IHG Europe offer: 10% off, £80 credit and room upgrade with Mastercard
IHG has historically teamed up with Mastercard to offer rate discounts in the EMEA region. A new offer has just turned up, in a new form though which may interest a different audience group.
You can access the offer page here. It’s basically Mastercard’s version of FHR for high-end IHG hotels – you need to be a Mastercard World / World Elite / Platinum / Black Edition cardholder, although I doubt IHG has a way to verify that. That said, in theory you do need to pay with a Mastercard.
The following benefits apply when you book a two-night minimum stay at participating hotel in UK and Europe:
- 10% off best flexible rate
- Room upgrade, subject to availability
- 10am check-in and 4pm checkout, subject to availability
- $100 credit per stay at Regent, InterContinental and Kimpton hotels
- $50 credit per stay at Hotel Indigo
One-night deposit is required however you can cancel free of charge up to 7 days in advance. Book and stay by June 30, 2022.
Here are some participating hotels with nightly rate examples:
- InterContinental London Park Lane £332
- Kimpton Fitzroy £219
- Hotel Indigo Kensington £126
- Hotel Indigo Birmingham £156
- Kimpton Manchester Clocktower £175
- InterContinental Edinburgh the George £235
- Hotel Indigo Berlin Centre Alexanderplatz €99
- Hotel Indigo Paris Opera €250
- Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam €189
- Hotel Indigo Madrid Princesa €103
- InterContinental Lisbon €211
The benefits look quite similar to IHG’s Luxury and Lifestyle program, with some pros and cons:
+ 10% discount
+ Greater range of hotels included, especially mid-level Hotel Indigos
– Minimum 2-night stay requirement
– No breakfast included
– Less generous cancellation policy
With room upgrade and early check-in / late check-out thrown in, I think it can be good value if you have no IHG status. In terms of the $100 / $50 credit, make sure you compare the Advance Saver or other promo rates to understand what value they really have.
Other IHG offers:
- Save 20% on IHG hotel bookings with Railcard
- IHG Europe offer: 10% off, £80 credit and room upgrade with Mastercard
- IHG Luxury & Lifestyle: 3-for-2, $100 credit, breakfast, room upgrade and more
My review of Kimpton Fitzroy, London
In a bid to use up my IHG offers on Amex, I needed to book another hotel stay by end of August. The only hotel on the list that I hadn’t tried yet was Kimpton Fitzroy, so it became the obviously choice although I didn’t think I would be a fan.
The hotel is located right next to the Russell Square station, within proximity of the British Museum and University College London. I like its location – with a park around the corner, quiet-ish but in the meantime a lot of things to explore nearby.
The hotel opened its door in 1900 and is a Grade-II listed building. It was a Principal Hotel before the group was acquired by IHG in 2018.
I booked a LuxLife 3-for-2 rate, which includes free breakfast, $100 in-hotel credit and room upgrade subject to availability. Even though I booked the cheapest single room under the 3-for-2 promotion, it still set me back £478. Needless to say £160 a night is quite expensive for a 120-sqft room!
Looking at recent reports this hotel has been very stingy when it comes to room upgrade and it’s near impossible to fare one above the standard double room, which is why I didn’t bother to pay more for a better room. Just like how I expected, I received a one-level upgrade from standard single to standard double, which is anything but generous considering my Spire Elite status and the LuxLife rate plan.
Fortunately, some of the standard rooms are much larger than the others, and mine is one of them.
The room’s size is not great, but at least there’s plenty of space to move around, unlike what my friend and some other people have suggested. The bathroom is big enough, nicely furnished with a brand new bathtub.
In general it’s got the Kimpton feel although is slightly lacking in decorations. There’s also a small balcony although you can’t go outside.
The windows don’t appear to be double-glazed though, and being on the first-floor means you can expect some road noises. TV is broken as well, so on the second day they moved me to a different room on the seventh floor.
It’s quite similar so I didn’t take more photos, but has a more conventional rectangular shape. It’s atrium facing so much quieter.
In addition to the LuxLife benefit, IHG members are also entitled to £15 food and beverage credit, so in total I have £90 to spare during my stay. There are a cocktail bar and afternoon tea restaurant on site, however for proper dining you should visit the Burr & Co.
For my first dinner I ordered the Salt & Pepper Squid and King Prawn Curry:
Both taste EXCELLENT and I’m genuinely impressed. My only complaint is the portion – I can easily have three portions of the curry in a meal 🙂
Breakfast is also served here. Again decent quality but the menu doesn’t have a big range.
There’s a social hour daily between 5pm and 6pm, where complimentary wine and beer are served in the restaurant. Service at the Burr & Co is top-notch, hotel-wise just so-so.
At the end of the day, the hotel room’s condition is a lot better than I had imagined, and the restaurant has definitely been the highlight of my stay. However I still cannot justify paying £250+ a night for it considering all the alternatives in London, but if you have a free night voucher or some points to burn it may be worth a try.
£7 credit for using Amazon Photos
Amazon has brought back its offer to promote the Photos app. I wasn’t eligible last time and it seems to have changed now, so you should also have a look.
You can view the offer on this page, and there should be a message if you are ineligible. You must be a paying Amazon Prime member to be eligible.
To participate, you need to download the Amazon Photos app and upload at least one photo via the app by August 31. You will receive your £7 Amazon credit within 7 days, and have until September 15 to redeem it.
There is a minimum purchase value of £25 to use the credit, and like always it only applies to items sold by Amazon.
6K IHG bonus points for staying 4 nights (targeted)
A new IHG offer has just landed in my mailbox.
You can access the offer here.
- Stay between August 19 and September 30
- Stay two nights and earn 3,000 bonus points
- Stay another two nights and earn 3,000 more bonus points
Basically you earn a total of 6,000 bonus points after completing four qualifying (paid) nights. They can be four separate one-night stays, or a stay of four consecutive nights.
I asked around and not all of my friends could sign up successfully so it appears to be targeted. It’s far from a strong offer to be honest, so let’s see if IHG can bring up something more exciting later.
My review of Conrad London St James
Just a short review of my staycation at Conrad London St James. I got an impressive Impresario deal – £390 for three nights with $100 hotel credit, and the usual breakfast / room upgrade benefits which I would get for being Diamond anyway.
The hotel is located right next to the St James tube station. The location feels a bit like Park Lane, in that they are both quiet areas in central London next to a Park. However to me St James is much more favourable because there are many more shopping and dining options nearby.
The hotel opened around 7 years ago, which is fairly new for a 5-star hotel in London.
I’m upgraded from a Superior Room to an Executive Room. From recent reports online, the hotel is usually more than happy to upgrade Diamond members to Junior Suite or even One-bedroom Suite if there’s availability nowadays.
The room is not luxurious in any way, but quite neat with its modern design.
If I remember correctly all rooms feature separate bathtub and shower room, which is a plus.
The Executive Lounge is located on the first floor. Many hotels in the UK has chosen not to reopen their lounges or even permanently shut them even after the lockdown is over, so I’m glad that the Conrad has done the right thing here.
Evening canapes are served between 5.30pm and 7.30pm. It’s all table service, however there’s unlimited refill for your food and drinks. A few options are provided for beer, wine and even champagne.
At that time the restaurant was still closed, so I could only use the £80 credit at the pub.
Breakfast is also mostly table service, and Diamond members can choose whatever they want from the menu with no surcharge. There are a few cold plates which you can pick up yourself.
The hotel has no swimming pool. Here’s the gym:
After checkout I found out that they forgot about my Impresario credit and overcharged me, and it took quite a few messages for me to sort it out. I did bag quite a lot of points from this stay though, thanks to the Triple Points promotion and double points offer from Impresario.
Travel business class from US to France and Caribbean for only 34,500 miles
I wrote an article to talk about the boomerang tricks for redeeming Flying Blue miles. Basically Flying Blue’s redemption chart is zone-based, and the pricing doesn’t change even if your interchange airport is out of the zone.
A reader just approached me about an interesting itinerary he found:
Instead of flying directly from Seattle to St Marin in the Caribbean, you can do it the long way by stopping over at Paris first. The flight time will be MUCH longer, however you get to travel in business class with both Delta and Air France. Even better, you only pay 34,500 miles plus €183 in fees which is dirt cheap!
As I mentioned, this is because the pricing is based on your departure / destination and Paris doesn’t play a role here. You can also book SXM-CDG-SEA the same way but surcharges will be much higher.
You may be able to use this itinerary to just travel to Paris (cheaply) and drop the second leg. If you are handbag only there shouldn’t be any problem, otherwise make sure there’s a long transit time so you can convince the airport agent not to check through your luggage to the final destination. Also beware that if you do this too often, you may be on Flying Blue’s radar and get into trouble.
Unfortunately the max stopover time is 24 hours so you can’t really break the itinerary into two proper trips. However, if you are very keen on going back to travel after having been trapped home for the last year, this can be an attractive deal.
Priority Pass & China Southern partnership, plus a 35% off deal
Just like all other companies in the travel industry, Priority Pass has suffered a great deal in the last year or so. In addition to the possible revenue loss, they have also lost the contract with Plaza Premium, although the latter has opted to maintain its ties with DragonPass and American Express.
It was a huge blow to Priority Pass, however it didn’t stop them from expanding aggressively since the beginning of 2021 – their goal is to add 150 locations globally this year, which from the look of it is an underestimate.
In the latest development, Priority Pass stroke an impressive deal with China Southern, which opens the doors to more than 40 CZ lounges across China including some of its main hubs. Due to the slow recovery of travel globally, we may see more of such deals coming our way in the near future.
On a more relevant note, Priority Pass is running a pretty good sale at the moment.
Let’s focus on the Standard Plus membership, which grants you 10 visits to any Priority Pass lounges within the next year, for the price of £122. This is the best deal they’ve done in the history, if I remember correctly.
If you don’t have a free Priority Pass or LoungeKey card via credit card agreements, it may be well worth considering. You can bring any number of guests with you using your visit quota, but again remember they are only valid for a year.
Book a two-bedroom suite in Bangkok with IHG points
IHG doesn’t have a Premium Award feature that many other hotel groups offer, which means you can only book standard rooms with points. However it’s not always the case, as it’s not rare to see hotels offer award availability on all room types, whether it’s intentional or a bug I can’t tell.
Thanks to @midnight on Flyertalk, a new hotel in Bangkok is running such “promotion”. The Sindhorn Midtown Bangkok hotel is set to join IHG on August 1, although the actual brand hasn’t been revealed yet.
It’s only a four-star though so it’s not gonna be an upper-scale brand unless they have done substantial renovation, and my guess would be a Holiday Inn. The hotel is now bookable on IHG, and all room types are priced at 30,000 points:
Including the top-level two bedroom corner sky suite, which sleeps four. Due to the lack of tourists in Bangkok at the moment hotels are pretty cheap, and the suite is priced at around £200 so you are not getting insanely outsized value for your points here.
Obviously the uncertainty here is we don’t know when / if we can travel freely to Thailand and back in the near future. However award nights can always be cancelled free of charge so you may want to lock in some redemption nights if you have any plans in mind for the next year.