IHG Rewards Club 2019 Hotel Award Night Category Changes - 28 hotels in Canada affected

 

As is always the case when a New Year comes around we can expect the usual changes from hotel programs of individual hotel locations moving up or down in free night award/reward categories. These aren't changes to the redemption amounts within categories though. We get our first experience in annual changes from IHG Rewards Club and they sure aren't giving lots of notice. These changes according to their PDF list of hotels changing will take effect on January 14. As is always the case with changes like this you'll want to try to book award nights at hotels that are going up in price right away and wait until the 14th to book ones that are going down in price. 

The 2019 changes sees nearly 700 hotels moving up or down in categories. It's not a huge amount, around 13% of their entire portfolio and 28 of them are in Canada. Of those 28, only 5 are going in down in award price while the other 23 are moving up. Most significant is the newly opened Kimpton Saint George Hotel in Toronto that moves from 40,000 points per night to 45,000 and the InterContinental Montreal moving from 45,000 to 50,000 points per night.  You can find the entire list here. This list can be attributed to FlyerTalk member Lionheart who discovered it a couple of days ago.

Here is the entire list of Canadian properties that are changing:

What are your thoughts of these changes? Will you be booking some hotels right away (or waiting for that matter?)