IHG 2016 Accelerate Promotion Excitement!
IHG’s Q1 2016 Accelerate promotion was released during the past couple of days. I have been a little under the weather so hadn’t really had a chance to look. Today I finally logged into my account to see my targeted offers and it was the same old junk. I need to stay 5 nights to complete one of the offers and the final “jackpot” isn’t triggered until I complete ALL offers. Here are my offers:
As you can see, I can get 11.5K points off of one stay, but that is boring and not enough to get me to bite. After looking at my offer, I opened my wife’s. Normally ours are very close to being the same, so I was surprised to see just how much better she has it than me!
While she too has the “Stay 5 nights” offer, her bonus at the end only requires that she complete 3 of the 4 offers. Good news! The way I read this, if she completes a Bonus Point Package night in January and pays for it with her IHG Rewards Club credit card then she will trigger the bonus at the end and make 45,000 points total. But it is actually better than that!
Breakdown
After seeing this I did a quick search in Las Vegas for rooms in January and found a Holiday Inn Express that looks interesting. For $99 for a night, she could complete the requirements and earn 5,000 bonus points. Per my calculations this is what she would earn:
- 45,000 from Accelerate
- 5,000 bonus from the rate
- 990 base points
- 495 Platinum elite bonus
- 51,485 TOTAL! (Enough for a free night in a top tier property.)
This could potentially be even more if she is targeted for other offers between now and then with codes that can be added. I am not counting on that, but it is a possibility.
You can register for the promotion and find your offer here.
Worth a Mattress Run?
We may not even have to do a mattress run for this since we might have some travel plans that lineup with the promotion. If not, I definitely think this would be worth it since buying 51,485 points for $110.88 including tax works out to be a $.0021 cost per point which is excellent! Either way I am glad to finally see one of these offers that piques my interest!
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[…] in December I wrote about my wife’s pretty awesome offer for IHG’s latest promotion “Accelerate”. As a reminder, here it […]
We got the same two offer packages here in my household. Wonder though if you’re reading your offer correctly. ??
Once again, the IHG “into the chaos” team in Manila apparently can’t count or proof-read. Note on your offer, the final offer: “Complete 3 of the 3 offers above” (and get the bonus) Ummmm….. one problem, you have four offers above that line…. !!! So how are your figuring you only get 11K off one stay? What 3 count? Could it not also be read as pick which 3 (of the four)…. and don’t count the one requiring five stays?
Same Manila-math “thing” with your wife’s offer….. In that last line, it reads, “complete 3 of the 4 offers above” (except that there’s FIVE — 5 offers above that line…. so is this really 3 of the 5?)
Belatedly occurs to me that I’m the one misreading this — that we’re not supposed to count the top line — the “bonus offer” as one of the “offers above.” (as such, then I can follow the new igh math, i.e., 3 of 3, not counting the fourth one at the top, or 3 or 4, not counting the fifth one at the top) Clarity not the watchword at IHG.
In my lame self-defense, our original IHG messages about the promotion did NOT come in the same order (and there was no indication of a “bonus” offer — which we’re left to guess doesn’t count as one of the “3 of 3” or “3 of 4”)
Here’s the operate part of one of our emails (note the very different order):
Points Earned
0 of 55,000 points
Completed Offers
0 of 5
Days Left
Earn 55,000 total bonus points.
Complete all your offers to get 55,000 total bonus points.
Point Value
Offer Description
Status
5,000
Stay Once Get 5,000
Thank you for choosing IHG. We’d like to see you again soon. Stay once and earn 5,000 bonus points.
1,500
Spend on your IHG® Rewards Club Credit Card
Book and pay for one stay with your IHG® Rewards Club Credit Card and earn 1,500 bonus points.
10,000
Stay More, Earn More
Get closer to the rewards you want when you stay 5 night(s) and earn 10,000 bonus points.
5,000
January Bonus Offer
Stay once in January and get 5,000 bonus points.
33,500
Your Achievement Bonus
Complete 3 of the 3 offers above and earn (an additional) 33,500 bonus points (excluding the January Bonus Offer).
I may have the worst offer ever. Eesh.
Complete all of your Accelerate 2016 offers and earn 43,000 total bonus points.
5,000 January Bonus Offer
Stay once in January and get 5,000 bonus points.
6,000 Stay Once Get 6,000
Thank you for choosing IHG. We’d like to see you again soon. Stay once and earn 6,000 bonus points.
8,000 Stay 4 nights
Stay 4 nights and earn 8,000 bonus points.
3,000 Stay 7 More Nights
Get an additional 3,000 points after night 7.
3,000 Stay 10 More Nights
Get an additional 3,000 points after night 10.
3,000 Stay 13 More Nights
Get an additional 3,000 points after night 13.
15,000 Stay 16 More Nights
Get an additional 15,000 points after night 16.
I got the exact same offer as your wife, and was pretty excited about it! I’ve never had an IHG promotion I could afford to participate in before. I had an upcoming stay booked at the beginning of January anyway, and I was going to use points, but cancelled and rebooked with a bonus package. Hopefully it all works out and I get the extra 45,000 points without any issues. (Not 55,000 because I’m not staying 5 nights so won’t get those 10,000 points.) Also, thanks to DaninMCI for the tip about the MasterCard surprise bonus contest. I had overlooked that and hadn’t registered, so I just went and registered now. Awesome!
Your not factoring in the Mastercard surprise bonus contest on top of this offer.
Shawn,
Are you sure about this. As I read it each stay only count once, so you need to stay twice. The nice thing is you can book and add someone name in so they can stay there and you earn points.
My offer is 55000 points if I complete all the tasks not including the 5000 bonus points for the January stay. Plus the points for using my ihg card.
Do cash and points count as qualifying nights? thanks!
No, IHG “cash & points” are essentially points stays where you buy the balance of the points then they are applied to the stay, if you cancel you get the points back, including the ones you paid for.
Nearly identical to the one my wife got for this quarter, we actually did a 1 nt stay she needed for work to meet it and all the points posted.
Do reward nights count as stays?
Nice man! Really happy you got such a great offer. Thanks for sharing. Totally worth a mattress run.
Also, I was wondering how your wife got such an awesome offer? Any thoughts? Does she not stay as often compared to your account?
I ask because I have NEVER stayed at a IHG property and I got an Accelerate 2016 offer that is a piece of shit. Much worse than yours. Not sure why.
Get this: NO Jan offer. NO Stay Once offer. Staying 3 nights ONLY gets me 2k points and… MAX after completing 5 of 5 is 33k points!! WTF!!
Anyway, thought I would share that to let people know how crappy promos can be.
I have the same offer but thought I was reading it wrong. 50 k+ for one night stay? Maybe we are missing something?
That is how my winter accelerate offer worked…stayed one night for $90 and got 45k in points.