I get your frustration: the rules don't always favour your circumstances. But it's IHG's game: they establish the rules and it's up to us if we want to play.


The original version of the scheme allowed for currency conversions. This created an added level of complexity - and wafer thin opportunities - as exchange rates shifted. As someone pointed out, the stakes are high, and hotels were miffed when BPG claims were approved when conversion between currencies - rather than the hotels marketing strategies - were the cause.

Of course, there are casualties: as we see from your example, and in cases where currencies not so widely used for billing by OTAs are used by hotels (think MYR!).