AARP Rate Removed from IHG One Rewards

It’s come to my attention that AARP rate has been gone from the “Rate Preference” dropdown when booking IHG hotels. Evidently, IHG has also been removed from AARP’s travel discount page.

Is it a big deal that AARP Rate is gone from IHG?

While AARP rate being gone is not a drastic loss, it is a notable loss due to it being the more favorable discount rate compared to AAA, at least for IHG properties, from my experience. Sometimes, if AAA rate isn’t available, then AARP rate might appear instead or vice versa. Having one less option just reduces your chance of a discount. Plus, AARP membership is a lot cheaper than AAA as well ($12-$16 vs. $64.99 minimum per year), and you don’t need to be old to apply for AARP.

On award pricing side, IHG tends to run 100% bonus points promotion just about every month, which can beat out either AAA or AARP rates if you take advantage of that promotion by purchasing the hotel room rate through points instead. Understandably, waiting for promotion won’t be as flexible as booking outright with cash, and that there’s an annual limit when it comes to buying points (150,000 points max per year before promotion bonus).

If you’re interested in buying IHG points and supporting the site, please consider using my affiliate link! Though, I’d only wholeheartedly recommend buying IHG points only when there’s 100% bonus promotion.

Conclusion

AARP rate is now gone from IHG, which means one less option of having discounted stays on IHG hotels. AAA rate and the constant 100% bonus points promotion can still provide opportunities to get cheaper IHG stays.