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Now that IHG One Rewards has a decent elite program (see Tim’s post: Is IHG Diamond Status Elite? My Experience Over 10 Stays At 5 Brands), you might think that the parallel InterContinental Ambassador program has become irrelevant, but I think it is now more interesting than ever. In some ways the two programs complement each other. Ambassador status doesn’t offer free breakfast outside of China. IHG Diamond status offers free breakfast for two pretty much everywhere. IHG Diamond status doesn’t guarantee 2PM late check-out. Ambassador status guarantees 4PM late check-out at InterContinental hotels.
InterContinental Hotels & Resorts is a single brand within the much larger International Hotel Group (IHG), the latter of which also includes brands such as Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Kimpton, Regent, Six Senses, and more. IHG has a rewards and recognition program that spans all of these brands: IHG One Rewards. Confusingly, while InterContinental hotels are part of the IHG One Rewards program, they are also part of their own elite status program: InterContinental Ambassador. In this post you’ll learn everything you need to know about the Ambassador program.
In my opinion, the Ambassador program offers solid value that can be worth paying for if you make good use of the free weekend night certificate. See this post for a real world example where I got fantastic value from a single trip: The InterContinental Ambassador Experiment. Guaranteed room upgrades and 4pm late checkout can be very valuable under the right circumstances. I also like the fact that the $20 per stay food & beverage credit can be used on award stays. This makes our points and free night certificates just a wee bit more valuable.
How to join Intercontinental Ambassador
The InterContinental Ambassador elite status program has two levels: InterContinental Ambassador and Royal Ambassador. Royal Ambassador is invitation only. InterContinental Ambassador is a pay to play program: pay either $200 or 40,000 IHG points for 12 months of membership (as of October, 2024, this will increase to $225 or 45,000 points). If you pay with points and you have the old IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card (no longer available to new applicants), you’ll get 10% of your points back for a net cost of 36,000 IHG points (40,500 in October).
You can join InterContinental Ambassador online here (This is an affiliate link by the way. Thank you!). Benefits are available instantly upon joining.
How to renew Intercontinental Ambassador
When you sign up for Intercontinental Ambassador status, benefits are available for 12 months after enrollment. As then end of your 12 months nears, you should receive an email from Ambassador@mc.ihg.com with a subject heading that’s something like this: Renew InterContinental Ambassador for personalised service and additional luxuries.
You’ll generally be given two options for renewing:
- Pay $200 and get 15,000 IHG One Rewards points (we’re assuming that this will be $225 starting in October as well)
- Pay 40,000 points. (45,000 points starting in October)
I think that the $200 option is much better.
Ambassador Benefits
IHG Platinum Elite Status (IHG-wide benefits)
InterContinental Ambassador offers complimentary IHG Platinum status. This status offers the following benefits across all IHG brands:
- 60% Bonus Points on paid stays
- Complementary Upgrades (Platinum and Diamond Benefit): Free upgrades can include suites, but hotels aren’t required to offer them.
- Points or Drink/Snack Welcome Amenity: Choose points or a drink / snack at check-in.
- Reward Night Discount: It’s not clear to me what exactly this benefit is or if it has been implemented yet in IHG’s program. IHG’s website states “IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite and Diamond Elite Members will receive exclusive access to discounts on Reward Nights at participating hotels.”
- Guaranteed Room Availability
- Early Check-In: Based upon availability
IHG Diamond Elite Renewal (No Longer Available)
Renewing Ambassador status used to have the effect of also renewing Diamond status if you happened to already have Diamond status. Sadly, that’s no longer the case.
InterContinental Hotels & Resorts Benefits
Ambassador status offers the following benefits for stays at InterContinental Hotels & Resorts:
- Free weekend night: Valid on the second night of a paid weekend stay on the Ambassador Weekend Rate (“AMB Certificate”) at InterContinental Hotels (excludes InterContinental Alliance Resorts). The free night is available immediately upon enrollment in the Ambassador program. Only one free night certificate is issued per 12 months. Valid only for the member who has InterContinental Ambassador status. The weekend is defined as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, except in the Middle East where hotels may define the weekend as Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. TIP: You can check for free weekend night prices and availability before joining the Ambassador program (click for details).
- Guaranteed room upgrade: Guaranteed one category room upgrade on paid stays. Upgrades include suites, but exclude lounge access unless you booked a room with lounge access from the beginning. Room upgrades are not guaranteed on award stays.
- Guaranteed 4PM late checkout
- $20 food & beverage credit per stay: Can be used at most InterContinental hotel restaurants, bars and minibars. Not applicable to in-room dining (weird).
- Complimentary mineral water daily
- Complimentary highest internet access
- Single room rate for double occupancy
- In greater China only: Complimentary breakfast for one, each night you stay (Valid in Mainland China only)
InterContinental Alliance Resorts
Ambassador status offers the following benefits for stays at InterContinental Alliance Resorts:
- Complimentary water will be provided on the day of arrival and will not be replenished daily.
- Royal Ambassador: Minibar credit will be capped at USD50 per day and USD100 per stay.
- InterContinental Ambassador one category and Royal Ambassador two category room upgrades are subject to availability.
The following benefits are not applicable when staying at InterContinental Alliance Resorts:
- Complimentary Weekend Night
- InterContinental Ambassador Restaurant and Bar credit up to USD20 for Ambassador Platinum members when staying at InterContinental Alliance Resorts, Macao
- Royal Ambassador Club InterContinental lounge access/alternate experience access
- Royal Ambassador breakfast for two when staying at The Venetian Resort and Palazzo at The Venetian, Las Vegas
The benefits Guarantee is not applicable at InterContinental Alliance Resorts
Regent Hotels & Resorts Benefits
Ambassador status no longer offers benefits for stays at Regent Hotels & Resorts.
Six Senses Benefits
Ambassador status offers the following benefits for stays at participating Six Senses Hotels & Resorts:
- Free breakfast for two: Benefit not applicable at Six Senses Residences.
- Complementary one category room upgrade: Subject to availability (excludes residences and 2 bedroom or greater suites/villas)
- 4PM late checkout: Subject to availability. Guaranteed for Royal Ambassador & Kimpton Inner Circle members. Benefit always subject to availability for all tiers at Six Senses Residences.
- Early check-in: Early check-in subject to availability. Guaranteed for Royal Ambassador & Kimpton Inner Circle members and in circumstances where the room is not available at 10 am, the member may be checked into another available room until the original booked room becomes available. Benefit always subject to availability for all tiers at Six Senses Residences.
- Signature Amenity: Signature Amenity of either a complimentary 50 minute Six Senses Spa massage for two or local experience once per stay. The Signature Amenity varies by resort, is subject to availability and confirmed on arrival. Not applicable with corporate or negotiated rates.
- Complementary Internet Access
- Wellness Platter: Wellness Platter welcome amenity on day of arrival. Benefit always subject to availability for all tiers at Six Senses Residences.
Kimpton Benefits
Ambassador status no longer offers benefits at Kimpton hotels.
Benefit Guarantees
IHG backs up Ambassador benefits with cash, credits, or points if they are not able to offer certain benefits during your stay:
Royal Ambassador benefits
Royal Ambassador is an invitation only program which offers all of the benefits listed above, plus the following at InterContinental Hotels:
- Guaranteed two category room upgrade
- Complimentary Club InterContinental lounge access (or free full breakfast for two)
- Free Night at an IHG Hotel: Good for any hotel that costs up to 70,000 points per night
- Guaranteed Early check-in of 10 a.m. on day of arrival
- Minibar credit of $50 per night, up to $200 per stay
- In-room welcome amenity choice of fruit, sweet or savory snack on day of arrival
- Waived Amenity or Destination fees
- Single-room rate for double occupancy
- Guaranteed room availability for member’s room with 24-hour advance reservation
InterContinental Ambassador FAQ
Do benefits apply to award nights?
Some benefits apply to free nights booked with points or with free night certificates…
Ambassador benefits that apply to award nights:
- 4PM late checkout
- $20 food & beverage credit per stay
- Complimentary mineral water
- Complimentary internet service
Royal Ambassador benefits that apply to award nights:
- Guaranteed 10am early check in
- Guaranteed 4pm late checkout
- Free in-room amenity
- Complimentary mineral water
- Complimentary internet service
- Waived amenity or destination fees
Do benefits apply to 3rd party bookings?
Yes? This is somewhat surprising and I don’t consider it confirmed, but the terms & conditions specifically say that the Benefit Guarantees do not apply on 3rd party or tour operator bookings. This implies to me that most benefits may be offered, but that there’s no way to enforce it.
The terms specifically call out room upgrades and 4pm late checkout in French Polynesia as benefits that are not guaranteed on 3rd party bookings: “At InterContinental Hotels & Resorts in French Polynesia (InterContinental Le Moana Bora Bora, InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa, InterContinental Resort & Spa Moorea, and InterContinental Resort Tahiti), upgrades to the next room categories and a 4 p.m. late check-out are not guaranteed for any member that books through a third-party website or Tour Operator.”
The fact that they went out of their way to state that certain benefits are not guaranteed on these bookings in French Polynesia makes me think that they do expect these benefits to be offered elsewhere.
Free weekend night questions
Competitive price?
Not really.
In order to book your free weekend night, it is necessary to apply the Ambassador Weekend Rate to your reservation. If this rate is available, you can book the weekend stay at that rate. The Ambassador Weekend Rate tends to be the same as the hotel’s standard weekend rate before any discounts. For example, you won’t get a sale price, a member discount, or a prepaid rate. That said, sometimes the weekend rate is only slightly higher than other options and so it can offer great value in those cases.
TIP: You can check for free weekend night prices and availability before joining the Ambassador program (click for details).
Always available?
No. You can (and should) check for free weekend night prices and availability before joining the Ambassador program (click for details).
Which nights count as weekend nights?
The weekend is defined as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, except in the Middle East where hotels may define the weekend as Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Except with some hotels in the Middle East, this means that you can search for a two night stay for Friday and Saturday night or Saturday and Sunday night.
Book a suite?
Yes, you can book a suite at the Ambassador Weekend Rate and get the second night free.
Book with lounge access?
Yes, you can book a room or a suite that includes club lounge access at the Ambassador Weekend Rate and get the second night free.
Search for free weekend nights before joining Ambassador
- With this link, you can check for free weekend night prices and availability before joining the Ambassador program (This is an affiliate link by the way. Thank you!).
- Change the Rate Preference drop-down to “Ambassador Complimentary Weekend Night”
- Make sure to search for two weekend nights (e.g. search for Friday and Saturday night or Saturday and Sunday night)
When you search for a two night weekend stay, you should see results like those shown below. The first two results have available free weekend nights, but you can see that the rest of the results do not because there is a grey bar stating “Rooms are not available for Ambassador Complimentary Weekend Night on one or more of the selected dates. View available dates.”
When you click through to one of the hotels that do have free weekend night availability, you can pick from any room description that includes the following text “Ambassador Complimentary Weekend Night available.”
Guaranteed Upgrade Questions
Upgrade to lounge access?
Ambassador: No.
Royal Ambassador: Yes.
Regular Ambassador status does not include free upgrades to Club InterContinental lounges. You might think there’s a workaround: book a room 1 level below a room that includes lounge access and then get a free 1 category upgrade. Unfortunately, the Ambassador terms & conditions say that if you get upgraded to a room that usually includes lounge access, you still won’t be given that access.
Royal Ambassadors are usually guaranteed lounge access, but not during the following dates and places:
- New Year’s Eve, December 31 – Location: Global
- Chinese New Year, beginning on the 1st day of the lunar year for a 10-day period – Location: Greater China
- Ramadan, beginning on the 1st day of Ramadan for a 30-day period – Location: Makkah, Saudi Arabia
Upgrades to suite?
Yes.
If you book the top non-suite room, you should be upgraded to a suite. Unfortunately, if that suite normally includes lounge access, you are not guaranteed that lounge access with your upgrade. That said, I expect that some hotels will grant it anyway.
Upgrade to Presidential suite?
Sometimes
If a hotel has an incredible top level suite, can you book the next to top-level in order to get upgraded to the best of the best? In some cases, yes. Unfortunately, many specialty suites are explicitly excluded from the guaranteed upgrade benefit. You can find a full list of exceptions here.
Upgrade exclusions?
In addition to the specialty suite exceptions described above, guaranteed upgrades are also subject to certain blackout periods:
- New Year’s Eve, December 31 – Location: Global
- Chinese New Year, beginning on the 1st day of the lunar year for a 10-day period – Location: Greater China
- Ramadan, beginning on the 1st day of Ramadan for a 30-day period – Location: Makkah, Saudi Arabia
Terms & Conditions?
Full terms and conditions can be found here.
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I’ve been Ambassador for about 15 years. I’m also Globalist at Hyatt and Diamond at Hilton. Over the years, Intercontinental Hotels have given me the finest upgrades – really sumptuous suites significantly better than anything I’ve ever been upgraded to at Hilton or Hyatt. Customer service at IHG has always been an issue, and the chain is top heavy with Holiday Inns.
I’ve been an Intercontinental Ambassador for about 10 of the last 20 years. I’ve also been an IHG Diamond and an Intercontinental Ambassador. It’s just not worth it anymore. The domestic Intercontinental lounges are barely better than a Marriott lounge, except alcohol is included. And even then the wine is pretty low-end ($7-$12 wine). With no guaranteed benefits at Kimpton, Crowne Plaza or Holiday Inn, I don’t see the value in Ambassador status. I’ll revert to IHG Platinum, thanks to a co-branded credit card. It’s not much but is enough status for the 20-25 nights a year I have to spend at a Holiday Inn Express when I’m in the middle of nowhere and the only options are a Holiday Inn Express or Best Western.
A couple minor additions to Greg’s excellent post about IHG diamond and ambassador. Don’t underrate the diamond customer service. I used it twice and both times the representative went far above my expectations and helped me solve a number of problems second, I just stayed at the intercontinental in Barcelona, and for reasons not entirely clear to me, perhaps because, the suite I was upgraded to included this perk, I had free access to the excellent spa there combined with the €15 credit, the guaranteed late check out, and the upgrade, the fee for an ambassador status is clearly worth far more than the cost
Thankfully the weekend night benefit has improved significantly for the hotels I stay at. The Weekend Night rate is still higher than the regular rate but at least it is not as outrageous as before. So depending on when and where you stay, the Ambassador program can be worth it. It is still tricky though to make it pay off. The suite upgrade exclusions are still real bad for many of the best hotels that I would stay at.
I used to be a loyal Ambassador member until the IC Monterey The Clement in California didn’t upgrade our booking to a suite and gave us the guaranteed 10,000 points instead or offered $50. It used to be a true guarantee if the suite was available at the time of booking or shortly after you were upgraded. Now of course at smaller properties such as this one the suites are less likely to be available or they would rather sell it than upgrade your booking despite the Ambassador status. It feels like they took a page from Bonvoy for this benefit.
The $20 / stay credit does seem very cheap — most of the recent stays, could not even get 1 drink at the bar for that! A couple of them did allow it for mini-bar use, so was able to use it for 3 (not a typo, not 1, not 2, but 3 :-)) Snickers bars! They really need to amp it up a bit…
Might’ve signed up if Intercontinentals in NYC didn’t have the $40/night “amenity junk fee”
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I joined Ambassador in December 2022. In 2023 I stayed twice in the Intercontinental Ljubljana. First time was a regular paid one night stay. I received an upgrade to a better room that included lounge access. Second stay was the free Ambassador night. I received an upgrade to a suite and again with lounge access. Was I just lucky and is Ljubljana not paying attention to the T&C’s? Must say I can’t complain about the value for money of the Ambassador membership.
Any chance this triggers the current $40 off $200 amex ihg offer? Assuming no
Very unlikely. It doesn’t even trigger 10x with the IHG Premier card
Can you share the steps how you were able to renew and extend to end of 2024?
I received an email with the renewal offer described in this post. I simply clicked through the email to renew my Ambassador status. That then caused my IHG status to be extended.
Thanks Greg. I’ll keep an eye out for a renewal offer.
Noticed the ability to rate posts has been removed. Reckon why?
We didn’t think it was adding anything to the site. Do you disagree?
Yes I do. I believe feedback is always necessary to gauge what your audience thinks about your content.
We do too but the star ratings didn’t help. If some people marked a post with low stars, that didn’t tell us anything about what they didn’t like.
Then the remedy is to ask a specific question such as, E.g. Did you find this article helpful and/or useful? Feedback matters. Not a good look to remove this feature imho.
I’ve read somewhere in the past that there were instances where Diamond was not extended for those who paid cash, as opposed to using points. Has anyone experienced this?
I haven’t heard that and I definitely chose cash instead of points and it worked
You mention nothing about Mr. & Mrs Smith hotels. I have two separate stays coming up later this year in Italy. I booked with IHG points, but they offer none of the advantages of the IHG program. I have Ambassador and Diamond for the year, and was hoping to take advantage of both when I booked. Sadly, this seems not to apply. Not even free breakfast! Can you explain please?
Mr. & Mrs. Smith and IHG are only partners, so having IHG status will not help you much. In addition, Hyatt bought Mr. & Mrs. Smith about a month ago, so the partnership with IHG will be affected in the future.
As AlexL wrote, Mr. & Mrs Smith properties aren’t fully incorporated into IHG’s rewards program since they aren’t really part of IHG at all and so, you’re right, you won’t get any elite benefits. Instead, there’s a partnership between IHG and Mr & Mrs Smith which makes it possible to book the latter through IHG’s website. This is almost identical to how Hyatt makes it possible to book SLH properties and Hyatt elite status benefits do not apply.
If I book a 2-night stay from Thursday-Saturday using the Ambassador Complimentary Weekend Night rate. Will the Ambassador free night credit work for Friday night?
Yes it does. Follow the link and make a dummy booking at your property of interest.
Thursday night through Saturday would only count in the Middle East. In the rest of the world, I believe your reservation must include a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night.