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 that 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. For more details please see the advertising disclosure found at the bottom of every page.
In the normal course of events usually I find myself having to chase up various loyalty programs to ensure that my accounts are credited with the miles and points I’m due, but right now I’m a little unsure as to why one hotely loyalty program has just credited my account with a nice chunk of points.
Over the past few days my IHG Rewards account has been credited with over 20,000 points that are accompanied by a description that reads “AMB 10% Redemption Rebate” and, although I know what that text is referring to (InterContinental Ambassador 10% Rebate on award stays), I’m struggling to understand why IHG would think that these are points that I should be credited with.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Back in 2018 the only IHG status I held was IHG Rewards Platinum status (courtesy of my IHG Rewards credit card).
- In 2018 I booked 5 award nights at two different InterContinental properties for stays that took place in April 2019.
- In March 2019 (shortly before the stays were due to take place) I purchased InterContinetal Ambassador status because I figured I’d probably get value out of it during my stays and during the rest of the year. Note that this was a new status purchase and not a renewal.
- I paid $200 for InterContinental Ambassador staus and I’m 100% sure that no bonus offers were thrown in at the time I purchased the status.
- In May 2019 (almost exactly a month after my last award stay) I saw the 10% points rebate that my IHG Rewards credit card gives me hit my account. The points which posted totaled exactly 10% of the cost of the 5 award nights I had booked.
- I have not had or booked any more award nights with IHG Rewards points since then.
- 5.5 months after my last award night my IHG Rewards account has again been credited with a number of points that exactly equals 10% of the cost of my 5 award nights from earlier in the year with “AMB 10% Redemption Rebate” as the description.
Why?
I didn’t have InterContinental Ambassador Status when I made my reservations (when the points were taken out of my account), the InterContinental Ambassador status that I purchased didn’t offer me a 10% rebate on any award night stays (I know some renewal options offer a 10% rebate on stays but my purchase definitely didn’t mention anything of the kind) and yet here I am over 20,000 points better off then I was a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve double-checked the InterContinental Ambassador benefits page just to make sure that I’m not missing something obvious (I don’t think I am) so this is a bit of a mystery to me.
The only answer to all this that I can come up with is that I got very, very lucky in two ways:
- The InterContinental Ambassador status that I purchased gave me a 10% rebate that wasn’t mentioned anywhere.
- The 10% InterContinental Ambassador rebate is based on the date that a stay takes place and not the dates that a booking is made…which seems very generous.
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Clearly I’m not complaining but I don’t like not understanding something in the points & miles world so if anyone can shed some light on this I’d be very grateful.
Maybe the award rate went up at the properties and they just retroactively credited any Ambassadors that stayed there this year the difference? Either that or there was some promo when you signed up and you just didn’t realize it.