At the very end of last year, IHG announced that on January 15th there would be a rather large change in award prices for many IHG hotels. In total, there are 649 hotels changing the cost of a free award night with the majority of them (488) going up in price with the remainder (151) going down. You can find the full list of hotels at this page on IHG’s website.

Unfortunately the hotels going up in price are definitely some of the more popular hotels and brands in the IHG portfolio, including some I’ve stayed at and represent good value. And while IHG tries to downplay the increases by noting 151 hotels are decreasing the amount of points required, many of the hotels are in Turkey, India and other less popular vacation spots in Asia. All this considered, this is definitely a devaluation for most of us collecting IHG points as I can’t imagine too many members are redeeming points in Turkey right now for example.

Here are some of the notable increases that caught my eye:

• The InterContinental Boston – from 55,000 points to 60,000 points
• The InterContinental Willard Washington DC – from 55,000 points to 60,000 points
• The InterContinental Sydney – from 55,000 points to 60,000 points
• Hotel Indingo Sarasota – from 35,000 points to 40,000 points
• Holiday Inn JFK – from 25,000 points to 35,000 points
• Holiday Inn Aruba – from 30,000 points to 35,000 points (I remember staying here when it was 25,000 points!)

Consider this your last notice to book these hotels before they go up in price on Sunday. Remember, quite often points reservations are refundable until a day or few days out so it doesn’t hurt to speculatively lock in a few reservations if you have your eye on any of the hotels increasing in price.