Catch an IHG Reward Night Price Drop: Alerts That Show Every Check

IHG One Rewards prices Reward Nights dynamically, so the points price for the same room can rise and fall from one day to the next. If the stay you want costs more points than you’d like to spend, set an alert in HotelXray and let it watch the price. When a check finds the stay within your budget, you get an email with a booking link. You can open the check log whenever you want to see how the price moved.

IHG alerts sit in the same Chrome extension as Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton alerts. If you already use HotelXray for another program, enable IHG access in the panel and manage all your Award & rate alerts from one account.

Step 1: Open the IHG alert form

Open HotelXray on ihg.com and grant IHG site access if prompted. From a search result, click the bell labeled Set alert near the hotel name.

IHG search result for InterContinental New York Times Square with the Set alert bell and a week of November 22–28 nights, with Reward Nights from 88,000 to 118,000 points beside cash rates from $482 to $650; the Set alert bell is ringed — Start an alert from a hotel you are comparing in search. Thanksgiving week costs more points than the nights before it.

You can also select a day in the hotel’s calendar and click the bell in that day’s header. Set alert for this night starts with a one-night stay; change the dates in the form if you want a longer trip. Both bells open the same form.

InterContinental New York Times Square rooms for Wednesday November 25, 2026 with a Set alert bell beside the date: Standard Room at $619 or 112,000 points, 2 Double Classic Low Floor at $709 or 140,000 points, 1 King Premium Skyline View at $760 or 156,000 points, and 1 King Junior Suite Skyline View at $1,207 or 295,000 points; the Set alert bell is ringed — Each room has its own Reward Night price. The Standard Room is the cheapest in points.

If you aren’t signed in, the form asks for your email address and sends you a code; enter it in the form and the alert is saved. HotelXray never asks for your IHG One Rewards credentials.

Step 2: Set up your alert

The prices and checks below follow a three-night alert for InterContinental New York Times Square, November 25–28, 2026, over Thanksgiving, for 270,000 points or less for the stay.

On the search card, those three nights add up to 336,000 points. The alert waits for the price to come down.

IHG alert form for InterContinental New York Times Square, November 25–28 with Exact selected, Guests at 2 adults, Points selected under Notify me about, a 270,000-point limit for the stay, and Keep watching switched off under After the first email — Three exact nights, 270,000 points or less for the stay.

Choose the dates

Pick check-in and check-out, then one of four choices. Exact watches only those dates, as in this example. ±1 day and ±2 days also watch stays that start a day or two earlier or later, with the same number of nights.

Any night watches every single night between the two dates, up to 7 nights. Use it when one night at the hotel would do and the date can move. A stay can be up to 30 nights.

The Dates section of the alert form with November 25 to 28, 2026, 3 nights, and Any night selected — With Any night, November 25, 26 and 27 are each watched as a single night.

Set the guests

Under Guests, set the adults and any children with their ages, and HotelXray checks prices for the people actually traveling. See rates for your guest count for why that changes the price.

Choose what to watch

Under Notify me about, choose Points or Cash. Each alert watches one of them.

Points watches for a Reward Night stay paid entirely with points, in any room. Max points for stay is optional. Leave it empty to hear as soon as any Reward Night is bookable for your dates. Enter a number to wait for a price you’re happy with. The limit covers the whole stay; on Any night it is per night.

Cash watches for a room bookable with cash, or for a nightly rate under the Max nightly rate you set. The limit is an average per night, with fees included and before taxes, in the currency you choose.

A cash alert can also watch only rates you can cancel for free, or your company’s corporate rate alongside the public one. To watch both the points price and the cash rate, set two alerts.

Notify me about set to Cash, with a Max nightly rate of 400 USD including fees and before taxes, Cancellation terms set to Any, and an empty Corp code field — A cash alert for a nightly rate of $400 or less.

After the first email

With Keep watching off, the alert emails you once and stops. Switch it on to keep hearing about changes after the first match, such as the price dropping further.

Leave it off for this example, then select Set alert. HotelXray sends a confirmation email when you create or change an alert.

Step 3: Read the check log

Close the IHG tab if you like. HotelXray keeps checking the dates every few hours in the background, even with the browser closed, and emails you when a check finds a match.

Every alert keeps an Alert check log, in the side panel and on your Award & rate alerts page. It records when checks ran, what they found, and which conditions passed.

IHG alert under Notified with its check log open: a Reward Night column with 351,000 points at 8 am, 336,000 points at 10 am and noon, and 264,000 points with a green check at 2 pm on October 10; that row is ringed — The price held above the limit all morning, then fell to 264,000 points at 2 pm.

The Reward Night column shows the lowest points price for the whole stay at each check. The morning checks found 351,000 and then 336,000 points, both over the limit. At 2 pm the stay came in at 264,000 pts with a green check, and the alert fired. That’s 72,000 points less than the 336,000 on the search card, about $430 at 0.6 cents an IHG point (how much IHG points are worth).

If a check finds no Reward Night at all for the stay, the log says No Reward Night available.

Step 4: Act on the match email

The email names the hotel and the stay that matched.

HotelXray email for InterContinental New York Times Square, November 25–28, watching for a Reward Night up to 270,000 points in total for the stay for 2 adults, status Stopped after this match, with a Reward Night at 264,000 points in total and a Book with points button — The 264,000-point stay from the log, ready to book.

It shows the Reward Night’s total points for the stay, and Book with points opens it on ihg.com. Dynamic prices can move again, so book soon if the price works for you.

After a match

An alert without Keep watching moves to Notified, as this one did, and stops checking. With Keep watching on, it stays Active, which helps while a dynamic price is still falling. An alert moves to Dates passed when none of its candidate dates can be booked anymore; a flexible alert keeps going past its original start date while a later candidate remains.

Review, edit, or delete alerts under Monitoring & alerts, the bell at the top of the side panel, or on your Award & rate alerts page. Each alert watches one room at one hotel, for the party you set under Guests. Set separate alerts to compare your shortlist over the same dates. If you’ve already booked, reservation monitoring is the better fit: it watches your booking’s exact room and rate until free cancellation ends and emails you if it gets cheaper.

For IHG calendars, room comparisons and flexible-date search, read the IHG guide.