IHG Accelerate Promotion – Don’t Book Too Early!

It’s a dangerous time of year for miles and points enthusiasts as the period between Christmas and New Year brings, for some, a little time off work but with not that much to do. The kids have all had their presents…and broken them, the food has been purchased and eaten, the family has come and gone and there’s not that much going on in the travel world….so a little bit of boredom sets in. And boredom is when mistakes start to creep in.

The latest IHG Accelerate promotion (for 1Q 2016) has offered some very good incentives for existing IHG members but you need to be careful not to fall foul of the terms and conditions.

If you’re sitting at home wishing that the kids would switch of the Disney Channel (and all the incessant warbling that seems to come from it) you can find yourself mentally planning out a few trips for 2016…no harm in that. But planning involves thinking and, suddenly, you remember that IHG has a promotion for 1Q 2016 and that your offers were pretty good.

Now you’re in front of the computer, you’ve pulled up your IHG Accelerate offers….

….and you’re searching for hotels that would check off a few of your targets.

This is great…you suddenly have something to do and it doesn’t involve wrapping paper, mending broken presents or explaining to your wife’s Uncle that the government doesn’t actually want to make Islam the national religion.

You’re so happy that you’ve found a distraction from the Christmas mayhem that you forget why you haven’t yet booked these IHG stays – you’re just thankful for something to do.

If IHG offered you a similar promotion to Joanna’s (above) you’ll have challenges that involve booking a few stays at IHG….and this is where your exuberance at having something travel-related to do could get you into trouble.

There are two simple errors you can make from here:

• You forget that, even though all the promotion details have been announced, the promotion doesn’t actually start until 1 January 2016….and you book a super cheap rate that you find for a stay before New Year. Business travel has slowed down considerably for the holidays so there are bound to be some fantastic rates out there for this coming week….but they’re not eligible for the promotion!

• You remember that your stay has to commence on or after 1 January but you forget one other important part of the terms and conditions:

“Each offer must be completed between 1 January 2016 and 30 April 2016”

This doesn’t just mean that you have to make sure that your stays are between those dates, it means that each one of the challenges that IHG has set for your promotion must also be performed during those dates.

So, taking one of Joanna’s challenges as an example:

“Travel with the IHG App – book two stays and earn 3,200 Bonus Points”

If, before 1 January,  Joanna was to book a stay for, say, 12 February 2016 via the IHG App, the stay would count towards the IHG accelerate Promotion but the booking via the App would not qualify.

When a large part of your IHG Accelerate promotion is the “achievement bonus” which involves you having to complete a set number of challenges, missing out on something like this could be very costly indeed. In many cases it would probably lead to the IHG member having to book another stay if they wanted to complete the challenge.

This last error is the easiest one to make because, in your mind, you’re booking the stay for a date during the promotional period…and that’s what’s important right? Well, yes…as far as the stay goes but definitely not if you’re trying to check off a challenge like the one that involves booking via the IHG App.

Don’t let post-Christmas boredom cost you. Check the terms and conditions and make sure you think before you book!