alibra

Perhaps disingenuous is a bad choice of words. I just feel like there was so much buildup to IHG really creating a tier that rewarded their most loyal patrons and teasers as to what it would entail, only to be so thoroughly let down over and over. Whether it was IHG taking 2 months to mail me a card with magical red status that had the incorrect customer service number that was a porno line, or promising big things coming after the 100% point bonus and Spire Elite Benefit, only to have the big reveal be a Hertz Five star "upgrade" after that. Also, their Accelerate goals got ridiculously harder the more that I stayed with them. I understand the whole carrot on a stick mentality in order to drive revenue, but their supposed top tier has to argue/beg with individual hotels to get the "perks" that are supposed to be automatic for their better tier. As one example, I stayed at the Indigo in Asheville NC this fall along with a co-worker who was a Gold member. I was offered no upgrade at check-in, but my co-worker was offered a top floor mountain view, when we had booked the exact same room types. Granted, I checked in two hours later, but I still do not see the logic in how they treat their Spire Tier. Perhaps it is because they don't know how to implement any program without errors/gaffs that make everyone under the Sun a Spire so that that hotel properties have no idea if you are a truly frequent traveler or just someone who reads this forum and takes advantage of their ridiculous implementation failings. That is not to bash anyone in this forum - if there is a loophole, I seize them too. I just want IHG to have a website that accurately states the rules. Since they did that wonky extension of Spire upon Ambassador renewals, they should have had some sort of press release or perhaps updated their program rules page to address the hiccup. I also don't understand why none of their IHG Rewards Club Staff are ever brought into the loop so that it wasn't a waste of time calling them for answers that are never provided.

rbAA

HI Resort Mai Khao, where I've only stayed once before, and they are rather full next week, just upgraded (online) my room from the lowest category-it's an award stay- to the top category suite. I did get an email from them this week and asked about maybe paying a bit towards a private pool access room as I had last time. Instead, they just upgraded me all the way.

Doesn't always happen that way, but often enough to keep my interest. Plus, it was only 15k/nt under the old rates, 25k currently.