the expensively priced award night. Crazy.

I picked the Intercontinental in Austin, Texas as an example

I stayed a this property a few years ago and it’s a historic hotel in a great location. I priced out two different stays in September. You can read the full review here.

Here’s a look at the first set of dates 9/2/2020 until 9/6/2020: 31,857 per night

When you dig into the dates you see that the first night is pricing at 20k followed by two more expensive nights. I thought…I wonder what happens if we back it up to check out on the 4th, making the 47,500 night the most expensive.

The total price dropped…can you can see why. It credited the most expensive night and we could stay 4 nights for 60k points. 15k per night

Once you go all the way through to check out…you see the 4th night credit. So, in total, you would have 3 nights at 20k and then the 4th night at 47,500 which gets fully refunded.

You could also pair this with the Free night the card offers – 12k per night

The IHG Premier also gives you an annual night certificate to use that is effectively worth 40k points or less. Since prices now vary, you just need to find a night that is under 40k points. In the scenario above, that would be the Friday night since it priced at 27,500

Are you Ambassador? You could get it even cheaper still. 10,800 per night

One of the major perks of being an Intercontinental Ambassador, their pay to play elite status, is upon renewal you can score a 10% off Intercontinental bookings. That would refund an additional 6k points

You could stack this even further by scheduling your dates to take advantage of the Ambassador Free Weekend Night certificate as well. This would mean something like this – 7700 per night + $280

• Sunday – sub 40k IHG Premier redemption
• Mon – 20k
• Tues – 20k
• Wed – 20k
• Thurs – Free 4th Night
• Fri – Paid night ( $280 )
• Saturday – Ambassador Free Night

In total… pay for one night, 3 nights on points + 2 free nights.

Still have the IHG Select? Get Another 10% off points or 6850 pts per night + $280 for a week.

If you have the now retried IHG Select in addition to all of these wonderful stacking options, you’d reduce your point cost another 10%, or 6k points.

This would mean in total you’d shell out just 48k points

Overall

This is a pretty incredible option and warrants the time and effort to search. I’ve obviously expanded this into a big time stack, but you guys get the idea. Also…$280 is the most expensive night that week, so if you played around with your dates even more, you could probably get that weekend night even lower choosing a non-holiday weekend.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

4.8

 4.8/5

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. 

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

Card Benefits

• 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
• 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
• 3x on select streaming services
• 3x on online grocery purchases
  • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
• $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
  • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
• 2x on all other travel
• 10% Anniversary Bonus
  • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
• Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
• Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
• Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
• No foreign transaction fees
• Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
  • Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
• Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
• $95 Annual Fee

Monkey Miles Related Articles

• Full Review
• Best uses of Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Chase Application Rules
• Complete Guide to Chase Credit Cards
• Credit Card Spreadsheet with historical data on best offer

Is this the best ever offer?

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

Quick Breakdown

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex®  and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.