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After a few fallow months, IHG has finally unveiled a new global promotion which will run for the whole of the final quarter of 2025, and it’s probably fair to assume that this will be the last global IHG promotion of the year.
Like quite a few recent promotions that we’ve seen, this one isn’t going to get many pulses racing and it has an annoying clause built into it, but if there’s any chance that you’re going to be booking at least two stays with IHG anyway, you should register now and, hopefully, pick up a few bonus points along the way.
IHG’s last big promotion of 2025
- Register (here) by 31 December 2025.
- Stay between 1 October and 31 December 2025.
- Earn the following:
- No bonus points on your first stay
- 2x bonus points on your second stay
- 3x bonus points on your third stay and each stay thereafter.
- A maximum of 70,000 bonus points is available through this promotion.
Be aware that while you can leave it as late as 31 December to register, waiting that long would be pointless (for most people) as stays completed prior to registration will not qualify for the promotion.
Key terms
- To participate in the ‘Up to 3X’ Promotion, an individual must have an active, valid IHG One Rewards member account (sign up for free via this link) and must register for the promotion (here).
- Members can pre-register for this Promotion starting 16 September 2025 until 30 September 2025.
- Members will be able to stay and earn IHG One Rewards bonus points under this Promotion beginning on 1 October 2025 and ending on 31 December 2025.
- Members who did not register during the Pre-Registration Period may register for the Promotion during the Promotion Period.
- After registering for the Promotion, a member can earn 2X bonus points beginning on their second qualifying stay and 3X bonus points beginning on their third qualifying stay and each qualifying stay thereafter, for a maximum of 70,000 bonus points total during the promotion period.
- For the purposes of this Promotion, a ‘Qualifying Stay’ is defined as a minimum one (1) night stay at a participating hotel booked under a Qualifying Rate, with total spend exceeding $30 USD (or local currency equivalent) for each night.
- Room nights outside of the Promotion Period are not included, and room nights that are part of a stay that was completed prior to registration for the Promotion are also not included.
- Stays booked using Rewards Nights or Points + Cash are not Promotion-Eligible Qualifying Stays for the purposes of this Promotion.
- Bookings made through online travel agencies or other reservation sites such as booking.com or expedia.com also do not qualify under this Promotion.
- If more than one member who registered for the Promotion checks into the same room, only one member is eligible to earn points under the Promotion for those nights that qualify.
- If a member books more than one room on the same night, the member will receive credit towards this Promotion for only one of the rooms that also meets the requirements of a qualifying room night under the Promotion.
- For the Up to 3X Promotion, earning ‘2X’ or ‘2X points’ on your second qualifying stay before 31 December 2025 means the total number of regular ‘base points’ and promotional ‘bonus points’ combined will equal two (2) times the base points the member would normally receive just for being an IHG One Rewards member.
Full terms and conditions (which you should read carefully) can be found on the promotion page.
Quick thoughts
Straight away I don’t like this promotion as it rules out the first stay during the promotion period. That’s an incredibly annoying condition that I really wish rewards programs would stop using.
I thought we’d seen the back of this nonsense, but then Hyatt brought it back with one of its promotions earlier in the year and now we have IHG doing the same thing, so I guess we’re back to having to live with it.
I’m also not a fan of the cap that IHG has put on this promotion’s earnings. In the world of IHG One Rewards, 70,000 points isn’t much at all (IHG’s frequent points sales value 70,000 points at just $350) and quite a few road warriors will probably find that they hit this cap quite quickly.
Those gropes aside, the key thing to keep in mind here is that it may pay to be tactical with your bookings.
If, for example, you are planning a big (expensive) IHG stay within this promotion period, you should probably make sure that you (a) register as soon as possible and that you (b) book a super-cheap stay right at the beginning of the promotion period to get that first (non-qualifying) stay out of the way and to make sure that your big stay earns you at least 2x bonus points.
Depending on how expensive that stay is, it may also be worth you booking a second super-cheap IHG stay early in the promotion period to make sure that the expensive say earns you 3x points.
Clearly, you’ll need to work out what your potential earnings from the expensive stay will be before you can decide if making one or two cheap stays makes economic sense, but for some people, one or two mattress runs will probably make sense (just don’t forget that the bonus earnings are capped at 70,000 points).
From my point of view this promotion changes nothing at all (I had no IHG bookings planned and I don’t see anything here to change that), but I’ve registered nonetheless just in case something very, very unusual happens and I find myself making multiple IHG stays between 1 October and the end of the year – you should probably do the same.
Bottom line
What we expect to be the final big global IHG One Rewards promotion for 2025 has now been announced, but it’s unlikely to lead to a stampede of people looking to make new bookings.
Excluding the first stay made during the promotion period is a cheap move by IHG One Rewards and capping the potential earnings at just 70,000 points doesn’t make the program look any better.
Nevertheless, some kind of promotion is better than no promotion at all and there will be plenty of people out there who will max out what this promotion is offering, so that’s something to celebrate.
Don’t forget to register before your stay (or you won’t earn any bonuses at all regardless of how many stays you make), and don’t forget to check what savings are open to you through your credit cards before you pay for any stays.
It can be tempting to just reach for an IHG co-branded credit card when it comes time to check out, but if you’ve been targeted for an offer by Amex or Chase (on a non IHG card), those offers can sometimes represent a better deal.
