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This year I made an arrangement with a friend of mine to barter miles for babysitting.  We agreed that in exchange for her watching our kids so we can go on vacation, I would use my miles and points to pay for her family to go on a Point Breaks vacation.

(SEE ALSO: I’m (finally!) going to Europe!)

(SEE ALSO: Visiting Old San Juan Puerto Rico)

Our agreement included 7 nights of IHG Point Breaks hotels, at 5,000 points / night, and with the new Point Breaks list having come out this week, it was time to spring into action!

Trying to find IHG Point Breaks vacation availability

We busted out the map and sortable table for the new IHG Point Breaks, and took a look at what we have.

point-breaks-vacation-ihg-point-breaks-august-2015-september-2015-october-2015-map

The first try for our Point Breaks vacation was an itinerary centered around driving from Cincinnati to New Orleans:

saturday night –> Chattanooga, TN: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Chattanooga-Hixson
monday, tuesday, wednesday nights –> New Orleans, LA: Candlewood Suites Avondale-New Orleans
thursday night –>  Memphis, TN: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Memphis/Germantown
friday night –> Elizabethtown, KY: HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS & SUITES ELIZABETHTOWN

With the flexibility of leaving on Saturday, October 10th or Saturday, October 17th.  I checked availability, using this simple trick to find IHG multi-date award availability, and it all looked good except…. the hotel in Chattanooga was sold out on both the 10th AND the 17th
point-breaks-vacation-chattanooga-hotel-unavailable

 

Back to the drawing board

The next idea we had for the Point Breaks vacation was instead to go Sunday to Sunday, since there was availability in Chattanooga on Sunday the 11th.  That worked out fine, until we found that the Elizabethtown hotel was booked on the 17th (and also the 9th, 10th, 24th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th).  At this point, using the IHG multi-date award calendar trick, I figured we might as well look at all of the other hotels.

Memphis was booked on the 9th, 10th, 23rd and 24th, and Huntsville and New Orleans were completely wide open.

This called for a…. SPREADSHEET!

point-breaks-vacation-availability-spreadsheet

Looking through the spreadsheet, it was easy to figure out that it would work if we started in Chattanooga on Sunday the 25th, so that’s what we did.  I booked the hotels, and my friend is all set for her vacation!

(SEE ALSO: Can I book a hotel for someone else?)

How are your IHG Point Breaks bookings looking?  Were you able to get what you wanted?  Let me know in the comments


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