IHG (Formerly Priority Club) Fall Promo: The Big Win

Most people will know the program that covers such brands as Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental Hotels as Priority Club.  They’ve changed the name of the program to IHG Rewards.  I don’t find their program that rewarding so I don’t spend a lot of time writing about it or staying at the properties.  That being said, they offered me a lucrative amount of points (71,800 in all) if I completed all the goals of the challenge.

You need to register for the promotion to see what types of offers you get, but some of mine are typical of other examples I’ve seen.  Some people I know got offers that yield over 100,000 points if maxed out.  Those goals didn’t seem easy to hit, but this will definitely depend on your traveling patterns.  The promotion runs from September 1, 2013 to the end of 2013, so there’s plenty of time to achieve your goals if you’re interested.  Here’s what I received:

Stay at any IHG Hotel and receive 1,000  bonus points.  This one is kind of a yawner but obviously easy to achieve.

Stay a total of 5 nights and receive 6,700 bonus points.  A nice bonus if I had 5 nights planned during the promo period.

Stay at 2 different IHG brands and receive 12,000 points.  This one seems like a no-brainer if you were staying a total of 5 nights.  IHG has 11 sub-brands and thousands of properties, so it should be easy to find 2 different brands if you stay 5 nights.

Book 2 separate stays through their booking engine and earn 4,000 points.  Again, if 5 nights is in your future, this is low-hanging fruit.

Complete a survey for 100 points.  Generally speaking, a waste of time except for something a bit further down.

Stay at 2 locations from a long list of city locations and earn 12,000 points.  This one features cities like NYC, DC, Montreal, Denver, Mexico City, Vancouver, Seattle and has plenty of low and high-end properties.

Complete all offers for 36,000 bonus points.  And, this is why it’s worth it to do the survey, but only if you were completing everything else on the list.

All of my offers could be completed across 2 stays of a total of 5 nights.  That means a bonus of over 14,000 points a night, which is very good by Priority Club IHG standards.

But, not all points are created equal.  A top category property with IHG requires a 50,000 point redemption, whereas Hyatt’s top category requires 22,000 points.  In a real life example, the Intercontinental Times Square in Manhattan would cost you 50,000 IHG points whereas the Andaz 5th Avenue (Hyatt) would cost you 22,000.

I don’t consider this promotion a bad one.  Rather, it is interesting, in that it’s not binary (stay X nights, get X points).  It’s a great opportunity for IHG regulars, but you’ll need to login and see what your specific offers are.

Related articles

• Hyatt’s New Fall Promo: New Possibilities
• Starwood’s Fall Promo Is Out: Take Two Is Par For The Course