Home » Hotel Groups » IHG (Page 2)
Category Archives: IHG
15% off reward nights at IHG new hotels
IHG started a new hotel promotion last year, where you get 15% when redeeming reward nights at participating new hotels. The hotel list is refreshed every three months and the new one just came out.
Simply book and stay at any of the participating hotel by February 29th, and the price shown is already reduced.
Here are some hotels that are worth a mention:
- Austria – voco Vienna Prater
- Portugal – Convent Square Lisbon, Vignette Collection
- Spain – voco Madrid – Retiro
- China – Kimpton Qiantan Shanghai
- Japan – Hotel Indigo Tokyo Shibuya
- Nepal – Crowne Plaza Tashkent
- UAE – Holiday Inn Dubai Business Bay
15% off is a good deal if you plan to visit these places within the next three months. Some hotels have virtually zero reward availability though, and I’m not sure whether it’s slow integration and they are being “smart”.
Black Friday Flight & Hotel deals roundup
Etihad
- Book by November 27th
- Travel between January 15th and June 12th
- Use promo code WHITEFRIDAY20 or BLACKFRIDAY20
- Save 20% on economy and business class fares
Note that the 20% discount applies to the base fare only, which means in reality the savings will be much less.
Aegean
- Book by November 27th
- Travel between January 15th and October 26th
- No promo code needed
- Save up to 50% on all tickets across the network
The actual discount depends on your travel date.
ITA Airways
- Book by November 27th
- Travel between December 1st and December 31st
- Use promo code BLACK
- Save 30% on all tickets except Economy Lite
The offer is available to many markets including UK, Europe and US (20% off).
Cathay Pacific
- Book by November 26th
- Travel between December 1st and June 28th
- Use promo code UKBLACKFRI for flights departing from the UK
- £100 off business class and £75 off economy / premium economy
Similar deals are available for France and Germany etc.
Air China
£100 discount on UK flights to China / Asia. Claim your voucher on Trip.com – they have other Black Friday offers as explained in this blog post.
TAP Portugal
London – Boston in business class for ~£1000 return, and the cost can be further reduced if you add a stopover (>24 hours) in Lisbon to avoid the UK APD. Example:
Use Google Flights and Skyscanner to find cheap date combinations. Book by November 28th.
Virgin Atlantic
- Book by November 27th
- Travel by September 30th
- Pay 30% fewer points for all reward flights
This is an incredible deal for flying to/from Shanghai:
Redemptions for US destinations are unfortunately bundled with outrageous fees, so they might not be a great deal even with the 30% discount.
Melia
- Book by November 26th
- Stay by December 20th, 2024 (hotel dependant)
- Save up to 50%
Remember to stack the Gold 20% off and App 5% off. The discount is genuine although not necessarily at 50% at most properties, and many of the rates are flexible.
Accor
20% bonus on digital gift card purchases. Gift cards are valid for 5 years, and can be used at participating hotels in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece and Poland.
Kimpton Hotels
The following UK Kimpton hotels are offering 20% discount of gift vouchers:
- Kimpton London Fitzroy
- Kimpton Manchester Clocktower
- Kimpton Edinburgh Charlotte Square
- Kimtpon Glasgow Blythswood Square
Gift vouchers are valid for 12 months and can be used upon hotel checkout. They work well with pay-at-hotel rates, including Amex FHR and IHG Luxury & Lifestyle.
Malmaison / Hotel Du Vin
Malmaison – rate starts at £100, including £50 dinner credit
Hotel Du Vin – rate starts at £145 for two nights, including £50 dinner credit
IHG Cyber Monday: free 500 points and 48% off Iberostar
IHG’s Cyber Monday deal is out. The 20%-off sale is, to put it mildly, a lacklustre, but there are fortunately a couple of worthwhile offers.
[App Bonus]
There’s an easy 500 bonus points to win. All you need to do is register, (re-)download the app and sign in. The terms have no mention of first-time app users, which would otherwise disqualify most people. I am able to register to the offer successfully. (Edit: terms do suggest first-time app download only…)
[Iberostar Sale]
IHG’s Cyber sale only takes 20% off the best flexible rate, and it’s non-refundable, which is laughable. Iberostar on the other hand is much more interesting:
- Book by November 28th
- Stay by October 31st in the Americas, or December 20th in other regions
- Maximum discount of 40%
- 8% additional discount if logging in with your IHG account
So you can get up to about 48% discount, almost half price at Iberostar hotels, which is a great deal. Even better, after applying the discount the best flexible rate is still flexible as you can see from the image above. There are also half-board and all-inclusive options.
[Points & Cash]
The Points & Cash offer is also back: book the Points & Cash rate at any IHG hotel for stays between Jan 1st and February 29th and save 15% off the cash component.
It could, indirectly, be a great way to buy cheap IHG points, sometimes under 0.5c per point. There are some deals this round but seems to have all sold out already, but I’ll report back if find anything new.
Buy IHG points to maintain your Diamond status
IHG tightened its web this year by closing the Ambassador-Diamond loophole. They have however added a few initiatives, such as double elite qualifying nights to help certain members requalify for their Diamond status faster.
They have now launched a new and quite unique promotion, named Lock in Diamond Status.
If you are targeted you should have received an email. You can also log in here to see if you have an offer. My Diamond status is already through 2024 and I couldn’t even log in on that page.
In short you are invited to buy points – these points are elite qualifying so can help you retain your Diamond status, and they are also redeemable as normal on hotel stays etc.
You can buy increments of 10,000 points. The most prevalent offer looks like this:
- 10,000 points – $300
- 20,000 points – $550
- 50,000 points – $850
- 120,000 points – $1,800
One reader however has got a much cheaper deal:
At the top end, you pay $1,200 for 120,000 points (which usually costs $600), and that guarantees Diamond status for the next year. If you have an IHG credit card you are entitled to 20% discount.
The offer may make sense to some, although I don’t think that many people qualify through points, as 120,000 base points can be quite a lot compared to 70 nights, and the latter also gives you milestone rewards including lounge access.
Up to 100% buy points bonus with IHG, Choice and LHW
[IHG]
IHG has brought back its mysterious bonus for buying points, and you can reveal your targeted bonus here.
The best bonus available is 100%, which means buying the points at half price effectively. If you buy at least 26,000 points, you will be paying $50 per 1K points. It is the best price that IHG has ever offers (although regularly), and IHG has been very good at preserving the value of their points, so it may make sense to buy if you stay with them at times.
[Choice]
Choice Privileges is running a Black Friday sale on points purchase which offers you 50% bonus until December 3rd. It is also the best bonus that Choice ever (and rarely) offers and you pay $68.67 per thousand points if you buy at least 10,000 of them.
The annual Daily Getaways can beat this price, but that’s much more difficult to come by, so I recommend you to seriously consider this deal.
The best Choice redemptions are in Japan (budget hotels starting at 8,000 points) and Northern Europe (starting at 10,000 points). I’m writing a detailed guide on how to spend Choice points.
[LHW]
Leading Hotels of the World, one of the niche alliances for high-end hotels, introduced the buying points feature recently, followed by an interesting bonus promotion.
You can view the offer here. Until December 26th you get a tiered bonus when buying LHW points:
- 2,000 – 11,000: 50%
- 12,000 – 29,000: 75%
- 30,000 – 50,000: 100%
At the top of the ladder you’ll still be paying $60 per 1K points, which sounds a lot. Let’s have a look at how LHW’s redemption works first.
LHW has a revenue-based redemption system and there’s no fixed price for hotels, which is why you’ll always see odd number of points as the price. Unlike Accor or Hilton though, that exchange rate from the cash price can fluctuate quite a lot.
I’ve taken a closer look at some hotels:
- Tokyo – The Imperial Hotel $591.79 / 3,886 points ($152.3)
- Bali – The Legian Seminyak $555.74 / 5,887 points ($94.4)
- Kuala Lumpur – The RuMa Hotel and Residences $159.46 / 1,738 points ($91.7)
- Shanghai – J Hotel – $751.55 / 8,144 points ($92.3)
- Berlin – Hotel Palace Berlin $171.03 / 2,040 points ($83.8)
- Paris – Ritz Paris $2,225.02 / 28,494 points ($78.1)
- Porto – Maison Albar Le Monumental Palace $232.26 / 2,817 points ($82.4)
The cash price I’ve taken is the member-exclusive flexible rate, or the closest alternative if unavailable. The number in brackets is how much value you are getting per 1K points for that hotel.
As you can see, the value proposition is in the range of $78 – $95. The Imperial Tokyo is a weird one that sticks out, as you are getting an outstanding $152.3 per thousand points. I double checked the number and my math is correct – not sure if it’s a system error or not.
So it could make sense to buy at the current 100% bonus, but there are things to be mindful of:
- You must pay at least $3,600 to secure the 100% bonus, which is a big spend
- LHW doesn’t have that many hotels in its portfolio
- As far as I can see there’s no part-pay-with-point option, so if there are orphan points left in your account it might be tricky to spend them
LHW points don’t expire as long as you earn or redeem every 24 months. It’s free to sign up as a member, which gives you benefit including continental breakfast, upgrade priority, early check-in and late check-out. After the first stay you’ll also earn a room-upgrade voucher.
IHG status challenge: 5 nights to Platinum
IHG brought back its fast track offer for Gold and Platinum status, which may be of interest to some customers.
You can check the offer details and register here. Once registered, you will be elevated to Gold status after 2 paid nights by the end of 2023, or Platinum after 5. The status will be valid through the whole 2024 and potentially the first two months of 2025.
In theory you need to be invited by a sales representative and book using a corporate ID. In the past however, it seems that anyone could register to the offer and get upgraded after regular paid reservations.
IHG targeted offers: 5 nights to Diamond and double night credit
IHG has sent out a new wave of emails inviting members to register to targeted offers. You may want to try your luck with the links below just in case.
1. Stay twice to earn 12,000 points
We wrote about this offer recently and it appears that more people have received this offer. It is supposedly aimed at those who haven’t had a stay recently.
Earn a bonus night credit for every night stayed until the end of the year, up to 15. Most importantly they count towards the Milestone Rewards, very helpful if you are working on the annual lounge pass.
3. Stay 5 nights to maintain Diamond status
4. Stay 10 nights to maintain Diamond status (I’m yet to acquire a link)
5. Stay 15 nights to maintain Diamond status
Offers 2-5 are aimed at those who’ve accrued certain number of nights this year. The last three specially seem to target Diamond members who haven’t met the requalification criteria yet. As IHG just closed the Ambassador renewal loophole it could be their initiative to not lose too many members.
Targeted: 12K bonus points for two IHG stays
IHG has been very keen on sending out targeted offers recently, and here’s another one.
- Register by December 31st
- Stay twice within 60 days
- Earn 12,000 bonus points
As usual only paid stays count. It is a very good offer, but note the 60-day requirement, so don’t register unless you have upcoming stays planned. Well of course, you need to be targeted first.