In a previous post, I posted the revelation that the uncapped anniversary free night from the Chase IHG card finds a lot more availability at Intercontinental Bora Bora Thalasso than reward/points. At the time, that property was reliably releasing 1 standard room (Emerald Overwater Bungalow) per night ~50 weeks out. They no longer do that, but they still release tons of free nights to the Chase cert that is not available to reward/points nights, including weekends. For example, here’s June 2019, during peak season, using the Chase cert:
I clicked on a random date to make sure it works right up to actually booking, and it seems to.
Contrast this to the same period, using points:
No wonder Frequent Miler lamented this morning that there’s only 1 reward night available in all of 2019. That’s probably true. But those with one more uncapped Chase cert can put it to great use at this most aspirational IHG property. We have 2 such certs left (from 2 different family members) and will greatly miss it when it becomes capped at 40k starting May 1, 2019. I am targeting either this property or Intercontinental Danang for our last hurrah.
There are 2 interesting notes. One, it now says there are 3 rooms left for the Emerald OWB. Previously I was only ever able to find 1 room, at least when searching 50 weeks out. It’s possible they released more rooms later on, but I’m not sure. If they indeed release 2 more rooms now, that’s great news. Second, I always get this error message when first searching Bora Bora:
[…] was just too much to fit into one title there, but Points Adventure uncovered something awesome that I had previously missed: availability when booking with Chase […]