Review of Holiday Inn Express & Suites Ottawa Airport

I must admit, we arrived in the room pretty late, so I forgot to take pictures of the room before unpacking. Once I remember to take a picture, I did however get to snap a picture of one of the two beds:

This may not seem like a grand or glamorous hotel, so it may seem odd that I am providing a hotel review for the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Ottawa Airport. The reason I want to provide a review of this stay is that I noticed an upgrade to the continental breakfast, as stated on the sign below. If you don’t know already, I am always a fan of free breakfast at any hotel chain, even continental!

One of the first things that I noticed right away was the addition of Greek yogurt! There were also many more fruit options. Usually I only see 1, maybe 2 fruits. They had 3 options this time, orange, bananas and apples all together. It may not seem like a significant improvement to some, but if there ever was 1 hotel brand that I stay the most often with, that would Holiday Inn Express, so even the slightest change I will notice.

This hotel also offers free parking and a free airport shuttle, so it is fairly close proximity to the airport, but definitely not walking distance. If you are looking for a quiet location, this is a great place!

I’m a big fan of the IHG Rewards program because of how accessible they are worldwide. The cost of purchasing a hotel night at some of their brands are usually reasonable priced, so I am more than happy to collect their points. Once I have the points, I have been fortunately enough to take advantage of the Pointsbreak promotion, which is why I value IHG Reward points so highly. But the truth is, without the Pointsbreak promotion, I am uncertain how much longer I will stick with IHG Rewards because they changed their expiry policy, effective January 1, 2016, where you need to keep your account active once every 12 months to keep your points active, unless you have elite status, then there is no worry.

I also use Starwood and Best Western, so I may not always cycle around back to IHG that often, so I will use my E-Rewards to transfer a few points to IHG to keep my account active if need be.