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If you’re someone who currently has Ambassador status with IHG Rewards and your renewal is coming up, it’s worth checking your renewal offer as they might throw an additional incentive your way.
Timothy in the Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group reports getting an offer for 15,000 bonus points when selecting the paid renewal option.
As a reminder, Ambassador is a paid-for status with IHG that costs either $200 or 40,000 points each year, with you getting to choose the payment method each year. 15,000 points are worth at least $75, so that goes a good way towards offsetting the paid cost of the membership and makes that a far better renewal option than redeeming 40,000 points.
If you’re targeted for this 15,000 bonus points offer, it makes the current IHG Ambassador membership promotion even better. That gives a 40k free night certificate when taking out a new Ambassador membership or renewing an existing one and staying at an eligible IHG brand by August 31, 2021.
Ambassador membership has improved in recent years. In the past it was only valid at InterContinental properties, but it’s now also a useful status when staying at Kimpton, Regent and Six Senses properties.
Another interesting feature of Ambassador membership that I only learned recently via Loyalty Lobby is that if you have Spire Elite status with IHG Rewards, that status level gets extended when buying anew or renewing Ambassador status. Ambassador status itself comes with Platinum status (similar to the IHG Premier and IHG Select credit cards), but for some reason it extends Spire Elite status if you already have it.
That doesn’t seem to be an official policy and so there’s no guarantee that’ll continue being the case, but it’s a nice perk if you wouldn’t requalify for Spire Elite status organically. It also seems to be a matter of luck as to whether you subsequently get the Spire Elite Choice Benefit which allows you to choose between earning 25,000 bonus points or the ability to gift Platinum status to another member. If you get 15,000 bonus points from the renewal offer and also happen to get 25,000 bonus points by having your Spire Elite status extended, those 40,000 points effectively means your Ambassador membership is paying for itself even before taking into account any of the perks that the status offers.
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Not targeted and not new.
Nothing new. 15k points was always included. Renewal also included 10% off all award nights (not only at ICs), and this benefit is gone now.
We knew 15k points had been offered in the past, but we didn’t think that had been offered as an option in the last few years, but perhaps we were wrong.
It’s been offered the past few years. I don’t think it ever goes away
I got this offer too. And took it!