FlyerTalker688786

When I posted few reply earlier, I was using mobile. So the original posts were not very clear and may have caused some confusion. As one that has followed the whole story of accounts termination since 2010/2011 from the Chinese forums, and here, I decide to write a recoup of the accounts termination so far. And I hope that would help people new to this thread to understand what is happening. Just to declare that I have no affiliation with IHG or whatsoever.

1>, The first round of accounts termination in China
This happened cir. 2010/2011. It starts with a famous Chinese blogger and soon got lots of attention. And more people came forward to confirm their accounts got cancelled by IHG as well. By 2011, I did a survey in the Chinese forum, and at least 37 people came forward (majority Chinese, but quite few of them live in USA and one in UK). In that time, no explanation was given whatsoever. IHG basically told the people who took this issue to them, that IHG would not welcome these people any more and that is basically the end of the story.

I think at that time there is no other region was affected. It seemed IHG was targeting Chinese member and it caused roar among Chinese online forum community. Finger was quickly pointed to IHG being racist. One or two thread was posted here in flyertalk but was basically ignored by most people here.

In that time, the people got account terminated had never guessed codes would be the reason. The possible offense through survey seemed to indicate the usage of corporate code, the family account (i.e. boyfriend or wife or sometimes the whole family all had account with substantial points balance) and booked award night for other people.

Codes registration was not seen as a plausible reason as many people around the globe would have registered some sort of codes, since they are readily available. At that time, my guess was that people had multiple accounts, and aided by codes, they got points rather rapidly.

Terminated member in that time including several RAs and majority Platinum.

2>, Small scale of account termination
After 2011, there are several small scale of account termination. You may find some thread about individual cases. And it seemed to be in other regions rather than China as well. The possible offense seemed to be extremely usage of P+C offense mentioned by htb, and one account was known to be terminated due to extremely high number of claims of Best Rate Guarantee.

3>, The latest round of account termination cir. 2013/2014
Again this round of account termination seems to started in China as well. However, different from 2011, people actually was told by IHG staff in Atlanta or Chinese 0800 number agent that the reason is inappropriate use of promotional codes (at least majority of them). The basic procedure in 2014 involves with two steps: locally dealt with or referral to Atlanta.

Once member found they could not log in their account, they call up the IHG 0800 number in China. Since the last four digits are 4848 (sounds like Si [die]-ba-Si [die]-ba), Chinese forum refer this number as 4848. The agent will look up their account, based on evaluation, the member will be told whether they were referred or not.

If they were not on the list of Atlanta with two now famous IHG employees, [please google it, I guess I should not mention here really, I will use Mr. ATIHG below], 4848 agents will manually reinstate member accounts with verbal warning. The warning so far, according to people's posts, are basically that no more codes registration.

If they have to be referred to Atlanta, it only means their accounts are terminated. Mr. ATIHG will send an email, once contacted, that IHG will no longer welcome the named member.

This round, people got their account terminated including IHG credit card holders.

4>, Not only codes in fact!
This year, one of the incident really reflected the frustration of IHG on China is the temporarily withdrawn of PB this quarter. If you remember the last PB list, there was two hotels, IC Hangzhou and CP Beijing, sold out within second when list came online. I only learnt later that some people wrote an online script to catch the availability of PB in above hotel. And such script was shared by some online users. The result was IHG suspended many accounts that had bookings in above two hotels under PB. Some got it back, and some never did.

5>, How to make money from IHG?
One relief fact is, despite the large scale of account termination. I personally think the chance of it spread to other parts of the world being smallish. It certainly could spread, but not in the scale of China. It is known to Chinese FT community that many people got drawn to IHG to profit from the IHG rewards scheme. The most seen tactics including selling RA invitation online for USD$400-600, selling or award nights for cash; resale of the room they booked in order to qualify for RA so the invitation to be sold later...IHG needs to counterattack these people. And the only way to limit such activities are: temporary closure of PB in China; account termination (although it is difficult for IHG to provide evidence of resale of award night etc.);limitation of usage of codes and the elimination of RA invitation.

I do feel sorry for the genuine members who got their finger burnt. But at this moment I still believe it is a China problem for IHG. Members from other regions should be less concerned, although alerted. I would recommend concerned member refrain to register codes for a while until IHG finish its clearance of the house. Again, I am Chinese, have nothing to do with IHG. The reason I write this is to give people a balanced view of what is going on from my research since 2010/2011. Please do not send me private messages. Mod please do keep this post as I think it will be of help to many. Thanks.