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IHG Rewards was the first of the major hotel chains to announce measures to help its members earn and retain status when it lowered its elite status thresholds back in the second week of March. Since then, the loyalty program has lagged its competitors with most of its efforts but it has now finally caught up with the rest of the pack by announcing status extensions across the board.
Here’s the announcement in full:
All members’ program status will be automatically extended through January 2022, allowing members to enjoy all the benefits of the status they earned during 2019.
For Spire Elite members this includes the Choice benefit of 25,000 bonus points or gifting of Platinum Elite status to someone each year
This change will be automatically reflected in member accounts in the coming weeks.
This is a nice move by IHG and it’s made even better by the fact that Spire elites (IHG’s top-tier elites) are being given their Choice benefit as well as a status extension – that’s more than Hyatt and Marriott have done for their more loyal guests.
It’s worth noting that IHG is keeping in place the revised status earning criteria for 2020…
…so anyone who has already managed to lock-in a good number of elite qualifying nights (or elite qualifying points) this year may have a chance at improving their status if travel is allowed to resume later this year.
This update from IHG comes on top of the news that it is extending the expiration dates of the free night certificates offered by its co-branded credit cards in the US and UK and that InterContinental Ambassador memberships are being extended too (albeit by only 3 months).
Bottom Line
To a lot of US-based IHG fans this news will be less important than the news about free nights certificates being extended because you only need to be a holder of the Chase IHG Rewards Club Premier credit card to get mid-tier status (Platinum) with the hotelier….but it’s very good news for everyone else and the fact that all Spire elites will still get their Choice benefit is an unexpectedly generous bonus.
I still find it interesting that it doesn’t appear as if IHG has sent out any emails to its Rewards Club members to let them know of the improvements that it has announced (if you’ve received an email, please let me know) so there’s still a communication issue with the hotelier but, having said that, I have to give credit where credit is due – IHG may be late to the party but at least it has finally turned up.
This is good news, a little late, but good news for all IHG members. I also notice that all my Chase certificates had the expiration date extended. Now if they would only provide some real perks (breakfast, room upgrades, lounge access where available) for stays including free nights, I would be giving them more business.