TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.
I’ve known for months that I need to book a single night an airport hotel at Paris CDG for a trip I’m taking in the not too distant future but, for one reason or another (mostly forgetfulness) I haven’t got around to making the booking.
I looked at a some hotels a few months back but couldn’t decide which property to book and then I forgot all about it….till today.
Now that I’m a lot closer to the date of departure, the room rates have increased dramatically since I last checked prices….and that’s not good news. They’ve actually increased so much that I’m starting to wonder who even pays these rates.
A regular Marriott is pricing up at an incredible €314 for the single night….
….a standard Hilton is over €160….
…and even the supposed budget brand Ibis Styles is pricing up at €138:
When I was last looking at hotels for this night I had a lot of choice in the €50 – €65 range but not any more.
Sure, there are a few properties still offering rooms in that range but the customer ratings for these properties are pretty low so I’d rather bite the bullet and pay a little more than book somewhere I’m likely to hate.
My Next Move
At this point I had accepted the fact that I was probably going to have to pay double what I could have paid when I last checked rates so now it was time to make the most of my screw up – If I was going to have to pay more than I really wanted to it was time to see what I could get out of it.
My number one priority was for the property to offer a shuttle bus to the airport as I’m flying out of CDG early the next morning (you’d be amazed how many “airport hotels” don’t offer one of these) but I also refuse to pay silly money for a basic room and the property needed to have reasonable reviews from former guests.
I used Kayak to search for available properties as, for stays such as this one where I’m not even going to need breakfast, price and convenience are more important to me than any status benefits or points earning opportunities…..but clearly I’m not going to turn these down if they present themselves.
One property that caught my eye was the Holiday In Express:
At €101 it’s definitely more expensive than I’d normally pay for a property of this calibre but…
(a) It didn’t cost all that much more than the next cheapest property in my search…
…and (b) it occurred to me that this could be an opportunity to make some money back (in the form of points).
The first thing I did was to check the price on IHG.com:
€94 for the night is a little more palatable than €101 but it’s not exactly a big saving.
Next I checked what my IHG Accelerate promotion is currently offering (my stay will fall within the promotion period).
There are two “challenges” in my Accelerate promotion that look useful.
The first one is a very straightforward “stay one night and get and get 2,000 points“….
….while the second is an “earn more points by booking a bonus points package” challenge:
Bonus points packages cost more than the basic room rate so I checked to see what the package would cost:
Essentially the math is saying that if I pay €15.26 more than the standard rate I will earn 9,000 bonus points. As €15.26 is approximately $19 this would see me “buying” IHG points at a little over 0.2 cents each.
That’s a very good deal.
I value IHG Rewards points at around 0.45 cents each so the 11,000 points I’ll earn from this reservation will equate to a rebate of $49.50 or approximately €40.
The cost of what started out as an expensive Holiday Inn Express booking is actually going to net out at around €70 which isn’t too bad….but there’s another possible bonus too.
There’s another challenge within my IHG Accelerate promotion which is offering a lot more points:
Booking the Holiday Inn Express stay at Paris CDG will see me complete 50% of the requirement for this challenge and, as I know I can book a local Holiday Inn property for $64.82 (Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express count as separate brands)….
….I can essentially “buy” 16,800 IHG Rewards points for 0.386 cents each.
That’s not a “fantastic” rate at which to buy points but it’s over 14% below what I value them at so it’s not a bad deal at all.
Bottom Line
I screwed up and didn’t book a hotel room I knew I was going to need when the rates were low so I got stuck paying more than I was happy to pay. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that I think I’ve made the most my situation and I’ll be walking away with a nice number of IHG Rewards points that will help offset the cost of my stay.
The moral of the story is that we all screw up from time to time but what counts is what you can make of the situation you’ve created for yourself 🙂
