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- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: Planning, positioning, hotels and costs
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: The IHG Crowne Plaza LAX
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: Amazing views flying to Alaska ANC
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: The Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: The ANC Alaska Board Room
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: The IHG InterContinental Los Angeles
- An Alaska Delta Elite Mileage Run: Final thoughts & was it worth taking?
Just like my stay at the Crowne Plaza, this stay cost me nothing more than my wife’s annual fee for her Chase IHG visa card <-LINK and boy, was it worth it. At the recent Chicago Seminars I mentioned that I call Chase and gripe (see E13) about each and EVERY annual fee I ever get from any card I hold to get a reduction on the fee or points back or something or I consider canceling the card – but not this one. I pay the fee with glee each and every year and, as long as they don’t mess it up, this will be a card I hold till the day I die. I mean look at this room for the $49 fee:
As a card holder I get Platinum IHG status. Now at times that does not carry much weight with IC hotels but I have found many times it does and it did with this visit to the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles after a short-ish Uber ride to the downtown location!
Even though I got to the hotel late and would be departing somewhat early in the morning so I would be using the room for nothing but sleeping, it is always nice to get an upgrade. I asked and was told I was already upgraded. Sweet!
Once I walked in I was greeted with the bedroom with double doors to the right, a half bath straight ahead and a hallway to the living room. Let’s start there.
I have stayed in JR suites where the entire room was smaller that this living / dining room area. The desk was nice but they had removed the printer that once lived there. No big deal but worth mentioning. Also there were balconies everywhere. Two in this room alone that overlooked the pool and hot tub below!
Now on to the bedroom and master bath. The bed was soft and the temperature in the room was nice. The closet off the bedroom was one of the biggest I have seen in a hotel for a long time and where they decided to “hide” the hair dryer on me. 🙂
I take a lot of photos in my travels. I have never taken a shot of a TP roll before. And what a shower! There must have been 20 showerheads. However, since California has a bit of a water issue I only used the one I needed.
And then there was the view off my bedroom balcony to wake up to. Just wow!
I wish I could have had more time to really enjoy all the amenities and explore this hotel more as it looked fabulous everywhere I looked. The few people I interacted with were pleasant and kind.
Final bits. I was not offered any kind of breakfast option as a IHG Platinum and this is one of the reasons I do go for SPG status over IHG’s top status. Consistency of perks, I have found, is much better with SPG. But for $49 a year from my Chase IHG card, I will take a room like this any day of the week and a great way to make an overnight for an Elite Mileage Run work! – René
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Don’t mean to be a stickler here, but just to be clear… Century City (where this Intercon is located) is not downtown. Downtown LA is about 15 miles east. Century City is borderline westside. They ARE building a new Intercontinental in Downtown LA that looks like it’s going to be FABULOUS, though…
Also, last time I was up there (when a friend was in town…maybe a year ago?) the state of the hotel was a bit sad. The service was good, and when he checked in they whisked him off to a private room to choose the “best room for his needs,” but all I remember is scraped of wallpaper and dented corners (I would assume from the housekeeping carts). Nice to have the huge rooms and balconies (we’re smokers), but the hotel really needed an update.
The inconsistency, point inflation and weak choices is why I don’t stay at IHG properties more than a couple of times per year. Like you, I use the free night’s stay. I always get free breakfast with my IHG platinum status at Crowne Plaza hotels outside North America, but I never get anything inside North America. I don’t even know if many U.S. Crowne Plaza hotels have executive lounges. Some of the Intercontinental hotels can be nice but I’m not sure if they are any better than a J.W. Marriott or SPG Luxury Collection.