I guess it depends on how you look at it.

From my perspective I have zero IC stays booked into 2018 because I don't know if I will be RA and I have no real incentive to stay at IC's without RA. So there is a real potential these forward bookings will be lost entirely to other chains so I can gain certainty and lock in current pricing.

I am not loyal to IC I am loyal to RA, without RA, I don't stay at IC's so if IHG want my business at IC's it seems to me it would be far better for them not to piss about playing silly games and instead set some clear criteria which I can try and hit.

Whilst this may drive some customers to minimum spend renewal that should be factored into the minimum spend threshold. The opacity of the qualification criteria is likely to drive many customers to give up even trying to renew RA, to fail to incentivise those who narrowly miss qualification to qualify and the resultant loss of IC business from disgruntled former RA's. This is made even worse by the fact that those who were narrow misses who might in previous years have requalified again a few weeks later would now have a whole year to build up requalification (as a gamble against opaque criteria) with no RA status benefits.

Frankly IC is not that great a chain that we would all stay there regardless as it represents the best option in each city that it is present. Often the IC is an also ran property made more appealing to those of us who are RA's via status benefits.

The whole scheme is somewhat Kafkaesque but I would wager a significant sum that an opaque programme leads to less overall business for IC than a transparent one.

I am at a point now where it would not distress me terribly to lose RA and just switch my business to other chains.