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IHG has opened registration for its Q1 2019 promotion and is called ‘Free Nights. Faster.’ Every member receives their own targeted challenge, with some being better than others. It therefore works in a similar way to past Accelerate promotions, but check the terms as some of the information on the promo’s landing page is misleading.
The Deal
- Register for new IHG promotion called ‘Free Nights. Faster.’
- Direct link to registration.
Key Terms
- Register by March 15, 2019.
- For stays from January 15, 2019 to April 30, 2019 (see below for more about this).
Quick Thoughts
As mentioned above, the landing page for this promotion is somewhat misleading as there’s conflicting information. There’s a dropdown box for ‘About Free Nights’; when clicking that, the third point says ‘Stay from now until April 30’. That’s not true, as the promo’s terms and conditions state that it’s actually for stays from January 15.
It’s also showing that I have 68 days left to complete my tasks, whereas April 30 is actually 114 days away. I’ll give IHG the benefit of the doubt though and assume it’s an erroneous countdown timer rather than some kind of incompetent attempt at generating artificial scarcity.
As for the usefulness of this promo, that’ll completely depend on your targeted offer. Based on the comments on DoC’s post, it looks like some people only received a double points offer. That’s not great, although Spire Elite members who pay with the new IHG Premier credit card would be earning 40 points per dollar.
Other offers are much more rewarding and have the potential to be worthy of a mattress run. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a decent offer; I maxed out their fall 2018 promotion and so assumed they’d set me harder challenges this time around. Here’s what I’ve been tasked with:
I can therefore book three one-night stays at different brands, with one of those stays in February, in order to earn 53,700 bonus points. Taking into account the base points, bonus points from status and bonus points for paying for the stays with the IHG credit card, I should end up with at least 60,000 points from the three stays. With the new IHG card offering the 4th night free on award stays, that’s enough for 8 free nights at a 10,000 point property, or 16 free nights if you can find a 5,000 point property on a PointBreaks list that works for you.
We normally stay 4-6 nights in each city we visit, but I’ll be making a solo drive from Kansas to Virginia in February. I’m therefore hoping to find IHG properties with inexpensive pet fees to complete my tasks along the way.
My wife’s offer isn’t as rewarding in terms of how many points we can earn overall, but could still be easy to complete.
One stay of four nights and one stay of two nights, with one of those in February, both occurring over a weekend and paid for with her IHG card would earn 36,950 bonus points.
Our particular offers are therefore likely to change our booking habits as I doubt other chains will be offering promos where we’ll earn enough points for so many free nights the way that we redeem them.
Seeing as these challenges can only be completed on paid stays, be sure to click through from a cashback portal as you can often earn 8% or more on IHG bookings.
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I am a Spire Elite member of IHG and I got hosed in this promotion. “Stay at 6 IHG® Hotels
Stay at 6 IHG® hotel(s) and earn 16,800 bonus points.” I knew something was wrong when my completion went from 67% down to 50%. Replying to my inquiry, they tell me that it must be 5 different brands!. Nowhere does it say that in the terms. I read these rules very carefully and plan my trips accordingly. I am quite angry about this.
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I have around 40k offer but about 1/3 of it is if I complete ALL of the requirements. One of mine requires booking 4 stays at “my corporate rate”. How do I know what rate that is, since I am not employed by or working for any company that would have such a rate with IHG. Please help
That’s a strange one – I’ve not heard of that before. Each of the tasks have a link to the terms for that particular task, so does that give any more indication as to the corporate rate?
My offer is so strange..a very high point total overall can be achieved but one of the goals is to stay at 6 different brands….and they don’t offer 6 different brands in the markets I travel.
Mine gives double points. That’s it
Mine is not great. One of the benchmarks is a four night stay. The big points boost requires me to complete all the benchmarks-including the four night stay and this is tough in this time frame—so I’ll likely pass on the whole thing.