WolfvanWeen

I've often seen that you must first select the best flexible rate and room type, and then the system offers additional items, like breakfast or bonus point packages etc.
You might want to check for that the next time you book.

Points Scrounger

The Wolfster is correct! First look at the best flex rate, and then see if there's an option to add breakfast for a surcharge. If so, that's your qualifying breakfast stay. The "breakfast rate" does not appear as a "line item" in and of itself, but a piggyback feature.

vsevolod4

Exactly!

TallestHotelInJapan

I am happy to hear this! Have now booked my first nights for the 2014 promotion.

About Berlin, I am not so sure what to do: There is an existing booking for one night at the Hyatt Grand for only 108 EUR. I could cancel and book two rooms at the HI instead (= 88 EUR and one night for each account done).

beltline

I expanded my search to 50 miles and was able to find a holiday inn that looks to have what it is asking for. I see this:

Best Flexible Rate
Refundable
No deposit required
Most popular rate

And

Best Flexible with Breakfast
Refundable
No deposit required
Breakfast included

When just looking within 30 miles I only see "Best Flexible Rate". I use the drop down on all the hotels and none have the breakfast option. However Holiday Inn Express has Free Breakfast under the "Best Flexible Rate" since it's included at Holiday Inn Express. When I expanded it to 50 miles I was able to find a Holiday Inn with the "Best Flexible with Breakfast". Are you saying it could still be under the "Best Flexible Rate"? Should it be in the drop down when you select your room? I tried 4 mock bookings at four different ones and none offered breakfast.

Wonder if this would qualify since it states Breakfast Included?

Best Flexible Rate
Refundable
No deposit required
Breakfast included
Most popular rate

TIGA31328

My 'deal';

Stay a total of 7 nights(1 night more than the last promotion)
Stay at 3 different IHG brands(same as the last promotion)
Book 4 separate stays through our IHG® app(new, irritating but certainly doable)
Stay 2 Saturday nights(same as the last promotion and equally irritating to achieve)
Stay at 2 Holiday Inn® hotels(doable)
Complete 5 of your offers(there are only five offers to complete, makes me think someone that doesn't have English as a first lanaguage wrote this)

I doubt that I will participate in this one, no travel planned until May 1st where I can stay at an IHG property.

username

Yeah, the computer's first language is certainly not English. Criticize it once you learn how to talk in binary

Chances are some lazy programmer wrote it and did not put in the extra check to see how many conditions you have and have the computer show different wording if they are equal.

Points Scrounger

I would bet that such a stay would not qualify, because it appears to be the hotel that's offering to throw in breakfast themselves?

You need to book this one to get the promotion-qualifying credit:

Best Flexible with Breakfast
Refundable
No deposit required
Breakfast included

sdsearch

As I already mentioned before (a few pages back), I was told by a supervisor (ie, not just a front-line customer service agent), that the "best flexible rate" wouldn't count, it has to be "best flexible rate w/ breakfast". And they realize that it's a bad deal*, but then they tell me that look, it's only one night you have to use this rate, and then you'll have it completed.

*I even pointed out to them that the hotel I had been planning to stay at already gives breakfast to IHG Plats, but they wouldn't have mercy. I simply have to overpay once, no way around it.

Fortunately, I found a lower-than-normal best-flex-with-breakfast rate for a Thu Jan 2 one-night stay (which I needed in that area anyway), so that's the one I'm getting out of the way first, since I doubt such a good rate will repeat outside of the (low business travel time) holiday period. So while it's still overpaying compared to what I could have paid for another rate at another Holiday Inn that day, it's not overpaying compared to "best flexible" rates later during the promo period at the other HI that gives me free breakfast as IGH Plat).

DesertRat

This promo really makes me angry. A big disincentive to stay with IHG, especially after seeing the other offers.
My max is 34K and I have only one IHG stay this year. I'm losing platinum this year and especially now see no reason to try to regain it.

Dave Noble

Isn't that you have only stayed once this year likely to be the reason why you received such an easy promotion

Shareholder

That's been obvious since the first of these promos (Crack the Case 2012, Big Win Fall 2013). I've decided to move my business away from IHG since they appear to be more interested in penalizing their best customers than rewarding us. So maybe after no stays through most of 2014, next fall I will get one of the more attractive and achievable Big Win combos requiring about five nights to achieve all the challenges!

Dave Noble

The idea of the promotions isn't to reward people for doing what they would do anyway, but to try and get them to do more. If already doing a lot of stays, why would they give a promotion which would easily be done with regular stays ?

That these big promotions are open to all rather than targetted hardly seem that they are penalising people

sdsearch

If you're based in AZ as your profile states, then it's trivial for you to get Platinum at zero cost (in fact, net negative* cost after the first year):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/inter...um-status.html

*After one year, you are charged a whopping $49/year annual fee, and in return each year you get an uncapped programwide free night certficiate good for a year. Surely you can more than $49 of value out a free night certificate? (And thus, with the value of the certifcate being more than the cost of the annual fee, I call that a "net negative" annual fee.)

And, btw, the signup bonus on the credit card is much more than 34K...

al613

Did anyone have a stay booked on third party website count for you for the Big Win?