IHG Accelerate 2016 Offers – Some Good & Some Bad
IHG is back with their latest version of the Accelerate promotion for stays from September 6 through December 15, 2016. For those not familiar, this promotion gives various targeted offers to members. Depending on your status, account history and other mythical factors, you might receive an offer to earn a lot of points or you might receive something not so nice.
While overall these promotions haven’t been great, my wife did receive a mattress worthy one recently, so it is always worth looking. Let’s take a look at my family’s three offers this time which includes another good one for my wife.
My Son’s Offer – Cry
My son, who’s account has never been used, has a terrible offer.
That is too many stays to be worth it.
My Offer – Yawn
Unfortunately I received a very very similar offer. While the 8,000 points for one stay in September could be tempting, I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
My Wife’s Offer – We Might Have A Winner!
My wife always seems to get the best offers on her account. Because she gets good offers, she also probably uses her account to stay more often thus triggering more offers. Chicken and the egg. Her offers this time are pretty good.
Full Offer Analysis
At first glance this offer looks better than it is. That is because there is a killer piece of information buried in the terms. One of her offers is for 5 nights so that goes out the door. One other offer requires a Points and Cash stay. As far as I understand, that won’t count as an actual stay. (It is an award.) So putting that aside, here is what she needs to do:
Book a stay in September and pay with her IHG Rewards credit card + complete a Points + Cash stay. That will net here a total of 35,000 points. Here is an example of a Cash & Points cost. You are basically paying $35.20 for 5,000 points. Let’s use this as an example.
So if we book an award night and use cash + points and do a $100 mattress run, the math looks like this:
- Cost: $135.20
- Points 40,000 (35,000 bonus + 5,000 saved with P&C)
- Cost per point: .00338 (Actually less because she will earn points on the actual stay as well.)
This offer still makes a lot of sense, but it is painful for one reason. We actually have an IHG award stay booked for September 2 that could easily be converted to Points + Cash. Unfortunately this promotion doesn’t begin until September 6, so we would have to do it another time.
Register & Find Your Offers
You can find your personalized offers and the full terms of the IHG Accelerate promotion on the offer page. You’ll have to login with your member number and password to see your offers.
Conclusion
There are still some good offers out there for IHG Accelerate, but unfortunately I fear most people will receive a bad offer like me. While my wife’s offer is a good one, that Points + Cash requirement throws me off because it requires an additional stay that we might not need. For now I’ll think about this a bit more.
Did you receive a great offer or a dud? Share in the comments!
 Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
NOTE: the math changes a bit if that P&C stay is really a mattress run, eg a stay done just to earn points. Then the math is:
Spend: 20K + $35 +$100 mattress #1
Earn: 35K
Net points increase: +15K
Total Spent: $135
Cost/pt = 0.9 ct
This compares to the typical cost of 0.7 ct/pt for a P+C reservation.
So it’s a no-go if you’re really doing a 2nd mattress run.
Can you book then cancel a points & cash stay? Part of my challenge is to “book a points & cash stay”, but it doesn’t explicitly state I actually have to use the reservation. Has anyone had luck with that in the past?
Exactly. We will see. Happy you and many people got it though. Appreciate the response man! Thank you!
not sure how everyone is getting their offers. must be a glitch. this promo shouldnt be open for sign ups yet until later. but good for you guys. many on reddit also cant sign up. we get an error message.
The first day the link came out it worked for awhile and then it gave errors. Then the next day it worked again (which is when I posted this), but apparently it is down again. You are right. It is probably just best to check back on September 6, although I hope this doesn’t mean that IHG is going to try to change offers like they did in the past. :O
Do you look under IHG® Rewards Club Offers for these offers. I don’t see one. Thanks for you help.
Follow the link in the post to the promotional site where you can login and see your offers.
IHG doesn’t view me as a V.I.P. and my offers total 32,500 points. The majority will come when I complete 3 and then all steps.
Elsewhere on the web, a member received offers >143,000 points.
I got an offer of 36,000 bonus points.
5,000 for stay once in Seotember
1,000 for thank you ihg member stay once
30,000 for earn double points starting with your second stay
Do you think this is worth it? Also can my second stay be just one night, I couldn’t find it had to be a certain number anywhere. Maybe stay 2 nights in a row but book separately??? Thank you
Pathetic! Mine is the same as your son’s.
Hubby and I got identical offers. Both are similar to your wife’s – 46,600
3,000 Stay Once Get 3,000
10,000 Stay 5 night(s) and earn 10,000 bonus points.
3,600 Earn 3,600 bonus points when you book 1 Bonus Points Package stay(s) and get to your next reward faster. ($25 for 5000 pts)
1,500 Book and pay for one stay with your IHG® Rewards Club Credit Card and earn bonus points.
23,500 Complete 3 of the 4 offers and earn (an additional) 23,500 bonus points.
5,000 Stay once in September and get 5,000 bonus points.
Question: Can I book a room for Hubby on my account for the bonus to count? Do I have to be with him? I need to book a couple of nights for him in September when he helps our son move in Colorado.
Can someone help decode this offer? Would appreciate any light that can be shed
Got below offer:
September Stay 5000
Stay once: 3000
Double Points: 30000
Earn double points starting with your second stay
Not sure whether that double bonus mentioned is like double bonus upto 30000 points…. There’s also no mention of number of nights needed to meet the bonus.
I got the same offer you did. I am a platinum {(due to Chase IHG card) with like 4 stays this year so far. Pretty disappointed, not much reason to mattress run if its double points up to 30k.
So I’m wondering if you can stack some of these bonus offers, and earns bonus points with just one stay?
eg book a 1 nite Bonus package in Sep, and from that one stay, get bonus points as follows:
3,000 pts for “Stay Once”
+ 1,500 (pay with IHG cc) = 8,100 pt in Bonus pts
+ 23,500 for doing 3 of 4 Offers –> 31,600 BONUS PTS EARNED
+ 5000 (Sep stay) –> 36,600 bonus pt
x 0.7 ct value = $256 VALUE??
Think this’ll work?
I tried chatting with IHG CS buyt the rep obvioucly was clueless about the whol deal. Kept saying “It’s not possible to predict how many points you will earn on your next stay”…
+ 5000 (Sep) –> 36,600 bonus pt x 0.7 ct value = $256 VALUE ??
Here is mine, for DP (i’m spire, for whatever reason)
65,400 Bonus Points
REWARDS FOR YOU
1,000 BONUS POINTS
When you stay your first night
+1,400 BONUS POINTS
When you stay a total of 2 nights
+3,000 BONUS POINTS
When you stay a total of 4 nights
+20,000 BONUS POINTS
When you stay a total of 9 nights
+40,000 BONUS POINTS
When you stay a total of 24 nights
REWARDS TO SHARE
1,000 POINTS TO SHARE
When you stay your first night
1 FREE NIGHT TO SHARE
When you stay 15 nights
Might be the easiest one I’ve ever received –
5000 – Stay Once
10000 – Stay 5 Nights
2300 – Book & Pay for 1 Stay on IHG MC
1000 – Purchase IHG Points
21700 – Achievement Bonus (complete 3 of 4 above)
5000 – September Bonus – Stay Once in September
So for a 1 night stay in September and buying a few points (which I’ll cost out separately), I’ll grab 35K points. Wish they were all like this. On the other hand, my wife would have an easier time getting her MBA than completing her offers this time around…..
Just a reminder, for those of you who need the “Points Purchase” hurdle; the current points purchase bonus offer (up to 80% – YMMV) doesn’t end until 9/9/16 – just in time to make that work for this Accelerate.
Here are the terms and conditions of this offer:
Offer available for purchases made between 12:00 AM ET August 12, 2016 and 11:59 PM September 9, 2016 inclusive. This is an exclusive, non-transferable offer for intended recipient only and may not be forwarded. Bonus points will be awarded upon completion of the transaction. Bonus points will be awarded to the recipient of the points purchase. Offer is subject to change. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Only purchases made online are eligible for bonus.
Price includes all applicable fees. Purchased Points are not refundable and are applicable toward all IHG® Rewards Club awards. Members may purchase a maximum of 60,000 points per calendar year and receive as a gift a maximum of 60,000 points per calendar year. Please allow 24-48 hours for points to post and appear in the recipient’s account. All other IHG® Rewards Club Terms and Conditions apply.
[…] today I covered my wife’s pretty good IHG Rewards Club Accelerate 4Q promotion. If you haven’t checked your targeted offers I highly recommend you do so. During the writing […]
Sucks in similar fashion and even more, so I’m out because it SUX. Buy via cancel works for me better. What I find entertaining: I use Holiday Inn Express almost always (viva frugal) and was incentivized: Discover Our Brands – Stay at 3 brands and Stay Smart – Stay at two Holiday Inn Express
I have the same offer as your wife so I am trying to figure out if this is actually a good deal or not.
Can you double-check your math for the .00338 cost per point? It looks like you are redeeming 20k points for the C+P. So wouldn’t your cost be $135.20 + 20k points? You earn 35k in the end (plus the regular stay points) but since you paid 20k to get there you really only gained 15k for your $135.20. This would make the cost per point something like 9/10ths of a cent each which is much higher than buying them outright with C+P reservations.
Yes, I agree with your math and I think Shawn left out the 20k points spend.
As I said, that is a stay I already have booked on points. It is an existing stay and those points are already spent. My math is 100% correct in the way I look at it, but I definitely understand your thoughts. If you had to mattress run it then you would of course take into account the points you spend, although you would want to use a lower category property than this.
But you are saying that your actual stay is before Sep 6
So you got me on this one which is why I hedged at the end. When I started writing the post I didn’t immediately realize my stay was outside of the dates, but did before publishing and made some changes. If I had to book an award stay that I didn’t need then I absolutely would count the points used towards the cost. If I already had a stay then I wouldn’t.
Like I said, you got me! 🙂
Also, I have the following
1) Stay once_earn 3,000
2) blah blah blah, not gonna happen
3) Book Bonus Points Package_earn 3,600
4) Pay with IHG card_earn 1,500
Complete 3 of 4 and earn 23,500
My question, can #1 and #3 be the same 1-night stay? I’ve read the T&C and can’t figure out why it would NOT be OK for it to be the same 1-night stay, but just wondering.
Yes 1& 3 will work; you just can’t mix and match the Points + Cash and paid nights for “Stay xxx Nights”.
Yeah 1, 2, and 4 will all combine so 1 stay to earn all of the points!
Mine would require 3 separate stays, each (1 stay) at a different brand, for 62.5k. Cheap mattress run may make it worthwhile.
So the 5k Sept Bonus offer does NOT count towards the 3 out of 4 requirement for 24.5k bonus points, right?
Last round was very lame for me but this one isn’t bad at all!
95.6k potential
3k – stay once
10k – 5 nights
31.2k – 3 brands
9.6k – 2 HI Express
1k – Points and cash
2.5k – 2 times with corporate rate
2.3k – Pay 1 stay with IHG CC
31k – achievement for 6 of the 7 above
5k – September
My last couple were lame. This one is better, but since I don’t have much planned/required hotel use the rest of 2016 it’s not good enough for a mattress run unless I’m terrible at math.
3,000 Stay Once
10,000 Stay 5 night(s)
1,500 Spend on your IHG® Rewards Club Credit Card
25,500 Achievement Bonus for 3 of the 3 offers above
5,000 Stay once in September
So 5 nights with at least one in September would net 45,000 points.
Lowest IHG property nightly rates in my region seem to be around $85 per night so meh. I may have a single night stay in September that I can justify, so at least that would bring an extra 9,500 points if paid on the IHG credit card. Likely will do that.
Mine wasn’t too bad but my mom had a great offer. Only two nights = 35K.
Mine looks pretty damned fantastic.
Up to 65,000 bonus points, including 24,000 bonus for 2 intercontinental stays, 5,000 for a stay in September, and 1,000 for one night anywhere. 5,000 for five nights, and 30,000 bonus for completing all 3. I might need to do some booking.