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At the beginning of the month, IHG Rewards sent out emails to its members to let them know that the expiration dates of some free night certificates would be extended and if my account is anything to go by, it looks like those expiration extensions have now been processed.
Select IHG free night certificates extended
The emails announcing the extension to the free night certificate expiration dates contained both good and bad news.
The good news was that if your account holds a free night certificate earned in 2021 (which will have a 2022 expiration date), you would see that certificate’s expiration date extended through to the end of 2022. The bad news was that if you still have a certificate that is due to expire at the end of 2021, its expiration date will not be extended…and that’s exactly the situation that’s now showing in my IHG Rewards account.
My IHG Rewards free night certificate that was due to expire at the end of this year will still do exactly that, while my free night certificate that was due to expire in April 2022 will now be valid through 31 December 2022.
This is actually pretty generous of IHG as not all hotel chains are offering extensions as long as these (the longest extension that Marriott has offered so far has been for 6 months) and as my other certificate has already had its validity increased by almost 8 months, I’m not overly disappointed that I’ll have to make sure I use it before this year is up.
Still no InterContinental Ambassador news?
At the same time that IHG announced the free night certificate extensions, it also sent out emails to Royal Ambassador and Kimpton Inner Circle members to let them know that their elite statuses were good for a further year.
As far as InterContinental Ambassador statuses go, however, there was no news and, to the best of my knowledge, that still remains the case.
The section of the IHG website where status and points extension announcements are usually posted continues to only say that “The Ambassador ‘Benefits Guarantee’ is suspended for stays up to and including January 31, 2022, due to COVID-19-related operational constraints” and makes no mention of any status extensions.
This isn’t to say that extensions aren’t on the way (IHG’s inability to communicate with its membership is legendary), but there doesn’t appear to be any positive news to share at this stage.
Have any IC Ambassadors heard otherwise?
Bottom Line
The free night extensions that IHG Rewards promised back at the beginning of the month are now live in member accounts so the certificates are now good for 1-night bookings (worth up to 40,000 points) through 31 December 2022. Valid certificates earned prior to 2021 will still expire at the end of this year so if you have any of those in your account, now would be a good time to think about how you can use them.
Currently, successful new applicants for the 
