For info on how to get the lowest room rates at InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo, scroll down.

I’m currently staying at the InterContinental Bucharest in Romania.  The IC Bucharest has 4 published room types: Superior, Deluxe, Club IC and Junior Suite.  During my first stay in November 2010, I was upgraded from a Superior room to a Junior Suite thanks to my InterContinental Ambassador membership.  Earlier this month, I had booked a Club IC room.  Again, I was upgraded to a Junior Suite but with access to the new club lounge at the 21st floor.  If you’re unfamiliar with hotel industry terms like Club room, Club floor and Club Lounge,  read this USA Today Travel article.

As this was my third stay, I was looking for a new experience.  I spotted some pictures of the new Club rooms browsing the IC Bucharest facebook page.  So rather than be upgrade to a Junior Suite I requested to be upgraded from a superior room to a Club Room.  When arrived in the room, I realized there were still ‘old’ Club rooms too.  As the hotel was fully booked on Friday night, I requested to move to a new Club room Saturday.  So here we are today in this lovely contemporary IC Bucharest Club room:

How to get the lowest room rates at InterContinental Hotels?

1. Determine which IHG hotels are available for your dates and destination at the IHG website.  By default the results will show the Best Available rate.
2. Use HotelsCombined.com (or similar) to determine if a third party website is selling the same hotel room at a cheaper price. If that’s the case, submit a Lowest Internet Rate Guarantee claim.  If your claim is valid (make sure to read the terms and conditions) IHG will offer you the lower rate – 10%!
3. Check for IHG promotions.  FrequentFlyerBonus.com has a nice overview of all current promotions (even per country).   Example: 2 Nights for the price of 1: when staying on the best flexible rate at one of hundreds of hotels around Europe including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Express by Holiday Inn hotels.
4. Use the Friends and Family rate.  If available, this will most likely be the lowest rate but you won’t receive PriorityClub points nor is the hotel obligated to provide you with any of your status privileges (Ambassador upgrades, PriorityClub perks, etc..)  You don’t have friends or family working at IHG?  No worries, we’re all friends of Doug Castor (Global Sourcing Manager with IHG)  He’s sharing his personal link to the IHG Friends and Family rate on his twitter account (which I used successfully in the past)
5. Enjoy your lowest rate!