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Earlier this week, American AAdvantage launched another reciprocal elite status match and fast track challenge with Hyatt, an option that could be very exciting for many AAdvantage members. A few days earlier, it also launched a different promotion with IHG that’s…um…less exciting.
With this new promo, AAdvantage members can earn a bonus of 1,000 miles for every stay of two nights or more at participating IHG properties until November 15th, 2024. You can earn a maximum of 15,000 total bonus miles with the promo.
Unfortunately, in order to take advantage of the 1,000 mile bonus, you have to set your earning preference to AAdvantage miles, which means that you won’t earn any IHG points on the stay.
The Deal
- Earn 1,000 bonus AAdvantage miles for every qualifying two-night stay at a participating IHG property until November 15th.
- Must set “Earnings Preference” to AAdvantage miles prior to check-in.
- Must book through www.ihg.com/content/us/en/deals/partner-offers/aabonus2024.
Terms and Conditions
- 1,000 American AAdvantage® bonus miles are awarded to Eligible Members for each Qualifying Stay at participating IHG® Hotels & Resorts properties, during the Promotion Period where the stay was reserved through an eligible booking and consists of at least two (2) consecutive nights.
- An Eligible Member may earn up to a maximum of 15,000 bonus miles in connection with this Promotion.
- Please allow up to 6 weeks for the bonus miles to be posted to the designated account.
- Eligible bookings are those made at participating IHG® Hotels and Resorts through the official American Airlines | AAdvantage® booking page, which may be accessed using the following link: https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/deals/partner-offers/aabonus2024.
- Only bookings made between August 1, 2024 and November 15, 2024 for Qualifying
- Stays of at least two (2) consecutive nights, with a check-in date on or after August 1, 2024 and check-out on or before November 15, 2024 (“Promotion Period”), qualify as an eligible booking under the Promotion.
- American Airlines AAdvantage® members need to be registered as an IHG One Rewards member, and select American Airlines | AAdvantage® as their earning preference located in their IHG One Rewards My Account, prior to check-in.
- Qualifying Stays are stays booked under a qualifying rate. Note that multiple checkouts for consecutive nights at the same hotel will count as one (1) Qualifying Stay; non-consecutive qualifying nights at the same hotel may count as separate Qualifying Stays.
- Participating IHG® Hotels & Resorts are those operating under the following brands at the time of the qualifying stay: Intercontinental® Hotels & Resorts, Regent® Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton® Hotels & Restaurants, Hotel Indigo®, HUALUXE® Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn®, Holiday Inn Express®, Holiday Inn Club Vacations®, Holiday Inn Resort®, EVEN® Hotels, voco™ Hotels, Vignette™ Collection, Atwell Suites™, avid® Hotels, Staybridge Suites®, and Candlewood Suites®.
Quick Thoughts
This offer would be great if it was simply a 1,000 mile bonus on top of normal IHG point earnings, but the requirement to earn AAdvantage miles instead makes it less intriguing.
Our Reasonable Redemption Values pegs AA miles as being worth ~2x IHG points. As an IHG member, you earn 10x points per dollar on stays plus an additional 6x if you’re a Platinum member by virtue of having any of the IHG credit cards. If you choose to earn AA miles, you earn a straight 2x miles/dollar with no elite bonus. Even as a base member, you’d be earning 1/5 the number of AA miles as you would IHG points, so you’re losing a fair amount of redeemable value even though each AA mile is worth more than each IHG point.
Even if you value AA miles more than we do, you can redeem IHG points for them at a 10,000 – 2,000 ratio anytime you want…so, if you have elite status, earning IHG points and converting them to miles is actually a better way of accumulating them than changing your preference to earn them outright.
However, with the bonus, it could still be worth doing if the stay is fairly cheap. Let’s say you have a two-night stay that’s $100/night. With the promo, you’d be earning a total of 1,400 AAdvantage miles as compared to 2,000 IHG points with no elite status or 3,200 with Platinum. That’s actually getting into a range that would make sense for some folks.
It could also be a good deal on award stays. The terms don’t specifically exclude them, and IHG terms and conditions do list points stays as a qualifying rate. Per the promo terms, you have to book through the promotion page and searching from that page does give you the option to book a room with points. While I’m not 100% certain, you should be able to do that, change your earnings preference to AA miles before you check-in to the award stay and then earn the 1,000 mile bonus.
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