IHG vs Marriott: We Compared Their Hotels Tier by Tier on Price, Guest Scores, and Points

This IHG vs Marriott comparison runs on prices pulled the same day for both chains.
On November 3, 2026, we collected Booking.com prices and guest scores for IHG and Marriott hotels in 8 cities, for a Wednesday and a Saturday night in December, and added each chain's own rates and award prices.
Then we matched the hotels brand tier by brand tier: Holiday Inn Express against Fairfield, Holiday Inn against Courtyard, Staybridge Suites against Residence Inn, Crowne Plaza against Sheraton, and InterContinental against JW Marriott.
It's the method of our Hilton vs Marriott study, on a fresh pull.
The short version: in the same city on the same night, IHG cost less in 4 of 5 tiers, by about a fifth in three of them.
Marriott's hotels scored a little higher on Booking.com, most clearly Courtyard against Holiday Inn.
And a point bought about the same amount of hotel in either program.

Key Takeaways

• IHG was cheaper in 4 of 5 tiers. Compared in the same city on the same night, IHG's Booking.com prices ran a median 20% to 23% below Marriott's from Holiday Inn Express to Crowne Plaza, and 8.5% below at the InterContinental vs JW Marriott level.
• Marriott scored a little higher, city by city. Its hotel had the better Booking.com score in 17 of 27 same-city matchups, led by Courtyard over Holiday Inn in 7 of 8 cities (8.3 against 8.15 at the median).
• Extended stay was a draw. Staybridge Suites and Residence Inn each cost less on 3 of 6 city-nights; Staybridge scored higher, on a small sample.
• A point was worth about the same in both programs. On Booking.com's pre-tax prices, an IHG point and a Marriott point each bought 0.57 cents of hotel.
• IHG's Saturdays barely moved. The same IHG hotel cost a median 1.7% less on Saturday than on Wednesday, against 8.6% less at Marriott.
• IHG's own site undercut Booking.com more often. Its lowest rate for the same room ran a median 12% below Booking.com before tax, against 5% for Marriott.

IHG vs Marriott at a Glance

Marriott is the bigger company by a wide margin:

	IHG	Marriott
Hotels	7,186	Over 10,200
Rooms	About 1,060,000	Nearly 1,834,000
IHG and Marriott listings on Booking.com in our 8 cities	114 (Wednesday)	277 (Wednesday)
Hotels in the tier-matched study	85	106

Sources: IHG's third-quarter 2026 trading update (as of September 30, 2026) and Marriott's third-quarter 2026 results.
Pooled across all 8 cities, Marriott's Booking.com listings had a median Wednesday price of $314 and IHG's $253, but that figure mixes cities and brand tiers.
So Marriott vs IHG comes down to five smaller contests, one brand tier at a time, each in the same city on the same night.

How We Compared Them

We used one neutral platform for prices and guest scores, Booking.com, as a US shopper sees it before taxes.
Each chain rates its own hotels on its own scale, so chain sites can't settle a guest-score question.
From 6,887 Booking.com listings across New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, Dubai, and Singapore, we matched 670 to an IHG, Marriott, or Hilton hotel.
A listing counted when its brand words and its location matched a hotel on the chain's own list, within 300 meters.
Then we paired the tiers each chain sells against the other:

Tier	IHG brand	Marriott brand	IHG hotels	Marriott hotels
Essentials	Holiday Inn Express	Fairfield	30	13
Full-service midscale	Holiday Inn	Courtyard	22	34
Extended stay	Staybridge Suites	Residence Inn	6	19
Premium full service	Crowne Plaza	Sheraton	10	13
Luxury	InterContinental	JW Marriott	12	9
Top luxury	Regent, Six Senses	Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis	5	18

We kept InterContinental against JW Marriott because the two sit at the same level.
Set against Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis instead, InterContinental came out 43% cheaper, a gap that reflects the tier and says little about the chain.
The top tier had only 3 city-nights with both chains, too few to compare.
Prices are compared within each city and night, then summarized across them, so New York's December prices never sit next to Dubai's.

Which Chain Costs Less?

IHG cost less in 4 of 5 tiers, and in 38 of the 52 city-nights where both chains had a hotel in the same tier:

Tier	IHG cheaper in	Median gap (IHG vs Marriott)
Holiday Inn Express vs Fairfield	5 of 6 city-nights	−23%
Holiday Inn vs Courtyard	12 of 16	−20%
Staybridge Suites vs Residence Inn	3 of 6	+2%
Crowne Plaza vs Sheraton	7 of 9	−21%
InterContinental vs JW Marriott	11 of 15	−8.5%

The night changed the gap more at Marriott than at IHG.
The same IHG hotel cost a median 1.7% less on Saturday, December 12, than on Wednesday, December 9; the same Marriott hotel cost 8.6% less.
Marriott's prices dropped on the weekend and IHG's barely moved, so the gap narrows on Saturdays.

Holiday Inn Express vs Fairfield Inn

Holiday Inn Express cost less on 5 of the 6 city-nights where both brands appeared (New York, Miami, and Washington DC), a median 23% below.
In Miami the gap was 34% on the Wednesday and 27% on the Saturday.
New York's Saturday was the exception, with Holiday Inn Express 20% more expensive.
Guest scores were close, 8.2 for Holiday Inn Express against 8.1 for Fairfield, with Fairfield ahead in 2 of 3 cities.
Two hotels 127 meters apart in Midtown show how close: Holiday Inn Express Times Square South at $759 and 7.7, Fairfield Inn & Suites Manhattan/Fifth Avenue at $770 and 8.1, on the Wednesday.

Holiday Inn vs Courtyard by Marriott

Holiday Inn cost less on 12 of 16 city-nights, a median 20% below Courtyard.
The gap was widest in Los Angeles (40% on the Wednesday) and Singapore (40%), and it flipped in London, where Holiday Inn cost 42% to 78% more.
Courtyard was the better-reviewed hotel in 7 of 8 cities, by 0.15 to 0.85 points; only Singapore went the other way.
So Holiday Inn vs Courtyard is the clearest trade in the study: about a fifth less money for a hotel guests rate a little lower.

Which Chain Gets Better Guest Scores?

Compared city by city, Marriott's hotel had the better guest score in 17 of 27 matchups, IHG's in 9, with one tie.
The tier medians pooled across cities split the other way, 3 tiers to 2 for IHG, all by small margins:

Tier	IHG median score	Marriott median score	Cities where IHG scored higher
Holiday Inn Express vs Fairfield	8.2	8.1	1 of 3
Holiday Inn vs Courtyard	8.15	8.3	1 of 8
Staybridge Suites vs Residence Inn	8.7	8.5	2 of 3
Crowne Plaza vs Sheraton	8.1	8.35	2 of 5
InterContinental vs JW Marriott	8.75	8.6	3 of 8 (one tie)

Every tier median sat between 8.1 and 8.75, so the chain matters less than the hotel.
Next-door pairs make the point: the Willard InterContinental in Washington DC scored 8.8 against 8.3 for the JW Marriott 90 meters away, and the InterContinental Miami 8.9 against 8.0 for the JW Marriott Marquis, while in Times Square the Crowne Plaza scored 5.9 against the Sheraton's 6.6, 112 meters apart.

IHG One Rewards vs Marriott Bonvoy: What a Free Night Costs

The IHG vs Marriott points question is closer than raw award prices suggest.
Dividing each hotel's lowest cash rate (taxes in) by its standard points price gives the value of one point:

Tier (Wednesday)	IHG award (median points)	Marriott award (median points)	One IHG point	One Marriott point
Holiday Inn Express vs Fairfield	35,000	59,000	0.60¢	1.12¢
Holiday Inn vs Courtyard	32,000	41,500	0.59¢	0.65¢
Staybridge Suites vs Residence Inn	38,000	49,000	0.64¢	0.65¢
Crowne Plaza vs Sheraton	42,000	49,000	0.61¢	0.56¢
InterContinental vs JW Marriott	74,000	74,500	0.64¢	0.69¢

Across all tiers, an IHG point was worth 0.61 cents on the Wednesday and 0.62 on the Saturday; a Marriott point 0.66 and 0.58.
The Fairfield row is the outlier: 7 of its 13 hotels are in New York, where the December Wednesday ran a median $748 in cash, so each point went far.
On Booking.com's pre-tax prices, the two programs came out level at 0.57 cents a point.
So an IHG point and a Marriott point buy about the same amount of hotel, and IHG's award nights cost fewer points mostly because its hotels cost less.
These values use each chain's lowest rate, often non-refundable; against a rate you can cancel, an IHG point is worth more, 0.69 to 0.73 cents in our separate pull of IHG's own rates across 50 cities.

Booking Direct vs Booking.com

Both chains' own sites usually beat Booking.com for the same hotel and night, IHG by more:

Chain	Hotel-nights compared	Own site vs Booking.com (median, before tax)	Booking.com cheaper by more than 1%
IHG	135	−12%	4% of hotel-nights
Marriott	191	−5%	10%

IHG's lowest direct price is often a member rate, which needs a free IHG One Rewards account, or a prepaid one.
Booking.com's price is what a signed-out US shopper sees, so part of the gap is the member discount.

So, Is IHG or Marriott Better?

It depends on the tier and on what you value, and the data says which way:

If you're booking	Pick	Why, from this sample
A budget night	Holiday Inn Express	23% cheaper than Fairfield, scores level (8.2 vs 8.1)
A midscale city hotel, on price	Holiday Inn	20% cheaper than Courtyard in 12 of 16 city-nights
A midscale city hotel, on reviews	Courtyard	Higher score in 7 of 8 cities
An extended stay	Either	Split 3 to 3 on price; Staybridge 8.7 vs 8.5 on a small sample
Full service	Crowne Plaza on price, Sheraton on score	21% cheaper; Sheraton 8.35 vs 8.1
Luxury	InterContinental	8.5% cheaper than JW Marriott, scores level
A Saturday	Look at Marriott too	Marriott's weekend drop (8.6%) narrows IHG's lead
Award nights	Either	Both programs' points bought 0.57 cents of hotel

The honest tradeoff: IHG is the cheaper chain almost everywhere below the top tier, and Marriott's hotels score slightly higher in most same-city matchups (17 of 27).
Where the sample is thin (Staybridge's 6 hotels, Fairfield in 3 cities), treat the verdict as a lean.

How to Run This Comparison for Your Own City

Hotel operators can use the same method to benchmark a property against the other chain's neighbor, and analysts can rerun it for any city and date.
The core is a full Booking.com city search through a hotel data API (StayAPI here), grouped by brand:

import re
import statistics
import requests

BASE = "https://api.stayapi.com/v1/booking"
HEADERS = {"x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"}
TIERS = {
    "Essentials": (r"Holiday Inn Express", r"Fairfield"),
    "Full-service midscale": (r"Holiday Inn(?! Express)", r"^Courtyard\b|Courtyard by Marriott"),
}

dest = requests.get(f"{BASE}/destinations/lookup", params={"query": "Chicago"}, headers=HEADERS).json()
hotels, offset = [], 0
while True:
    page = requests.get(f"{BASE}/search", headers=HEADERS, params={
        "dest_id": dest["dest_id"], "dest_type": dest["dest_type"],
        "checkin": "2026-12-09", "checkout": "2026-12-10",
        "rows_per_page": 100, "offset": offset}).json()["data"]
    hotels += page["hotels"]
    if not page["pagination"]["has_next_page"]:
        break
    offset += 100

for tier, patterns in TIERS.items():
    for chain, pattern in zip(("IHG", "Marriott"), patterns):
        rows = [h for h in hotels if re.search(pattern, h["name"])
                and h.get("price") and (h.get("rating") or {}).get("score")]
        if rows:
            print(tier, chain, len(rows),
                  statistics.median(h["price"]["amount"] for h in rows),
                  statistics.median(h["rating"]["score"] for h in rows))

Each hotel in the search response carries the fields the study used (truncated):

{
  "hotel_id": "1424666",
  "name": "Holiday Inn New York City - Times Square by IHG",
  "star_rating": 3,
  "price": { "amount": 648.72, "currency": "USD" },
  "rating": { "score": 7.8, "review_count": 3251 },
  ...
}

Name patterns miss soft-branded hotels, which is why the study matched listings against the chains' own hotel lists from the IHG and Marriott Bonvoy search endpoints.
For a standing comparison instead of a one-off, our hotel rate shopper guide covers scheduled monitoring.

Getting Started

1. Sign up at stayapi.com for an API key; the free tier includes 50 requests, with no credit card.
2. Look up your city's Booking.com destination ID with the destinations lookup endpoint.
3. Pull every search page for your dates, then group the hotels by brand and compare medians within each tier.
4. Add the IHG and Marriott Bonvoy searches to map soft brands, and their rooms endpoints for direct rates and award prices.
5. Rerun it weekly to watch the gaps move, or book a demo for portfolio benchmarking across several cities.

FAQ

Is IHG or Marriott better?

It depends on the brand tier.
In our sample IHG was cheaper in 4 of 5 tiers, by about a fifth in three of them, while Marriott's hotels scored slightly higher in 17 of 27 same-city matchups, most clearly Courtyard over Holiday Inn.

Is Marriott bigger than IHG?

Yes.
Marriott reported over 10,200 properties and nearly 1,834,000 rooms in its third-quarter 2026 results, against IHG's 7,186 hotels and about 1,060,000 rooms as of September 30, 2026.

Is Holiday Inn better than Marriott?

Against Courtyard by Marriott, its closest match, Holiday Inn was 20% cheaper on 12 of 16 city-nights but scored lower in 7 of 8 cities (8.15 against 8.3 at the median).
Holiday Inn Express against Fairfield was closer: 23% cheaper, with scores level.

Is Holiday Inn Express better than Fairfield Inn?

On price, yes: Holiday Inn Express cost a median 23% less on 5 of 6 city-nights.
Guest scores were level at 8.2 against 8.1, with Fairfield ahead in 2 of the 3 cities where both appeared.

Which hotels are included in IHG Rewards?

IHG One Rewards spans IHG's 21 hotel brands, from Holiday Inn Express, avid hotels, and Candlewood Suites to Crowne Plaza, Kimpton, InterContinental, and Regent.
IHG's terms say reward nights may not be available at Six Senses or IHG Army Hotels.

Are IHG points worth more than Marriott points?

About the same: on Booking.com's pre-tax prices both bought 0.57 cents of hotel per point.
IHG's award nights cost fewer points mainly because its hotels cost less in cash.