TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.
IHG Rewards has released details of its Fall Accelerate Promotion and, as usual, the promotional offers differ from member to member. I’ve been looking forward to seeing the details of this promotion for some time as my last few Accelerate offer have been less than stellar – it’s like IHG knows how I love to game its offers 🙂
As with previous IHG Accelerate promotions the details of the bonuses that can be earned will vary from account to account (you’ll have to log in to IHG Rewards to see what you’ve been offered) but, from what I’ve seen, the weakest bonus on offer appears to be around 32,000 points.
One of the more important thing to stress at this point is that you need to be very careful with some of the terms & conditions so I’ll set out the ones to be aware of below.
IHG Accelerate Fall Promotion – Rules
The full terms & conditions of the Fall Accelerate Promotion can be found via this link but these are the more important T&Cs you should probably be aware of:
- The promotion runs between 1 September and 31 December 2017
- You can register for the promotion now (via this link) but must not book any stays before 1 September if you want them to count towards the promotion (I’ve been caught out by this in the past)
- Unlike some past Accelerate promotions, Kimpton Hotels are included in this promotion
- Most group/tour rates will not qualify for the promotion
- Highly discounted rates (usually 50% and over) can often not count as a “qualifying room rate” so check with IHG before you book.
- There will be no retroactive credit if you make a stay before registration for the Accelerate promotion
The Promotions
As we have become used to, each IHG member’s Accelerate promotion offer will consist of a number of challenges that will each earn the member points once they’re completed. An added bonus is earned when a set number of challenges have been completed.
Right now I have access to two IHG Rewards accounts and they have been assigned very different promotions.
Promotion 1 – Joanna
Joanna’s promotion allows her to earn up to 35,000 points and looks like this:
This is a truly woeful set of challenges if you’re looking to game the promotion.
3 nights at any IHG property (in September) would earn Joanna an unimpressive 8,000 points and, as the three nights would cost around $200, that would value the points at 2.5 cents each.
That a ludicrous amount to pay for IHG points so that rules out the possibility of doing a mattress run and, as 8,000 points isn’t exactly life-changing, there’s no temptation to move any stays over to IHG either.
The Fall Accelerate promotion is a bust for Joanna
Promotion 2 – Me
My promotion is different to Joanna’s and the headline number of points I can earn is a little higher:
While my promotion is definitely better than what Joanna was offered I can’t say that I’m tempted to take IHG up on it.
With 2 weekend stays (2 nights each), once cash & points stay and one other night (total of 6 nights) I could collect most of the bonus:
- 3,000 from the September stay bonus
- 2,000 from the “stay once” bonus
- 3,400 by booking two of the stays though the IHG app
- 8,400 by staying over two weekends
- 2,400 for the cash & points stay
- 11,800 for completing 5 of the 6 offers
I’d receive 41,000 points but I would also have to spend at least 5,000 points to complete the cash & points challenge leaving me with a net of 36,000 points.
36,000 points won’t get me all that much and I can’t see it being worth booking extra stays or moving any stays over to IHG.
Being one who likes to plan way in advance I already have my fall accommodation booked and I don’t really want to move any of my stays over to IHG – I have top-tier status at the chains I’m booked to stay with and I want to make the most of the benefits they’ll be offering…especially the cash-saving benefits like free breakfast.
Bottom Line
Joanna’s promotion really isn’t worth considering for a single moment – frankly it’s terrible – and mine doesn’t really excite me either.
Our recent run of Accelerate offers has been uninspiring to say the least so it looks like we’ll be going yet another quarter without any serious IHG stays (we may redeem some points for a weekend away).
How about you guys? What do your offers look like? Anything worth pursuing or anything gameable?
If you do have a set of challenges that look promising don’t forget the most important thing of all:
Don’t make any bookings before 1 September because they will not count toward the Fall 2017 Accelerate promotion.
It’s all to easy to take a look at your challenges, to check pricing on the IHG webpage and, when you suddenly see a great rate that you could use, to book a stay there and then.
Don’t do it! I’ve done it and it’s very annoying when you realise just how dumb you’ve been.
