A few years ago, Shae and I used to only stay at IHG properties like Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, etc.
Since then, we’ve focused on staying at whichever hotel offers the best value, whether paying cash or using points. It had therefore been several years since we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, so I was curious to see how it would compare to the other hotel brands we’ve stayed at during the first year of our 5 year, 50 state road trip.
When planning out our hotels for November and December, I paid close attention to the IHG options. That’s because I’d received an extremely rewarding promotion, so it made sense to book a few IHG stays in order to earn a ton of bonus points.
One of the requirements was to book two stays of four nights each. We’d already planned to spend four days in the Amarillo area, so when researching prices I was pleased to see a good rate at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon, a city near Amarillo.
It ended up being a good stay with a comfortable room and plenty of hot options at breakfast. Here’s a review of our stay at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon, Texas.
Check-In
We arrived in Canyon at about 4:15pm, having stopped off in Randall County along the way. Shae had seen that West Texas A&M University has the tallest wind turbine in the US, so we stopped by there to take a look. Standing at 635.5 feet high at the tallest tip of one of the turbines, it was big but not as enormous as we imagined it’d look.
We were the only people checking in when we arrived, so it was a quick process. Seeing as we’re traveling with our dog Truffles, we had to complete a pet form.
The hotel’s lobby was cute as it had a fireplace and was decorated for Christmas (we were visiting mid-December). We got our keys after a couple of minutes and headed up in the elevator to room 315.
Bedroom
We’d booked a room with a king bed. When entering the room, the bathroom was off to the left, with the main bedroom area straight ahead and to the left.
The king bed was comfortable, although the mattress might be a little older as it sank at the edge on the right side.
By the bed in the corner of the room was an armchair with an ottoman and side table. I worked from the chair on a couple of days and it was a comfortable chair to sit in.
On the opposite side of the room was a desk with an office chair that Shae used. Beside the desk was an additional chair which we didn’t end up needing to use.
To the right of that chair was a dresser with a fridge and microwave. Although I now prefer Hyatt Places to Holiday Inn Expresses, I do like that many Holiday Inn Express properties include a microwave in the room, whereas I don’t think we’ve ever stayed at a Hyatt Place that has them in bedrooms (they have one in the breakfast area instead). The room also had a Keurig coffee maker with a few coffee pods.
The room had a bench which we used to hold my suitcase.
If you need additional suitcase storage, there was a luggage rack in the closet, along with an iron and ironing board.
Bathroom
The entrance of the bathroom was to the left of the closet. There was a long countertop which is something we always appreciate, mainly because it gives plenty of space to wash and dry our dishes having used our portable kitchen.
The toiletries were Bath & Body Works shampoo, conditioner and lotion, along with a couple of soap bars and makeup remover towelettes.
The bathroom also had a bathtub with shower, with the shower having good water pressure.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included with your room rate when staying at a Holiday Inn Express. There was a wide variety of hot options each day, usually consisting of a couple of different kinds of omelet, a couple of types of sausage along with biscuits and sausage gravy.
The morning I took the photos there were a few items missing, but the other mornings of our stay everything was better stocked.
The egg white & veggie omelet and sausage gravy were surprisingly tasty – definitely the best mass-produced omelets and sausage gravy I’ve had at similar hotel brands.
The other breakfast options remained the same each day and included Cinnabon cinnamon rolls which were also tasty.
One slightly disappointing thing about breakfast at Holiday Inn Express properties is that I don’t remember any ever offering freshly cut fruit. That’s something offered at Hampton Inns and Hyatt Places, so I’d like to see IHG’s similar brand offer the same. They do have fresh fruit available though, just not freshly cut.
As for drinks, there was a juice machine at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon, along with a coffee and tea station. They also had marshmallows and small peppermint candy canes for hot chocolate which was a nice touch.
The breakfast area was a good size with a separate room off to the side, so there was always lots of available seating.
Amenities
We were pleased to see the hotel had guest laundry facilities as we needed to wash some clothes while there. Both the washer and dryer cost $1 per load which is very reasonable – certainly cheaper than a laundromat and more convenient too.
Seeing as we’re traveling full-time, we have laundry detergent with us. If you need to buy some when staying at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon, they have a vending machine on the wall with detergent and dryer sheets.
There’s an indoor swimming pool, although it wasn’t particularly warm.
There was a whirlpool off to the side as well.
The hotel’s fitness room was fairly small, but they’ve managed to fit quite a lot of equipment in there considering its size.
Pet-Friendliness
The Holiday Inn Express Canyon in Texas is a pet-friendly hotel. Their pet fee wasn’t entirely clear as their website suggested it was $25 per stay as well as $25 per night. I’d therefore assumed we’d have to pay a $125 pet fee for our four night stay, but the pet form we signed when checking in said it was only $25 per stay rather than per night.
When checking out, they’d charged us $100 and so I mentioned that the pet policy we’d signed said it would only be $25. The front desk agent checked and saw that was the case, so she deducted $75 from our final bill which we appreciated.
The hotel has plenty of grass around the property for your dog to do its stuff. There’s also Southeast Park Dog Park about five minutes away which is a large dog park with separate areas for small and large dogs.
Service
Overall, service at the hotel was good. The front desk agent was accommodating about the pet fee, while Alicia who was in charge of breakfast was very friendly and chatty.
Alicia was also very accommodating on our first morning. We came down for breakfast at what we thought was 9:15 (breakfast ends at 9:30), but it turned out to be 10:15. We’d driven in from Mountain Time zone to Central Time the previous day, but our phones hadn’t updated. Despite it being so late, Alicia told us to help ourselves to breakfast as she hadn’t cleared it away yet. That was very kind of her, as it would’ve been easy for her to say that we were too late.
Wi-Fi
The Wi-Fi connection was good and was a decent speed.
Location
The Holiday Inn Express Canyon is only a couple of minutes from downtown Canyon and so it’s a short drive from the grocery store, restaurants, etc. If you only need one or two items, there’s a Dollar General just across the road that you can walk to.
The hotel is 10-15 minutes away from Palo Duro Canyon State Park which is well worth visiting as it’s the second largest canyon in the US.
If you want to visit Amarillo, that’s only 20-25 minutes away, as is Cadillac Ranch which is on the west side of Amarillo just off I-40.
Parking
It’s free to park at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon and there’s lots of it around the hotel.
Cost
Our room rate was $89.49 per night which was reasonable. If you have IHG Rewards Club points, it costs 15,000 points per night which is also good value.
I have the IHG Premier credit card which offers the fourth night free when using points, so our four night stay would’ve only cost 45,000 points. If we’d done that, we would’ve redeemed points at a 0.8cpp (cent per point) value. That’s good for IHG Rewards Club points, but not spectacular.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of the review though, I’d booked a paid stay due to the promotion IHG was running at the time. The challenges they’d set were to stay at three different brands and book two stays of four or more nights.
This stay represented both our third brand and second four night stay, so we earned tons of points.
- 3,168 base points (10x points on the room rate before taxes)
- 3,168 bonus points (10x bonus points for having Spire Elite status)
- 12,000 bonus points (for having two stays of four or more nights)
- 38,400 bonus points (for staying at three brands)
- 3,168 bonus points (10x bonus points from their latest promotion which offers double points on all stays)
- 500 bonus points (welcome amenity from Spire Elite status)
- 3,830 bonus points (10x bonus points by paying for stay with my IHG credit card. The total is higher as it includes the room taxes.)
Realistically, only half of the 12,000 bonus and a third of the 38,400 bonus should be allocated to this stay given that past stays contributed towards completing those challenges. That means this stay effectively earned 32,634 points.
IHG often has hotels we want to stay at that cost 10,000 points per night. With the fourth night free on award stays, the points earned from this four night stay at the Holiday Inn Express Canyon could pay for another four night award stay elsewhere.
I also booked this stay through TopCashback (my referral link) which was offering 10% cashback. I’ll therefore earn $31.68 cashback from that as well.
Final Thoughts
We enjoyed our stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Canyon, Texas. The room was comfortable and I liked that it had both a fridge and microwave. The breakfast was tasty, the service was good and it’s in a fairly good location for exploring the Canyon/Amarillo area.
With the cost for both paid and award stays being reasonable, this hotel is a good choice.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Holiday Inn Express Canyon four paws out of four – pawfect! Only being charged $25 for a pet fee was great (although it should’ve been more expensive). There was a lot of grass around the hotel and a large dog park nearby, plus the hotel was quiet.
Our Rating
Room = 4.4 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 4.6 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 4.5 / 5
Overall Value = 4.6 / 5
Total = 4.43 / 5
Address
Holiday Inn Express, 2901 4th Ave, Canyon, TX 79015
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