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From today (31st March 2021), IHG Rewards membersare able to earn and spend points and use their benefits on stays at Six Senses Yao Noi, Thailand; Six Senses Laamu, Maldives; Six Senses Botanique, Brazil; Six Senses Ninh Van Bay, Vietnam; Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia; Six Senses Fiji, Fiji; Six Senses Zil Pasyon, Seychelles

I struggled to find reward night availability on the main IHG website, but was able to price things up at the following hotels on the Six Senses website here.

What are the reward night prices like?

Quite weird (at the moment), to be honest.

The official line is as follows:

“IHG Rewards nights can be redeemed at Six Senses hotels based on availability, in the same manner as redemption across existing IHG hotels. This is tied to rooms availability, current rates and will utilize dynamic pricing, meaning the number of points required will change in the same manner as cash rates do. For a multi-night stay, you will now see an average point amount and daily point amounts just like cash bookings.Once a booking is made, that member will lock in the required point amount. While the hotel’s point requirement could go up or down post booking, this will not affect the member’s original booking.”

However, the actual reward pricing currently available doesn’t seem to have any relation to the cash rates whatsoever. In fact, this is the case in two different ways:

1. I checked various dates for all the hotels and the number of points required per night for each hotel remained the same, irrespective of the cash rate. I accept that is from a relatively limited sample though, so maybe it does change a bit.
2. This is where things get odd. If points rates at Six Senses hotels are supposed to relate to the cash rates, you would naturally expect more expensive properties to require more points, and cheaper properties to require fewer. As you can see in the screenshots below, that’s not how it works right now. (I’ve asked whether this is due to teething problems or intentional, and will update when I get a reply).

 Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali – 60,000 points or £318 (a decent deal):

Six Senses Yao Noi, Thailand – 110,000 points or £467 (an ok deal):

Six Senses Fiji – 100,000 points or £661 (note the headline cash price is for a 2-night minimum stay) – a decent deal:

Six Senses Laamu, Maldives – 100,000 points or £529 (note the headline cash price is for a 4-night minimum stay) -a decent deal:

Six Senses Zil Pasyon, Seychelles – 200,00 points or £1379 (a decent deal):

Six Senses Botanique, Brazil – 237,500 points or £347 (a shockingly bad deal!!!)

[UPDATE: Points rate at Six Senses Botanique has now been corrected  – full details here.]

Bottom line

I value IHG Rewards Points at about 0.4-0.5p each, so most of the redemptions above offer solid value.

Redeeming at the Six Senses Botanique is an absolute shocker though, as you would only be getting about 0.14p of value per point. The value is so bad there that I’m actually leaning towards the current pricing being a mistake.

Hopefully, we will see the reward pricing settle down to something more sensible.  Six Senses has an excellent reputation and I’m sure many IHG Rewards members will be pleased to see more luxury options to earn/redeem points at.