Introduction

First, a bit of context: this happened in late April of last year. I published my report on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Business Class + Los Angeles Union Station Metropolitan Lounge experience back in mid-May last year, but this trip report for using an IHG FN stay at InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown kept getting delayed due to time constraints, and in the end it ran nearly a year late.

Now, thanks to the impact of COVID-19, I’ve been stuck at home and finally have time to squeeze out this long-overdue trip report on using a Chase IHG FN at InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.

Redemption

There’s not much to say about redeeming a Chase IHG credit card FN—my old version of the Chase IHG card was opened in July 2017 before I moved to California, and by the time my 2018 anniversary came around, I managed to catch the last train for Chase IHG unrestricted FN certificates.

Since it was unrestricted, I naturally wanted to use it at the highest-category property available. Near me, the highest-tier IHG option was the InterContinental in Downtown Los Angeles.

With a "use it before it disappears" mindset, I created a reason to stay even though I didn’t really need one, and picked a weekend in late April 2019 for the redemption.

Getting There

After taking Amtrak to LA Union Station, transfer to the Metro Red Line or Purple Line and get off at 7th St/Metro Center.

This is the famous mural at LA Union Station, located on the east side of the underground passageway. If you’re transferring here, it’s definitely worth a look.

LA Metro’s subway cars are basically silver metal boxes that all look the same from the outside, with no obvious color differences. If you don’t read the side destination signs carefully, it would be easy to board the wrong train.

Fortunately, both the Red Line and Purple Line go to 7th St/Metro Center, so I just boarded whichever train was leaving first.

PS1: Based on years of railfan instinct, I could tell at a glance that this subway uses 1435mm standard gauge and third-rail DC power... though I didn’t know the voltage at the time. I looked it up later and found that it’s 750V. Third-rail DC power is also a common feature of many older subway systems, such as the New York City Subway, the Chicago "L," Tianjin Metro Line 1, and Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, because back in those days tunnel space was at such a premium and tunnel-boring machines weren’t available, so there was no way to build tunnels tall enough for overhead wires.

PS2: Older American subway cars are generally these silver metal-box types, from NYC to Chicago to LA... They’re nowhere near as varied in design as Japanese trains.

Arrived at 7th St/Metro Center! I came up through the underground passageway on the right side of the picture.

This is also a transfer station. The Red Line (toward North Hollywood) and Purple Line (toward Wilshire / Western) run underground and require using the passageway on the right side of the picture, while the Blue Line (toward Long Beach) and Expo Line (toward Santa Monica Downtown) run above ground, as shown straight ahead in the image.

PS: The Blue Line and Expo Line are newer lines, so they use overhead wires instead.

Out of the station...

And what’s going on with this DD right by the exit... why is it all locked up?

Are you open for business or not? If not, then why are the lights still on inside? Burning electricity for fun?

After crossing one intersection, InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown comes right into view. It’s in Wilshire Grand Center, which was completed on June 23, 2017, so it still felt pretty new.

Check-in

Maybe I was too used to staying in hostels before, because this was my first time checking into a higher-end property like an InterContinental and I was completely out of my element.

First, you have to take the elevator all the way to the top-floor front desk to check in... yes, the front desk is on the top floor...

After getting the key card, I headed to the room. I know next to nothing about room types, so here are just a few interior shots.

Since the building was completed in 2017, both the room and the furnishings still felt quite new.

The bathroom came stocked with shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.

I have no idea whether these count as luxury brands or not—I’m completely unfamiliar with them. I’m the type who’s perfectly happy as long as Dove gets the job done.

A quick photo of the coffee machine.

Here’s what the mini-bar looked like. Good thing I took a moment to read the notice carefully—anything removed would be charged to the account immediately...

Yikes. Nothing in there was going to be cheap, so accidentally taking something would have been painful.

Dinner

I’ve said this countless times in group chats when the topic of hotel elite status comes up—I’m a basic member with no status at all, unless it’s status that comes automatically from a credit card.

People ask: why not mattress-run for status?

My answer is simple: doesn’t chasing status still cost money unless your employer is paying for your stays? And for someone like me, who only uses one FN a year, status is basically meaningless. If I want dining, I’d rather just pay for it directly—that’s far cheaper than spending money to earn status.

To be honest, this bread felt a little too fancy for me... I honestly thought Baumkuchen from a Japanese supermarket tasted better.

I also managed to talk my way into getting a nicer cocktail with the drink voucher from check-in. I say "talk my way into" because according to policy, the voucher was only supposed to cover lower-tier alcoholic drinks, not a cocktail.

Still, it never hurts to ask—you might get lucky. And this time, it actually worked.

PS: I got lucky for once here. But when it comes to matching credit card welcome bonuses, I’ve had terrible luck. Ever since I started playing the credit card game in 2009, over these eleven years I’ve never successfully matched a credit card signup bonus even once. No matter how many times I call or send a Secure Message, the answer from customer service is always a crisp and immediate "No." Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve been flagged and the reps just assume I’m too opportunistic, so any request for a matched bonus gets declined on sight.

Just this little spread already cost over 30 USD. As expected of a luxury hotel—everything is expensive...

Eating while enjoying the night view of Los Angeles counts as pretty nice entertainment!

Over here is Staples Ctr.

You can see the PwC building, the Bank of America tower, and the ever-so-proud CNB building. The freeway on the left is the infamous 110, which really burns brain cells—if you are not careful, it is very easy to end up going the wrong way.

PS: The Japanese consulate is also inside the CNB building!

From this angle, you can also see Ernst & Young.

The number 10 on the helipad above seems to be a weight limit? If anyone knows, Chestnut would be very grateful for an explanation.

Breakfast

Same as mentioned earlier: Chestnut only had base-level elite status, the kind that comes from a credit card and is basically useless, so breakfast was not included and had to be paid for out of pocket.

It has already been almost a year, so Chestnut has long forgotten how much this breakfast cost... but if memory serves, it was around 35 USD+Tax+Tip per person?

Breakfast was the buffet everyone loves to see, so here are a few casual photos!

First, something filling!

Still did not feel very full... as a guy, how can you skip meat?

So I grabbed some baby potatoes, scrambled eggs, and roasted meat.

At the end, I picked up a pancake and an egg, and also played around with the egg topper thingy in the upper-right of the egg.

You place the egg topper on top of the egg, then let the weighted piece drop so the force cracks a neat circular line in the shell. If that happens, you have done it right!

Not bad for Chestnut's first time using an egg topper, right?

Sometimes saying goodbye really means never seeing it again — さよなら

After breakfast, I went back to the room to rest a bit, and then it was time to check out. Everyone knows how hotel checkout works, so I will spare you the usual XX words here.

On the way out, I took one last photo of the side logo of the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.

At that moment, Chestnut felt a wave of melancholy. Starting in 2019, the annual FN from Chase's IHG card began to carry a cap, only valid at hotels costing up to 40,000 points per night. That basically killed off the possibility of redeeming an FN for an InterContinental stay altogether, unless some programmer somewhere falls asleep and accidentally ships a Bug that makes the system accept FN redemptions again. And for someone like Chestnut, there is absolutely no desire to pay cash for a hotel stay, since that does not satisfy the Second Law of Savviness: only spending that can be recovered later through Resell qualifies. As for redeeming points outright, 60,000-70,000 per night is honestly enough to make your hands shake.

So in short: this was very likely Chestnut's first stay at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, and also the last.

Sometimes saying goodbye really means never seeing it again... Life cannot handle that many goodbyes... Things like Continental Airlines, which got merged after I flew it once; train services 2182/2183, T31, and Z41/Z42, which were discontinued after I rode them once; the Yamanote Line E231 series trainset, which was retired after I rode it once; and the original JR Harajuku Station building, which was set to be demolished after I visited it once... There are just too many Chestnut stories like that...

Chestnut's brainwashing quotes

By the end of this story, it once again proves the two famous sayings Chestnut often repeats in group chats:

First: once things get changed, they usually only get worse. As the saying goes: one generation is worse than the one before. In this case, Chase IHG FN starting last year with a 40,000-point redemption cap is exactly the best Chestnut example.

Second: do not assume you will have another chance to come back... Even if, years later, you do get the chance to revisit the same place, you will find that both the place and the people have already changed, and the feeling from back then is gone forever. Sometimes saying goodbye really means never seeing it again... Life cannot handle that many goodbyes... There is no need to waste more words explaining such a classic truth.

Finally... let us send off the past, tinged with a bit of sadness, and welcome a brand-new beginning together... さよなら... (quoted from the ending of AIR)