Originally Posted by
DonPedro
This is one of the conflicting aspects to the RA programme. I’m at $14.5k for 2018, and had booked a « staycation » in my home city as well as a long weekend in Asia, both in Jan, to celebrate my (hoped for) new status
So if next year is announced in Feb...or if the assumed goalposts for qualification have moved, I can’t genuinely complain as IHG have not published the 4 Jan date, nor the qualification threshold.
And yet I’ll cancel my Jan stays and $2k of business to IHG. It won’t get postponed or move to another programme, it’s just gone. A lose lose situation, really.
In Jan 2018, Saltlake initially processed RA status as in 2017 on 4th Jan with expiry 31Dec, but then circa 18th Jan this got changed to expiry 31Jan.
In my mind an improvement, avoids those Ambassadors needing their Xmas->New Year onwards (say checkin 24th Dec checkout 5th Jan stays that post 10th Jan) to be picked up. Plus existing bordeline-renewing RA's can book into new year (Jan) knowing they get RA benefits.
The downside is non-RA Plain-Ambassadors in 2018 who believe they qualify as RA for 2019 , will not get RA on Jan4th as in 2017 and 2018, but Feb 1st or thereabouts, so not get the extra RA benefits for Jan2019 so may hold off booking costlier IC nights in Jan2019 in favour of cheaper non-IC nights. Maybe not worth saving as the Jan2019 IC $$$ spend counts towards renewing RA for 2020.