(EXPIRED) IHG Q1/Q2 Promo: 4X 2020 – Earn Up To 4x IHG Rewards Club Points On Stays Thru 5/15/20

It’s been a few weeks since IHG’s last quarterly promotion ended, but they’ve finally opened registration for their next promotion. While it’s not as lucrative as their Accelerate promotions have the potential to be at times, it could be very rewarding for anyone who’ll be having paid stays totaling 15+ nights by mid-May, especially if they also have the IHG Premier credit card.

The Deal

• IHG has opened registration for its new 4X 2020 promotion:
  • Earn 1000 Bonus Points on your First Night
  • Earn 2x Bonus Points on Nights 2-5
  • Earn 3x Bonus Points on Nights 6-14
  • Earn 4x Bonus Points on Nights 15+
• Direct link to registration

Key Terms

• You must register for the promotion on or before April 15, 2020. Promotion runs from February 15, 2020 through May 15, 2020.
• Nights must be booked before April 15, 2020 and consumed between February 15, 2020 and May 15, 2020.
• 1,000 bonus points will be awarded for your first qualifying night after registering for the Promotion. During nights 2-5, you will be awarded double points for up to 100,000 points. During nights 6-14, you will be awarded triple points for up to 100,000 points. On your fifteenth night and all future nights during the Promotion Period, you will be awarded quadruple points for up to 100,000 points.
• Total spend for booking a qualifying night must be over $30 USD with minimum stay of 1 night.
• Promotion bonus points will be awarded based upon the average nightly rate during a qualifying stay. The average room rate per night will be used to calculate promotion bonus points for qualifying stays which are greater than 1 night. If a member has a qualifying stay of 2 nights with varying daily rates and the total for all nights is $200 USD, Promotion bonus points will be calculated from the average base point earnings ($100 per night).
• Maximum bonus points award per member for the Promotion is 301,000 points.
• A night is qualifying when member pays Qualifying Rates, which include most business and leisure rates at InterContinental®, Crowne Plaza®, Hotel Indigo®, Holiday Inn®, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites®, Kimpton®, EVEN®, avid™, voco™, Regent® Hotels & Resorts or HUALUXE® hotels worldwide. Bonus points are not issued for Non-Qualifying Room Rates or Non-Qualifying Stays/Nights.
• “Non-Qualifying Room Rates” or “Non-Qualifying Stay” include the following: net wholesale individual and group rate, certain package rates, employee discount rate, friends and family rate, crew rate, special discounted contract rates, seasonal worker/crew rate, 50% travel club discount rate, travel industry discount rate, distressed passenger rate, IHG® Rewards Club Reward Nights/Airline Hotel Reward rate, rates booked through third party web sites, complimentary hotel Stays and any other rates not defined as a Qualifying Room Rate at IHG’s sole discretion.
• Only one room per member per Qualifying Stay will be awarded the applicable bonus points, or other benefits (if any) available under the applicable Offer. If more than one member checks into the same room, only one member is eligible for the applicable bonus points, or other benefits (if any) available under the applicable Promotion.
• Promotion of bonus points is available only once to each member.
• IHG Rewards Club Members with a Miles earning preference will earn Points.
• No retroactive bonus points will be awarded for nights prior to Registration.
• Except as otherwise stated in the terms and conditions, please allow up to 2 to 3 weeks for Promotion bonus points to be credited after checkout.

Quick Thoughts

This IHG Rewards Club promotion is smart as it not only offers a decent number of bonus points for stays, it incentivizes guests to book more nights with IHG in order to earn an increasing number of bonus points. Even better (in my opinion) is the fact that you’re rewarded based on the number of nights you stay rather than on the number of stays itself.

Earning 1,000 bonus points for your first night during the promotion period is a fairly good return unless you’re paying an extremely high room rate for that night. After that though, earning 2x, 3x and then 4x has the potential to be very rewarding, especially if you pay with the IHG Premier credit card.

Let’s say you spend $100 per night before tax, stay 21 nights in IHG properties during the promotion period and pay with an IHG Premier credit card. Here’s what you could expect to earn (if you’d be staying at Staybridge Suites or Candlewood Suites properties, your earnings wouldn’t be as high because those two brands only earn 5x base points per dollar rather than 10x):

• Night 1 = 3,500 points
  • $100 * 10 base points = 1,000
  • $100 * 5 bonus points from Platinum status from credit card = 500
  • $100 * 10 bonus points from credit card = 1,000
  • 1,000 bonus points from 4X 2020 promo = 1,000
• Nights 2-5 = 14,000
  • $100 * 4 nights * 10 base points = 4,000
  • $100 * 4 nights * 5 base points = 2,000
  • $100 * 4 nights * 10 bonus points from credit card = 4,000
  • $100 * 4 nights * 10 bonus points from 4X 2020 promo = 4,000
• Nights 6-14 = 40,500
  • $100 * 9 nights * 10 base points = 9,000
  • $100 * 9 nights * 5 base points = 4,500
  • $100 * 9 nights * 10 bonus points from credit card = 9,000
  • $100 * 9 nights * 20 bonus points from 4X 2020 promo = 18,000
• Nights 15-21 = 38,500
  • $100 * 7 nights * 10 base points = 7,000
  • $100 * 7 nights * 5 base points = 3,500
  • $100 * 7 nights * 10 bonus points from credit card = 7,000
  • $100 * 7 nights * 30 bonus points from 4X 2020 promo = 21,000
• Total = 96,500

Your average earnings per night would therefore be:

• Night 1 = 3,500 points
• Nights 2-5 = 3,500 points
• Night 6-14 = 4,500 points
• Night 14-21 = 5,500 points
• Average overall = 4,595 points per night

Depending on when you applied for the IHG Premier credit card, your return might be even greater. My wife applied when the welcome offer included 25x bonus points on IHG stays in her first cardmember year. In the same scenario above, that extra 15x compared to the normal card earning rate of 10x would earn an extra 31,500 bonus points. That’s enough for four free nights at a category 1 property seeing as they cost 10,000 points per night and you get the fourth night free on award stays with the Premier card, even before taking into account the other 96,500 points.

That’s not even taking into account the cashback you could earn by booking these stays through a shopping portal. Rates for IHG brands tend to fluctuate between 6-10%, so we’ll assume an average of 8%. Paying $100 per night for 21 nights and earning an average of 8% cashback would earn you $168 cashback.

You’ll also earn 500 bonus points as a Welcome Amenity when checking in. The number of points you’ll earn from that will depend on your number of stays rather than earning that per night, unless you hotel-hop each night.

One downside with this promotion is that it’s only good on paid stays. We have a few award stays planned with IHG over the next few months which means we’ll earn nothing from this promotion. Hilton’s latest promotion offers bonus points regardless of whether it’s a paid or award stay, but there weren’t any reasonable Hilton redemption options where we’ll be staying.

As always with hotel promotions, it’s best to register for this promotion now even if you don’t have any immediate plans to stay at an IHG property, especially seeing as you’ll earn 1,000 bonus points even when only staying one night.

h/t Loyalty Lobby

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