Hotel: InterContinental Auckland
When: October 2026
Status: Platinum Ambassador
Rate: avg. NZD $457/night (combination of Ambassador complimentary weekend night and Visa cardholder rate)
Booked: 1 King Classic
Received: 1 King Classic City View (one-category upgrade)
Arrival
Pre-arrival comms were good with emails from both the reservations team and Club IC team - they were able to arrange for my bookings to be linked so I could keep the same room. I reached the hotel just before 10pm and check-in experience was excellent with the agent going through the club benefits and providing two welcome drink vouchers.
Interestingly at other hotels where I've had back-to-back stays they've combined them on the backend and issue one keycard for the full stay, however here they said I would have to return on the changeover day to pick up new keycards. It was a seamless process however, they had the cards ready to go for me at the front desk.
Room
My room was the exact same as I had in
January, just one floor down. Although marketed as a city view room it has a partial harbour view looking towards Viaduct Harbour and the Harbour Bridge. I really like this view, if anything it's better than the direct harbour view rooms which have the Ferry Terminal building in the way.
Room design reminds me a lot of the IC Perth but with a darker / moodier colour scheme. The bed is super comfortable, the TV has Chromecast as well as local and cable channels and basically everything can be electronically controlled via the various panels at bedside and around the room. There is a fully stocked minibar and as an additional welcome amenity there was a large madeleine waiting for me (unfortunately the accompanying welcome card had the name of another guest on it!) and a bottle of Antipodes water, which was replenished daily. There are also filtered Brita water stations near the lifts on each floor.
Bathrooms are well laid out and include additional amenities such as a scale and speakers connected to the TV. One area for improvement is the toilet paper, it's really cheap single-ply and not in line with the luxury feel of the rest of the hotel.
Housekeeping was excellent throughout the stay, turndown is by request and was arranged at check-in. This was competed around 5:30pm each evening and was accompanied by some delicious turndown chocolates.
Club Lounge
The Club InterContinental is located on the 3rd floor and is a relaxing space with a variety of seating options and partial harbour views. It is open from 6.30am-10.30pm daily with the main F&B presentations being breakfast from 6.30-10.30am (alternatively you can have breakfast at Advieh), afternoon tea from 2-4pm and evening drinks and canapés from 5-7pm, with light refreshments available outside these times.
For breakfast there is a small continental buffet spread (be sure to try their Portuguese tart, incredible!) supplemented by a diverse a la carte menu of hot dishes and sides, from which you can order as many dishes as you like. Over the course of my stay I tried the salmon bagel, Turkish eggs, pastrami eggs benedict and the nasi goreng, all were excellent and I'd also recommend the halloumi and hash brown sides. On my last visit the breakfast service was let down by a really long wait for the a la carte items, this time around it was fine apart from one day. The barista coffee was excellent and they were happy to keep the flat whites coming. For those in a hurry, staff were happy to organise a takeaway bag.
The afternoon tea service is a tiered stand with two sandwiches, two sweet items and a scone with butter - all the items rotated daily so there was plenty of variety if you're on a multi-night stay. The full suite of non-alcoholic drinks were available to accompany the service and alcoholic drinks were available at an additional charge.
The evening presentation was the highlight and featured a small buffet of snacks supplemented by a plate of four canapés brought to your table. The plated canapés rotated daily but were consistently of a really high quality with a variety of meat, seafood and plant-based items. The accompanying drinks selection is extensive with three coughtails, two mocktails, three sparkling wines, three whites, four reds, one rosé, five beers (including non-alcoholic) and a long list of spirits. Service was excellent throughout with proactive offers of more drinks and canapés, with last round called about ten minutes before the end of service.
It is a boutique hotel with just 139 rooms and a small footprint so there are occasions where the club space gets used as a private function space for visiting tour groups - this occurred on the Saturday where they closed the lounge from 7.15pm for a private event. It actually worked out better for me as they brought forward the evening canapés to 4.30pm and allowed me to stop by for a quick drink before heading out to Olivia Dean's concert.
Service in the lounge was a real highlight, all the staff are really friendly and some even remembered me from prior stays. They were very generous with the drinks and food, to the point where it felt like they were encouraging guests to order more!
F&B
Advieh is the hotel's main restaurant/bar and earned a place in the inaugural NZ Michelin Guide.
Breakfast at Advieh features a large continental breakfast buffet supplemented by an a la carte menu - at Advieh you can only choose one a la carte dish however they are much larger than the club items and there are more of them to choose from. I got the New Zealand breakfast, a classic big breakfast with sausages, bacon, tomato, mushroom, toast and eggs your way. My breakfast plate showed up before my coffee did which was a bit of a worry, however the staff noticed immediately and fast-tracked the coffee order.
Breakfast at Advieh typically costs NZD $49. If you have club access it's worth trying both although if I only had a short stay I'd probably choose the club, you get more variety by virtue of the smaller a la carte dishes and the atmosphere is quieter and more refined.
For lunch it was a beautiful sunny day so I sat out on the balcony. The menu is Middle Eastern-inspired and you can choose individual dishes or go with a set menu. I ordered the haku kingfish to start and the shawarma for the main, both were delicious and presented beautifully, I've always found presentation here to be a strong point. It was also a good opportunity to use the welcome drink vouchers, there are a vareity of beers, wines and non-alcoholic drinks to choose from.
For those hoping to use IHG Rewards F&B vouchers, after some initial difficulties I was able to apply it via the app.
Amenities
There is a large gym on the third floor next to the Club IC but it's a windowless space. If the weather is nice I'd recommend a walk or run around the area instead.
Location
Location is excellent for corporate and leisure guests alike, with transport connections close by and heaps of restaurants and attractions in walking distance. With the opening of the city rail link it has become a lot easier to get around Auckland by public transport. Waitematā Station is just across the square from the hotel and I found it super easy to get to/from the airport by taking the train to Puhinui Station and the airport bus from there. Cheap too, just $6.50!
Final Thoughts
It was a pretty perfect stay but there were two lowlights, both of which related to billing.
The first was with their application of the Ambassador complimentary weekend night. The terms of this are clear, for your Ambassador stay you pay for the first night and the second night is free. So if your first night is Friday, Saturday is free. And if Friday is cheaper than Saturday as is often the case, you're getting a more expensive night for free. This is why some ICs such as IC Sydney only let you check in on Saturday for the Ambassador rate, so they comp the (cheaper) Sunday night. Here instead of doing that they took the total for my three nights under the Ambassador rate, averaged it out equally and then deducted the average. Because Saturday was so much more expensive than the other nights this resulted in a ~$200 overcharge! I flagged it with the front desk and to their credit after raising it with their reservatiosn team they agreed to do it the way I expected but they presented it more as an exception rather than simply following the rate rules.
The second was with the Ambassador F&B credit, which at checkout the receptionist confirmed would be applied in addition to my IHG Rewards F&B voucher which would mean my lunch cost was fully covered, however when the invoice came through to my email I saw the Ambassador F&B credit was not there. I raised this by email and again the response was not an acknowledgement of a mistake but instead they said they should have explained it better. Like, what was there to explain! Anyway I had said I'd be happy with points in lieu of a refund given the small amount and they gave me more than enough points to make up for it.
It is a very nice IC and part of me wants to give them benefit of the doubt for not understanding all the benefits as they've only been open a few years, but I've stayed at newer ICs (e.g. Brisbane) and they didn't have any issues understanding. Regardless, both items resolved to my expectations so the moral of the story is just to check your bill
An enjoyable stay and I'm sure I will be back!
