Hotel Loyalty Program Insight: IHG Rewards Program

This post brought to you by IHG Rewards Club. As usual, the content and opinions expressed below are mine :-), (that of Passrider.com).

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved the Holiday Inn brand. It maybe as I’m a simple traveler and I like value and I know what I get each time. Plus, if I ever have an issue, I know it will be addressed. yes, no matter how good brands are there will be issues. The key is how these issues are handled and Holiday Inn has always done well for me in the past.

Oh, they also usually have a 4p or a 6p same day cancellation policy for most of their properties which works perfectly for standby travel. And if you want to just go ahead and pay for your room, the best rates are available more than 3 days in advance.

As I travel so much, I ensure that I sign up for the hotel loyalty programs as I can’t always find the same hotel brand in all the cities I visit. Do I have a favorite brand? Umm… that’s a tough one. I do have a short list though.

What’s your favorite?

Today, they are called IHG, Intercontinental Hotel Group, but they are still Holiday Inn to me despite all the different brands. I’ve also been a member of their loyalty program that used to be called Priority Club now IHG Rewards for a while now. And why not? I get the following perks:

• Early check-in
• Late check out
• Fee Wifi
• Free Breakfast
• Upgrades if available

I get rewarded for each stay plus they also have a program called Ambassador where you pay $200 to join in the first year and you get cool perks plus a coupon for a free weekend night when another is purchased at any Intercontinental property worldwide. This alone pays for the annual membership. And the renewal is $150.

IHG always have some cool promos so you can earn points for free hotel stays in the future. The last one was the Stay More, Earn More promo and I just got credited my last 13,800 points for following the promo rules; the current one is called IHG Share Forever; basically you get a bounty for each stay. Here are some points to note. But check out all the details on their site:

• From May 1, 2015 to September 2, 2015, you will earn 500 Points for your next IHG hotel stay
• Earn another 500 points for that same hotel stay to share with another member! (Or keep the points for yourself!)
• Earn from 68,500 to 115,500 “Share Forever” bonus points plus a maximum 58,500 bonus points to share, or keep.

I have a stay coming up next week in Madrid, Spain (MAD) so I’ll get my first 500 points then, plus the normal points for the stay. I have 110 days to make the most of this promotion, so I’m looking forward to it.

Here is a video you can with additional details as well.

Last year, I got their credit card, which gave me instant Platinum status (I was Gold before), which is cool, but Platinum is better :-). Plus I got some promotion miles for the credit and also for another promotion they ran.

Check out this giveaway
IHG Share Forever Summer Rewards Program

So yeah, IHG is one of the hotel brands I like a lot.

In my book about Finding and Booking Hotels in London, IHG is one of the brands I mention and also share that their property at 275 Old Street is one that I’ve stayed several times. its located in Shoreditch which is one of the hip area of London and served by the London Underground so you can’t go wrong.

I even stayed at a cool Intercontinental property in Saigon earlier this year for 20,000 points, one in London the Park Lane for 50,000 points and there’s a gem of a property in Hong Kong, a Crowne Plaza also for 20,000 points. So there are some treasures in the system.

O.K. enough of all that you know that its a good program, so how do you sign up? Head over to IHG’s Web site and sign up for the program.

–> shareforever.ihg.com

If not a member of the IHG Rewards Club, Register Now.

What has been your experience with IHG?