IHG Delays Implementation of (Mostly-Negative) Category Changes Until Jan. 25

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If you procrastinated booking your upcoming IHG award stays -- or are just hearing about these category changes -- you've gotten a lucky break. Instead of making changes to its 694 hotels on Jan. 14, IHG is now making these changes on Jan. 25.

You can access the full list of changes in this leaked PDF file. Unfortunately, there's no sortable version available online, and IHG hasn't shared this document with its IHG Rewards members.

That said, I dug into the changes to find that there are 547 properties going up by 5,000 points per night. 27 properties are jumping by 50% from 10,000 points per night to 15,000 points per night with 19 of these being in the United States. Overall, there's 387 US properties increasing by 5k per night. And there's 25 properties worldwide that already cost 45,000 points per night that are going up to at least 50,000 points per night.

If you're looking for ideas about what to book before the changes, here are six properties that are increasing from 40,000 points per night to 45,000 points per night. For the rare IHG co-branded cardholder that has a capped annual free night, these are six solid properties that won't be available with the capped annual free night after these changes go into effect on Jan. 25. For everyone else, these are six of the 547 properties going up by 5,000 points per night that you might want to book before Jan. 25.