IHG Accelerate Summer 2017 Promotion Is Live

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IHG Rewards (the rewards program for the likes of InterContinental, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza amongst others) has been known to offer some of the more interesting and potentially lucrative promotions found in the hotel loyalty program arena……and the latest “IHG Accelerate” promotion for summer 2017 is now live.

IHG’s Accelerate promotion is tailored to individual IHG Rewards members so the details of the promotion and the targets you’ll be set to earn points will vary from person to person.

In the past both Joanna and I have done pretty well out of IHG Accelerate but, recently, our offers really haven’t been worth pursuing and I was beginning to think that IHG Rewards had decided that we’d done a little too well out of Accelerate in the past….so I wasn’t particularly hopeful when I clicked through to see my latest promotion targets. But I was pleasantly surprised:

Ok, so this isn’t by any means the easiest set of tasks I’ve ever been set by IHG but is a definite improvement on my past 3 or 4 Accelerate promotions.

Click here to check on what your promotion looks like

Here’s what I think of my challenges:

1. Stay once and get 2,500 IHG Rewards points – simple and easy enough
2.  Stay 5 nights and earn 10,000 IHG Rewards points – that’s more nights than I’d like to throw IHG’s way but, if the rest of the promotion makes it worthwhile, it’s definitely a target that’s attainable.
3. Stay at 3 different brands and earn 28,800 IHG Rewards points – I like this! 3 separate stays at cheaper properties like a Holiday Inn , a Holiday Inn Extra and a Crowne Plaza would get me the points and, with a plentiful supply of those brands at airports I visit often, this should be an easy task to complete.
4. Book 2 stays with the IHG App and earn 3,400 points – easy and doesn’t add to the number of nights I need to stay at IHG properties.
5. Book a stay with points & cash and earn 3,600 points – another easy task….although I don’t like having to use points to hit my Accelerate targets.
6. Spend $110 on food or beverages at IHG hotels and earn 1,300 points – not too challenging…..although I don’t like having to buy food and drink at hotels – I usually find they’re vastly overpriced for what you get.

If I complete 5 of the 6 challenges outlined above I’ll earn a further 20,000 points and if I stay at an IHG property before 30 June I’ll earn a further 3,000 points.

With 72,600 points on the table (and with a free night at a top InterContinental hotel available from 50,000 – 60,000 points) IHG has my attention with this promotion. I have a few trips coming up where I can easily move my reservations to IHG properties if I so choose so I should be able to check off a few of the Accelerate requirements relatively easily.

While I got a reasonable set of requirements for my Summer 2017 IHG Accelerate promotion Joanna definitely didn’t get the love:

This is about as bad as it gets.

With only 35,500 points available and with most of those being awarded for staying a lot of nights at IHG properties this isn’t even worth considering. Joanna could earn an easy 3,500 IHG rewards points from a one night stay at a cheap Holiday Inn Extra property (2,500 early stay bonus + stay once get 1,000) but that’s hardly enough to warrant moving a stay over to IHG or making a special effort to book a stay at an IHG property. This is an easy promotion for Joanna to pass on….looks like it’s up to me to earn the points this time around 🙂

The Admin

The promotion runs for stays between 15 May and 31 August 2017. The terms and conditions clearly state:

Each Offer must be completed between 15 May 2017 and 31 August 2017 (both dates inclusive)

And I can tell you from personal experience the those rules are set in stone so bookings made before 15 May will not count towards targets like “Book 2 Stays with the IHG App”. 

Having said that it would appear as if previously held bookings will qualify as long at the stay falls during the promotional period. In my set of challenges the wording in the individual T&Cs found next to each challenge reads…..

Number of bonus points listed above will be awarded after the required number of qualifying room nights have been consumed by the member at the required number of distinct IHG brand hotels between 15 May 2017 and 31 August 2017

…which would indicate that you only have to make sure you stay during the promotion period (“consume” the nights) and not worry about when the booking was made.

Bottom Line

After a few very indifferent IHG Accelerate promotions I finally have one that’s worth considering…..which is more than I can say for what Joanna has been offered!

I’d be interested to hear what other IHG Rewards members have been given as their Accelerate challenges/tasks so please let us all know in the comments section below. Also, if anyone spots any incredibly cheap rates at IHG properties please feel free to post them in the comments….it may help a few readers hit their targets for a lot less than they otherwise may.

NOTE: IHG seems to be rolling this promotion out at a very slow pace – if you click one of the links supplied and the resulting page suggests that the promotion has ended (it hasn’t) it just means that your personalised tasks/challenges haven’t yet been posted. Give it a few hours and try again.