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.
The IHG Accelerate promotion is back for the second time in 2016 and will run from 1 June to 31 August 2016. There is a change to past IHG Accelerate promotions in that it would appear that this promotion is open to only those whose account is registered outside the Americas. IHG members living in the Americas already have an ongoing promotion – Share Forever.
I’ve written about IHG’s Accelerate promotions in the past (Can You Maximize The IHG “Accelerate” Promotion?) and shown how I got excellent value from once such promotion back in 2015 (3 “Free” Nights in a 5-Star Hotel – How I Maximized An IHG Promotion) and, despite the last promotion being a bit of bust for both Joanna and I, it’s still exciting to see what a new Accelerate promotion brings.
I have both Joanna’s and my IHG accounts registered, legitimately, outside of the US so, while we weren’t eligible to register for “Share Forever”, this time we were in luck.
IHG Accelerate Promotion Summer 2016
Full Terms & Conditions are here.
Headlines:
- Members must register for the IHG Accelerate promotion before any stays will count.
- Each challenge/offer must be completed between 1 June and 31 August 2016.
- Kimpton Hotels are excluded as, it appears, are the IHG affiliate hotels in Las Vegas.
- Stays must be booked direct with IHG to qualify for the promotion.
- Group rates, employee rates and numerous other discounted rates are not eligible for the IHG Accelerate challenges – read the full T&Cs to see which rates are excluded.
- Only one room per member per qualifying stay will qualify for the promotion.
What’s Does The IHG Accelerate Promotion Offer?
IHG varies its offers from member to member but we can tell from the terms and conditions that he minimum anyone will be offered will be 30,000 IHG rewards points:
Upon Registration (as defined below), members will be presented with the opportunity to earn at least 30,000 bonus points upon completion of all offers presented.
To see what targets/challenges/offers you’ve been given, log in and view the promotion here.
New Member Promotion
In the past it was new IHG members who were offered the most lucrative promotions (both Joanna and I made the most of that) but, recently, IHG seems to have learned from its mistakes and new member promotions haven’t been all that great. Things are no different this time around.
To earn all 31,500 points on offer a new member would have to stay 3 nights, over two separate stays and that’s not a great deal.
Even if you were to book those nights and stays on cheap nights at Holiday Inn properties (airport locations can be good for this) they would still set you back £130 – £180 ($188 – $260) and all you would be getting in return is enough points for a single night at a mid-tier hotel…which you can often get for not much more than you would be paying to complete this promotion.
If you plan on staying at IHG properties anyway then you may as well sign up for the promotion and earn some free points but I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to book IHG stays if this is what you’ve been offered.
Joanna’s IHG Accelerate Promotion
Joanna isn’t a new member of IHG Rewards so her promotion looks different – very different:
Joanna can earn a maximum 55,000 IHG Rewards points with her Accelerate Promotion targets and that would be enough for a free night at a good number of top IHG properties around the world. It’s not enough for all the top properties since IHG increased the number of points need for some InterContinental properties to 60,000/night.
So how good is Joanna’s offer?
To earn all 55,000 bonus points Joanna would have to stay 4 nights over 2 separate stays with one of those stays being booked as a “bonus points package” meaning that it will not be bookable at the cheapest rate.
That’s not a great offer. It’s not terrible but it’s not great either.
Joanna isn’t booked to stay at any IHG properties during the promotion period and, as the 4 nights required to complete the promotion will cost in the region of £200 – £250 ($290 – $360) – which is roughly the cost of the room the bonus points would purchase – it doesn’t look as if it would be worthwhile to move any stays over to IHG.
My IHG Accelerate Promotion
Traditionally Joanna gets the better offers out of the two of us but this time things are different. I think my offers are better:
Like Joanna I too have been targeted for a potential 55,000 IHG rewards points but, if I’m happy settling for 45,000 points, my tasks are easier and cheaper to achieve.
To earn 45,000 points I would have to stay 2 nights over two separate stays with one booking being a points & cash booking.
I could pick up the first night for $57.60 ($84)…..
and the second night (the cash & points package) for £48 ($70)….
…bringing my total outlay to £105.60 ($154) & 5,000 IHG Rewards points.
The net result gives me 40,000 IHG Rewards points (45,000 from the promotion less 5,000 for the cash & points booking) at a cost of 0.38 cents per point….which is excellent value when you consider that I value IHG Rewards points at around 0.6 cents per point.
Warning
You may be tempted to attempt to game the IHG system by changing your address to one outside of the Americas just to participate in this promotion. That’s not a great idea if you value your IHG rewards account and the points you currently have in it.
The terms and conditions clearly say the following:
IHG reserves the right to remove a member’s bonus points or cancel a member’s account if fraudulent use of the Promotion is detected.
Providing a fictitious (or even temporary) address would be seen by IHG as fraud…andy they’re getting very, very good at detecting this and clamping down on such activity. You’ve been warned.
Has anyone got a more lucrative promotion that the ones mentioned above? If you have, go ahead and post details in the comments section so we can all see who is being offered what this time around.
[…] the Holiday Inn Heathrow Terminal 5 as part of my plan to earn some quick IHG rewards points before the summer Accelerate promotion ended. I spent a little bit of time at the property but I didn’t end up spending the night (that […]