New Priority Club PointBreaks List Released for Stays Through July 31, 2012

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

If you are unaware or haven’t paid attention to Priority Club PointBreaks, you should. They allow you to use a measly 5,000 Priority Club points (which transfer 1:1 from American Express Membership Rewards – note that relationship ends June 30, 2012 and Chase Ultimate Rewards). Historically I haven’t taken advantage of them too much, but this all changed last month when I was asking sage TPG readers for advice on Phnom Penh, Cambodia and someone reminded me that the Intercontinental was on PointBreaks. The night I needed was available on PointBreaks (you book them like normal award rooms at PriorityClub.com), so I got a room, which was upgraded to a Club Room due to my Royal Ambassador status, for only 5,000 points – vs paying $180. The PointBreaks room included tax and lounge access (full breakfast and afternoon drinks) so I practically felt like I was robbing the place with the value I got out of the award.

This round is pretty decent, with a number of Intercontinentals available – including the Intercontinental Mauritius, which I thoroughly enjoyed last summer. I have a friend who is going to Bucharest in a couple weeks and was initially looking at the Radisson Blu (to obviously take advantage of the 50,000 point promo), but is now going to spend most of the time at the Intercontinental for only 5,000 points a night since the Radissson only requires a single night stay for the bonus. He doesn’t even have a Priority Club account, but he does have a bundle of Chase Ultimate Rewards from his Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold cards, so he was able to instantly open a Priority Club account here and then transfer the points needed for his stay. In this example, 3 nights in June would have cost $406, so his 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points each saved him 2.7 cents a piece. Not bad for a hotel redemption using points.

Note: You can also “buy” Priority Club points using the Cash & Points method I outlined in #7 here, but note that they recently increased the cost per point to .7 cents per point, thus making each PointBreaks night only $35.

Full list of Properties in case you need any vacation ideas:

UTAH
HOLIDAY INN HOTEL AND SUITES SALT LAKE CITY-AIRPORT WEST

VIRGINIA
CANDLEWOOD SUITES RICHMOND WEST END SHORT PUMP
HOLIDAY INN VIRGINIA BEACH – NORFOLK

WASHINGTON
HOLIDAY INN DOWNTOWN-EVERETT
STAYBRIDGE SUITES VANCOUVER-PORTLAND METRO

WYOMING
HOLIDAY INN ROCK SPRINGS
Africa: