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Continuing today’s TFM theme of catching up with IHG news…
Since the middle of September IHG has been running a watered down version of its usual Accelerate promotion in which all IHG Rewards members can earn double points on stays (starting with their second stay) up to a variable pre-set maximum. Just recently IHG has made a couple of changes to the promotion rules and they could be good news for you.
IHG tailors is offers/promotions to individual members (click here to see your offer) so this is what my offer looks like:
“Tempting” isn’t a word I use to describe my promotion offer.
The original terms of the promotion limit my “double points” earnings to a paltry 15,000 points, I only earn 5,000 for spending two nights at IHG properties and I’d have to be nuts to think that 4,500 bonus points was a good offer for spending 2 weekends with IHG.
Still, some people got noticeably better offer than I did and those offers may have just got even better.
IHG’s Two Promotion Improvements
IHG has quietly extended the promotion end date from 16 December to 31 December 2018 so anyone with IHG reservations over the holidays will now see their booking(s) count towards the promotion.
IHG has removed the limit to the number of points people can earn as part of the “double points” promotion. All points earned after the first stay will now be doubled with no cap to earnings.
Thoughts
In my case this is all too little too late but this may be good news for IHG regulars.
Personally, I’m not about to move my upcoming stays to IHG because of the update to the promotion rules (it’s still not a worthwhile promotion for me) but the removal of the cap on promotional points earnings could be good for some.
Most IHG brands offer earnings of 10 IHG Rewards Points per dollar so the new promotion rules essentially mean that travelers will now earn 20 points/dollar at most IHG properties through the end of the year (as long as they’ve already made one stay since 16 September).
Prior to the cap on double points being lifted the highest cap I saw offered was for 30,000 points so a spend of $3,000 (after your first stay) would have seen that cap reached. Most people appear to have had their double points bonus capped at just 15,000 points and that would have been reached at just $1,500 of spend.
That’s not a lot of spend for road warriors who spend a considerable amount of time at IHG properties so the removal of the limit will really benefit this group of travelers.
[…] IHG Improves Its End Of Year Promotion In A Couple Of Ways […]
I’ve been an IHG loyalist for a long time. But their recent devaluations and their now absolutely pathetic Accelerate offers have made me less loyal and I now I am much less inclined to stay at an IHG. When their points were more valuable and easier to get I tried to always stay at IHG, but not anymore.
While I can’t say that I’ve ever been an IHG loyalist, I can say that I used to give IHG a lot more of my travel spend than I do now.
I share your sentiments about the devaluations and declining value of points but my major gripe is that IHG’s status levels are pretty pathetic. When you can get better benefits from Hilton and Marriott why would anyone go out of their way to spend most of their nights at IHG properties?
I’ll still buy points when they can help me book a great deal and I still hold an IHG Rewards credit card because I get value there too….but I can count the number of paid nights I had at IHG properties this year on a single hand.