This (along with some other recent experiences) is just absurd. What are they thinking not giving RA for somebody that has stayed 51 nights at IC hotels? Yet they'll (probably) give RA to somebody that has stayed 70 nights in a Candlewood and 3 one-nighters at different ICs. They really must be smoking some funny stuff in the IHG RA office. It's frankly bad enough that I just decided not to make a year-end push for RA. I'm at 46 paid nights in my rolling 365 days right now, and will have about 5 drop off next month when my "early-review" is due to come. I don't have many stays over the next 1.5 months, but was contemplating making some extra trips and even doing a mattress run at the cheapest IHG property I could fine. But I decided it just isn't worth it given all the uncertainty. I would be pissed if I threw that extra money towards IHG for no reason and they they decided not to reqaulify me with 56 or 58 nights. Just not worth the aggravation IMHO. They will have lost a lot of my business as now I will probably push all my stays to Hyatt and SPG and give up on IHG.

If IHG had a concrete number of nights to strive for, and a concrete set of guidelines for earning RA, then I would go for it. However I just can't justify it with all the uncertainty.