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If you’re friends or family of an IHG employee, Loyalty Lobby points out that you can sometimes save a nice chunk and/or get a flexible rate that is about the same as the discounted nonrefundable rate, which could be a great option in some circumstances. Like the old saying goes, keep your friends close and your IHG agents closer.
The Deal
- IHG’s Friends & Family rate sometimes presents a decent savings over other publicly-available rates and it can be accessed by anyone with the Friends & Family link (no special coupon code is required)
- Direct link to this deal
Key Terms
- The Friends & Family Rate is available to friends and family of all full-time and part-time employees of all IHG companies, IHG hotel owners or managers, and IHG franchisees, who are 18 years of age or older and are over the age of majority of their residence (“Participants”) only.
- The Friends & Family Rate is available at participating IHG hotels for room bookings only and not for packages or other components, but is eligible to earn IHG One Rewards points.
- Maximum of seven (7) nights and five (5) rooms per stay.
- Rate requires a first night deposit that is refundable if cancelled in accordance with the hotel’s cancel policy.
- See full terms on rate landing page
Quick Thoughts
Loyalty Lobby notes that the terms for this rate are pretty broad. Anyone can access the link on the IHG website and the rate is eligible for points and elite night credit, but it won’t count toward promotions.
The Friends & Family Rate is available to friends and family of all full-time and part-time employees of all IHG companies, IHG hotel owners or managers, and IHG franchisees, who are 18 years of age or older and are over the age of majority of their residence (“Participants”) only. The Friends & Family Rate is available at participating IHG hotels for room bookings only and not for packages or other components, but is eligible to earn IHG One Rewards points. Reservations must be booked through a Participant’s URL on the Friends & Family Promotion reservation website. The Friends & Family rate is subject to availability and may be changed without prior notice; may not be booked by travel agents; and are not commissionable. All room reservations are subject to each hotel’s standard room reservation and cancellation policies and procedures. Maximum of seven (7) nights and five (5) rooms per stay. Rate requires a first night deposit that is refundable if cancelled in accordance with the hotel’s cancel policy. For California hotels only, deposit is refundable if cancelled within 24 hours after the reservation is confirmed and if the reservation is made 72 hours or more before the time of check-in. All Friends & Family Rate bookings will be subject to applicable taxes, fees, and other standard service charges. The Friends & Family Rate for each hotel will be determined independently by each hotel and will vary with hotel locations/occupancy and blackout dates. The Friends & Family Rate Program may be terminated at any time without prior notice.
While the terms seem to suggest that the rate is only available via a “participant’s URL”, the actual URL for the rate code (which is https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/corporate/friendsfamily) doesn’t appear to be unique to a specific participant.
The rate can in some cases be a pretty good deal. For instance, I looked up a room at the Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan for tomorrow night and the friends & Family rate beat the non-refundable member discount.
However, it isn’t always the best rate. Take this example in Tokyo for a hotel stay starting a week from today where the friends & family rate for the Hotel Indigo Shibuya isn’t quite as good as some of the advance purchase rates.
That said, while the Friends & Family rate isn’t quite as good as some of the other pay in advance rates, the difference is that the other pay in advance rates shown above are non-refundable, whereas the Friends & Family rate is refundable up until 6pm hotel time the day before arrival. And while the Friends & Family rate has a “Pay in advance” bullet point, I believe that the Friends & Family rate only requires paying a 1-night deposit in advance (or at least that’s the case in this example and others I searched).
Loyalty Lobby includes numerous other examples in their post where the Friends & Family rate is among the best rates for various hotels.
Your mileage may vary, but this is a good rate plan to keep in mind, particularly if you consider the agents at your favorite IHG properties to be like friends.If
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Probably goes without saying but if you do have friends or family that work for one of the hotel chains you can get some pretty substantial savings through their non-public rate offerings. I’ve occasionally done the Choice Hotels offers from a friend. They only work 100 days out like award bookings and have a very inventory controlled limit on availability, but when they are available you can be talking 50% off regular rates.
The Crowne Plaza Times Square charges a “destination/city/resort” fee. Something to keep in mind. The hotel also is among the IHG properties which don’t provide breakfast as a Diamond amenity choice for Diamond members.
Usually when too many people use a discount, it eventually stops having value. I recall the many hotels that used to have an AARP rate that was a significant savings. Might was well exploit this while we can