After seeing out 2019 in Tennessee, our first state of 2020 was Mississippi. Our first stop was New Albany, a city in the north of the state that’s halfway between Oxford and Tupelo, the latter of which was Elvis Presley’s birthplace.
I found a good rate at the Holiday Inn Express New Albany which is why we decided to stay there for a week. It was a fairly good stay, although there were some issues with breakfast during our stay. It sounds like they’ve fixed that since, so if you ever stay there then you hopefully won’t have the same problem that we encountered – more on that below.
Here’s a review of our stay at the Holiday Inn Express New Albany, Mississippi.
Check-In
We’d gotten a late check-out from the hotel we’d stayed at in Nashville for New Year’s Eve, so we didn’t get on the road until 4pm. That meant we didn’t get to New Albany until about 9:30pm, so there was no line at the hotel when we checked in.
When checking the IHG website before arriving, it said that there were one bedroom suites available, so I asked if we could be upgraded to one of those rooms when checking in as I have Spire Elite status which is the top tier in IHG Rewards Club. The person checking us in stated that even though the website said that, the hotel was completely sold out. That seemed a little strange as there were loads of other rooms showing online too, plus the parking lot didn’t seem very busy. IHG properties are awful about upgrading members so my assumption is that they just didn’t want to upgrade us seeing as we were staying for a week, but I guess she might’ve been telling the truth.
The front desk agent let us know about the pet fee seeing as we travel with Truffles, then gave us our keys to room 105.
Bedroom
When entering our 1 king room, the bathroom was immediately on the right, with the bedroom area straight ahead.
The king bed was on the right of the room and was very comfortable, as were the pillows. The bedside lamps had power outlets on them which is a feature we always appreciate.
At the far end of the room was a sleeper sofa and coffee table. The sofa was comfortable too and I had a nice nap on there one afternoon.
On the left side of the room was a desk and office chair.
To the left of that was a unit holding a mini fridge, microwave, dresser and Keurig coffee maker. The mini fridge was a decent size and had a small freezer compartment that actually seemed to work.
The room’s TV was also on top of the unit and had a very good selection of TV channels. When I first saw the list I couldn’t believe how many channels were available; when looking more closely at the selection though, most of them were duplicated as one was regular and another was an HD version of the channel. It was a great selection nonetheless.
The bedroom had two closets – sort of. Both of them were back near the entrance, with the larger open closet having a rail with hangers and luggage rack.
To the right of the bathroom door was a narrow alcove which held an ironing board and iron. It was an unusual design, but it meant we had a little more space in the larger closet to store our stuff seeing as the ironing board wasn’t in there.
Bathroom
On the right side of the bathroom was the sink and a long countertop.
The toiletries were a random mix of brands. The soap and lotion were J.R. Watkins, while the conditioner was Bath & Body Works. The shampoo – or what I assume was the shampoo – had no label on it whatsoever.
The bathroom had a bathtub with shower which had good water pressure.
Breakfast
The Holiday Inn Express New Albany serves breakfast until 9:30am during the week and 10am on weekends. They have a pretty good selection of items, including 4-6 hot options that tended to rotate.
I mentioned at the start of the review that there was an issue with breakfast. It wasn’t to do with the food itself, it was more due to the lack of food. We’ve stayed at hotels in the past where they start clearing breakfast away 5-10 minutes early which was bad, but the staff at the Holiday Inn Express New Albany were significantly worse.
That’s because for the last four days of our stay, they started clearing breakfast away 30 minutes before it was due to end. It wasn’t even that they simply neglected to refill food during the last half hour either – they actively removed many of the breakfast items. Cinnamon rolls, pancake mixture from the pancake machine, bread, bagels, waffles, muffins, hot oatmeal – all that was gone by 9am during the week rather than 9:30am.
We tried addressing it gently one morning by asking “Isn’t breakfast meant to be until 9:30am?” The breakfast staff said yes, but continued removing breakfast items anyway. The following morning we came down for breakfast at 9am and they were removing breakfast items again and had also cleared away all the condiments from the tables already.
While carrying the cinnamon rolls back into the kitchen, the staff member asked if we wanted one before it was gone, so we said yes. I then said “Can’t you just leave the breakfast items out seeing as it’s meant to be until 9:30am and other guests might want to eat something?” as I was feeling frustrated by that point. She didn’t say anything, but put the cinnamon rolls back where they should be, then proceeded to moodily sweep up the breakfast area rather than taking any further breakfast items away. Shae and I ate as quickly as we could as it was an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Shae mentioned it to the front desk agent that morning and she sold out the person working the breakfast area that morning, saying it was because she was new. From what we could tell though, it was only her second day on the job and another staff member had trained her the previous day when they cleared everything away at 9am, so it seemed a little unfair that she was blamed by the person at the front desk seeing as the senior staff member had been doing the same thing on previous days.
After our stay, IHG sent us a survey by email about our stay like they normally do. I normally ignore those, but decided to complete it this time to give feedback about the breakfast situation. We received a reply from the manager yesterday agreeing that removing breakfast 30 minutes early was unacceptable and that she was ensuring that won’t happen again. If you ever stay at the Holiday Inn Express New Albany in the future, that hopefully means you don’t have to get up 30 minutes early in the morning in order to get some food 🙂
Amenities
The hotel’s fitness room had a few pieces of equipment, weights, yoga equipment, etc.
The thermostat could be adjusted by guests which I was initially pleased about as I like it to be cooler when running on the treadmill. Lowering the temperature on there did nothing to the temperature though – the air conditioning unit pumped air out like a fan, but it wasn’t cold air. It was therefore warmer and more humid in there than I would’ve liked.
The hotel has an outdoor swimming pool. It was closed during our stay though seeing as we stayed there the first week of January.
There’s a business center consisting of one computer and a printer.
There was an ice machine and a couple of vending machines on the first floor; I didn’t check to see if there were some on the other floors of the hotel or not.
It’s also possible to book a meeting room at the hotel.
I think the hotel had a guest laundry area, but I didn’t take a photo of it and so I can’t remember for sure if that’s the case.
Pet Policy
The Holiday Inn Express New Albany is a pet-friendly hotel which charges a pet fee of only $30 per stay (rather than per day) which is very reasonable. There were a few patches of grass around the hotel for Truffles to do her stuff, but not much.
Service
The staff members were friendly enough for the most part, but the front desk agent stating there were no rooms available at the hotel when checking in and the breakfast staff clearing breakfast away so early meant we didn’t have a great impression of the staff overall.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
You can check-in from 3pm, while check-out is at 11am. We asked if it was possible to get a late check-out but they were only able to offer it until 12pm. This is despite having top-tier IHG status, whereas you can usually get a 4pm late check-out with similar status at Marriott and Hyatt properties – another reason IHG Rewards Club isn’t a very rewarding loyalty program.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi at the Holiday Inn Express New Albany was good for the most part, with the speed being perfectly fine. There were intermittent outages every so often though.
Location
The hotel is only a few minutes from downtown New Albany and is just around the corner from Walmart, Lowe’s and several fast food restaurants.
Downtown New Albany is also the start of the Tanglefoot Trail, a 43.6 mile rails-to-trails route. Shae and I took Truffles for a walk along the first couple of miles of it and it seemed like it’d be especially great for cyclists.
Parking
The hotel offers free parking. There are only a few parking spots at the front of the property, but there are plenty more spaces around the side and at the back of the hotel.
Cost
IHG was having a sale when we booked, so we managed to get a pretty good rate of only $72.81 per night including tax, but which was a non-refundable rate. If we’d booked using points, it would’ve cost 10,000 points per night which is also a great redemption rate.
I decided to go for the paid stay for a couple of reasons though. First, it meant we’d earn points for the stay rather than redeeming them seeing as we can get better value using points elsewhere. I also booked our stay after clicking through from the Rakuten (formerly Ebates) shopping portal as they were offering 15% cashback which is as high as it’s ever been. Based on the pre-tax cost of the stay, that’s worth $70.14 cashback.
Rakuten offers the option to earn American Express Membership Rewards instead of cashback, so I earned 15x Membership Rewards rather than 15% cashback. That’s an even better deal as Membership Rewards are worth more than one cent per point. As a result, I earned 7,014 Membership Rewards points which I value at more than $100.
On top of that, we earned a bunch of points for the stay:
- 4,676 base points ($467.60 pre-tax cost * 10 points per dollar)
- 4,676 bonus points (Spire Elite status offers a 100% bonus on base points)
- 1,000 bonus points (from IHG’s latest promotion)
- 13,492 bonus points (we’re currently earning 25 points per dollar when paying for IHG stays with Shae’s new IHG Premier credit card. This is based on the post-tax cost with the pet fee.)
- Total = 23,844 points
Final Thoughts
Despite the issues with breakfast getting cleared away early, we had a fairly good stay overall. Our room was comfortable enough, although it would’ve been nice to have gotten an upgrade to a one bedroom suite. It’s also good value whether staying on a paid rate or as an award stay.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Holiday Inn Express New Albany three paws out of four – pawsome! It was great that the pet fee was only $30 for the entire stay, but there wasn’t really anywhere to walk her other than around the parking lot.
Our Rating
Room = 4.3 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.0 / 5
Food = 4.3 / 5 (when there was some available 😉 )
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 2.5 / 5
Overall Value = 4.8 / 5
Total = 4.02 / 5
Address
Holiday Inn Express, 300 Hwy 30 W, New Albany, MS 38652
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