After a beautiful drive back to Johannesburg from Kruger National Park, we needed to stay overnight near the airport as we had an early morning flight back to the US. There are quite a few hotels near Johannesburg airport and we chose the one where we couldn’t have been any closer – the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport.
This hotel is right next to the terminal, so it barely takes even a minute to walk from the hotel entrance to the terminal. That convenience doesn’t come cheap though – the InterContinental is very expensive considering the low price of other nearby (albeit not on-airport) hotels. Thankfully it was great value for us because we were able to use an IHG free night certificate to book our stay which we get at renewal of our IHG credit cards each year. That meant our outlay for the stay was the card’s annual fee which was much lower than the cash rate – more about that in the ‘Cost’ section later on.
It ended up being a great stay despite the limited amount of time we spent there. We received a room upgrade thanks to my status and it gave us peace of mind not having to rely on a hotel shuttle in the morning to get to the airport. Here’s a full review of our stay at the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport.
Check-In
After driving back from where we were staying with friends in Marloth Park, we had to return our rental car. Once we’d done that, we walked the few minutes from the rental car return bay to the hotel.
It was almost 8pm by that stage and we received an extremely warm welcome from Kea at the front desk. One of his colleagues came over and offered us cold towels, as well as cold bottles of water.
A day or two before we arrived I’d received an email advising that they’d already proactively upgraded us to a King Junior Suite. IHG revamped their loyalty program – IHG One Rewards – in 2022 and since then I’ve found that they’re significantly better about providing upgrades than they used to be.
In fact, they upgraded two of our rooms to Junior Suite. That’s because Shae’s mom and stepdad had joined us in South Africa and we used an additional free night certificate for them to stay at the InterContinental too; that room got upgraded to a King Junior Suite as well.
King Junior Suite
When entering our room we were greeted by a decanter of sherry which is complimentary. We’re not normally sherry drinkers, but we are when it’s offered for free in our hotel room 😉
Turning left there was a short entryway. The bathroom was on the right and the bedroom straight ahead.
Bedroom
The bedroom of the King Junior Suite was a good size for an airport hotel. Unlike the InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco where we had a room that felt somewhat dated, our room at the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport had decor that was much more to our taste.
The king bed was very comfortable, while the long blackout curtains seemed to work well to keep our room dark. Having said that, we were up quite early the next morning, so I can’t vouch for how good they are when there’s more daylight, but they seemed high quality and so I doubt there’s any issue.
There was a padded bench at the foot of the bed, with bedside tables and lamps on each side. From what I can remember there were power outlets available on both sides of the bed. Whenever we have an early morning flight though, I always leave my phone charging on the opposite side of the room so that I’m forced to get out of bed to turn the alarm off, so I didn’t need to use any bedside power outlets.
To the left of the bed was a desk and luggage rack.
On the opposite side of the room were a couple of comfortable armchairs. There was a bottle of water on a table between them.
In the other corner of the bedroom area was a unit containing a mini bar, along with a coffee maker, electric kettle, tea and coffee, drinking glasses, more bottles of water and more. The mini bar was locked, so if you want anything from it you have to call down to the front desk. I’m assuming they can unlock it remotely rather than having to come up to your room, but we weren’t interested in anything from it and so didn’t check that out.
A drawer of that unit contained items for tea, coffee and hot chocolate. I particularly appreciated that they had small pyramid cartons of UHT milk as I prefer that to creamer in my tea.
The room’s closet had an additional blanket and pillow, safe, iron, ironing board and bath robes.
There wasn’t much to see from one side of our room as it was night time. I think this was part of the airport complex, but it didn’t seem like our room had a view of the runway during the day.
Bathroom
The bathroom was a fairly good size with a separate bathtub and walk-in shower, along with a separate enclosed area with the toilet.
The shower had amazing water pressure and was incredibly refreshing. So much so that I’d originally only planned to shower that night as we had to be up early (for me), but I ended up having a shower in the morning too as it was so nice!
After staying at a couple of hotels in Mauritius earlier in our trip where the toilets had glass doors and so there was no privacy if someone else was in the bathroom, we appreciated that the toilet “room” in the bathroom had a regular door.
The shower had large bottles of Bal D’Afrique shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
The bathroom also had a glass jar containing various other amenities like a nail file, shower cap, cotton buds, etc.
Breakfast
At the time of our stay, Shae and I both had Diamond status. That meant we could choose free breakfast as our welcome amenity, but we declined that on our room seeing as we were needing to leave right when breakfast was starting, choosing the bonus points option instead.
For the room that Shae’s mom and stepdad were in though, we selected the free breakfast as they were on a different flight back that evening. They therefore kindly took some photos of the breakfast setup.
The hotel’s only restaurant is called Quills, so named because of the 60 foot long mobile hanging from the ceiling featuring porcupine quills.
In addition to breakfast which is served from 6am-10:30am, Quills has an all-day menu. You can scan the QR codes below to see the up-to-date menus.
As we left in the morning, I grabbed this quick photo of some of the seating options. It looked like there was a good setup to pick tables for dining, or couches if you’re just having drinks and/or snacks.
There was also bar seating…
…along with outdoor seating.
Here’s the breakfast menu from when we stayed in February 2023. For reference, 100 Rand at the time was worth ~$5.50, so the breakfast options were very reasonably priced considering it’s an InterContinental. If you’re going to go for the continental buffet selection, you might as well pay the extra 25 Rand (~$1.40) to add on one of the hot breakfast options if you’ll be hungry enough.
Here’s the continental buffet setup:
My in-laws ordered the Sunrise Breakfast as their hot option which comes with a choice of sausage (beef, pork or lamb), bacon, hash brown, parmesan gratinated tomato, sautéed mushrooms and two eggs any style.
Amenities
Despite being an airport hotel, the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport has a good selection of amenities. That includes a business center, conference room, boardrooms, and smoking lounge. Seeing as we were in a hurry in the morning, I didn’t get a chance to take photos of those.
I did get some photos of the hotel’s other amenities though. On the top floor was an indoor swimming pool. Although we didn’t swim in it, I dipped my hand in and it was very warm.
They also have a spa, although I didn’t see a treatment menu to take a look at the prices.
On the same floor there’s a fitness room. Despite not being particularly big, it had a good amount of equipment including a step machine which isn’t something often seen in hotel gyms.
Depending on which equipment you use, you can get a great view of the airport (when it’s not foggy).
Our room came well-stocked with bottles of water, but if you need any more during your stay there’s a fridge in the fitness room with lots of them.
If you need any last minute – and presumably pricey – gifts, you can get them from what’s listed in the hotel as an African curio shop.
Pet Policy
The InterContinental Johannesburg O.R.Tambo Airport isn’t a pet-friendly hotel.
Service
Pretty much the only interaction we had with any staff at the hotel was with Kea when checking in and he was fantastic.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is complimentary for all guests. I had to get some work done that night and didn’t have any problem with the speed or quality of the connection.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in at the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport is from 2pm, while check-out is at 11am unless you have Ambassador status with IHG which offers 4pm late checkout as a guaranteed benefit.
Shae and I didn’t need to take advantage of that for ourselves, whereas it was useful for Shae’s mom and stepdad as their flight wasn’t until the evening. I had Ambassador status at the time, so we put them in the room booked under my name so that they could stay in their suite until 4pm before walking over to the airport.
Location
One of the key selling points of the hotel is its location at O.R. Tambo Airport. When walking out the front of the hotel you can walk into the airport terminal within a minute.
If you’re visiting Johannesburg, I wouldn’t want to stay at this hotel as it’d be a bit of a drive to get anywhere. However, when flying in or out of Johannesburg, you can’t beat the location.
Parking
The hotel offers valet parking for 200 Rand (~$11) per night.
Cost
As I mentioned earlier, we booked our stay with a free night certificate from one of our IHG credit cards. The IHG Premier card comes with a certificate good for up to 40,000 points which can be topped up with points if the hotel’s award cost is higher than that. When initially booking our stay the cost was 46,000 points, so we used a certificate plus 6,000 points.
The price later dropped to 43,000 points, but I didn’t get around to rebooking the stay to save the 3,000 points. That’s because an even better option ended up coming along. IHG ran an award sale giving 20% off award nights lasting 1-3 nights. The dates of that promotion conveniently coincided with our stay which dropped the price to 34,400 points. That meant we were not only able to save the 6,000 additional points we’d had to contribute, but we were also able to switch from a certificate from the IHG Premier card to one from the IHG Select credit card (a card that’s no longer available for new applications).
The reason that was beneficial is that while the certificates from IHG Premier cards can be topped up with points, the certificates on IHG Select cards can’t be topped up. That means if the hotel you want to book costs more than 40,000 points, you’re out of luck. Having this award sale reduce the price to only 34,400 points meant redeeming our IHG Select certificates was the better option.
The cash price when we stayed was $317.96 including tax. That’s an incredibly high price considering other airport hotels could be booked for $60, but you’re paying for the convenience of not needing to take an airport shuttle, plus InterContinental is a luxury hotel brand compared to Holiday Inn (another IHG brand) where we’d stayed for a night when first arriving in South Africa.
The annual fee on the IHG Premier and IHG Premier Business credit cards is $99, while the annual fee on the IHG Select credit card is $49. Seeing as we redeemed certificates from our IHG Select cards, paying the $49 annual fee was excellent value versus the almost $320 cash cost of the room.
Even if you don’t have an IHG credit card – and therefore don’t have any free night certificates – you could still easily save on the cost of a stay there. IHG frequently sells their points for 0.5 cents per point (cpp). That means, for example, if the hotel is charging 40,000 points for an award night it would only cost you $200 to buy those points when they’re on sale for 0.5cpp. Depending on how much they’re charging when you want to stay, that could easily save you $100+ versus the cash rate.
Final Thoughts
Staying at the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport was the perfect option for us. Our early morning flight meant that we only had a short walk over to the airport which gave us peace of mind versus having to rely on another hotel’s shuttle service, especially if we ended up running late (which we didn’t).
As in our case, this is a great hotel option when you have an early flight. It’s also a great option if you have a late flight out and have IHG Ambassador status so that you can get a 4pm late checkout, or if you’re arriving in Johannesburg airport late at night and want to be able to go to bed almost instantly. If your flight out of Johannesburg is later in the morning or early afternoon though, it might make more sense to stay at one of the other airport hotels to save money given the high cash rate at this property.
Our Rating
Room = 4.5 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 4.4 / 5 (based on my in-laws’ experience)
Location = 4.8 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 3.8 / 5
Total = 4.43 / 5
Address
InterContinental, Opposite International Arrivals Hall, O.R. Tambo International Airport, Kempton Park, Johannesburg, 1619, South Africa
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