saint77

I enjoy having a nice suite too but if I will be out of the hotel for all my waking hours, it has little value to me

Dave Noble

When Im away working, I will be out of the suite from around 08:30 to 16:00 , so a lot of waking hours remaining

I would rather have my own lounge in a suite rather than have access to a shared club lounge

Tim O'Brien

i think it's highly personal, and subjective, the desire of a suite, or club, or both, for example a non drinker, or say just a more private person, or someone who is exhausted from work, may enjoy the personal space back in their suite, v another, maybe more social type.

i fully appreciate your view, when you've been out working all day, putting your feet up, and relaxing in your suite, and with the benefit of the free mini bar, not a bad treat, at the end of a full day.

i like having the club option, because of the food factor, if it's a good quality lounge, that makes all the difference for me. if it's a poor food selection, i don't usually spend a lot of time there anyway.

saint77

all good points

certainly not all lounges are created equal ;-)

I like having access to a printer, check in / out facilities, some club personnel have been incredibly helpful on past stays and I would never sit in my room and drink alone

I like self-serve option in Clubs and not having to sign any cheques or bills

I will never wait at a desk to check-out, I will just leave

the Club at ICs - Park Lane, HK, Chopin (Miami), Rialto (Melbourne), Sydney, Bangkok.... have exceptionally good lounges

Tim O'Brien

yes, checking in and out is also convenient. Just had a much enjoyed stay in Miami, and never spent time at the front desk, my point of contact was the Sales Director, Mike, who came up to the lounge to meet, nice property^

Land-of-Miles

If you are out working you typically miss more than half of the lounge amenity. The IC PL wraps up free drinks at around 19:00 (after starting at 17:30) I am often not even back from work by then.

In many locations I will pay for a club room by booking a club room from the outset but I won't ever do that at the PL again after the Mary Kay shenigans during my last stay.

I value the suite and free minibar far more highly than lounge access.

Tim O'Brien

i find the clubs limited to the 1.5hr Happy Hour pretty average, Costa Rica is probably the most average club i've experienced, Panama is saved by the guy running it, a great asset to that property, i like Miami's club, i think the Asian clubs are much more superior.

excuse my ignorance, the PL is?

chrism20

PL = IC Park Lane

Tim O'Brien

thks, for a moment, i thought it was Playa Bonita

Atacama40

Was also told that in email from Abassador Center early August....not read rest of thread so maybe that's redundant but put in print at that time, several times in respect of an issue I had with them.

chrisksc

Current RA renewed on 01Sep2015 based on 60/20/3.

Tim O'Brien

down thread we we discussing the prospect of a revenue model as a tandem criterion, alongside the current 60/20/3 for RA. I mentioned i wrote a note, to request that be considered.

i received this response a yesterday.

Thank you again for contacting the office of Ms. Ruth Negus, Director, InterContinental Ambassador, IHG, regarding your suggestion for changing how Ambassador members could achieve Royal Ambassador status. I appreciate you taking the time to share your comments with us.

Your comments regarding the possibility of applying revenue spent to IHG as a means to determine whether a person meets Royal Ambassador status have been documented on a formal level and will remain on record here in the corporate office. In addition, a copy of this file has been made available to Ms. Negus and the IHG Senior Leadership. While revenue spent is not currently an aspect used in determining who earned Royal Ambassador status, we are always looking for ways to improve.

Thank you for emailing Ms. Negus’ office. Your support to the InterContinental Ambassador is very much appreciated and we look forward to the continued pleasure of being of service to you.

Kind regards

---------------------------

i would also like to see RA for life, say after say 10 years of RA, a win win for IHG, and it's most loyal customers.

Voucher

Hi all, (FYI)

- My RA expires end of Oct.
- my personal records shows that I completed 60 qulifying nights most of it at more than 3 different IC's.
- called the ambassador line today, first I was told that it's short by 15 nights.
- after a manual counting, it's now confirmed 60! ^. (I had many adjusted stays* in my activities and seems their system doesn't catch that automatically).
- I was given a "case number" to use it by 1st of November for the "confirmed" renewal.
- please note: I've only completed 60 qulifying nights so far.
- the representative just confirmed that the (60/20/3) still valid.

* most of the adjusted stays in my account are due to extended nights.

scubaccr

I have become quite expert on this, now 3rd year in a row I have been manually adjusted after contact Ambassador desk via skype. On the bright side historically I always received both Amb and RA packs, about 2-5days apart, so was gettng 2x BOGO certs a year. Hope you get both too.

1. yes any nights across all IHG brands that are manually adjusted to become paid qualifying (whether by you contacting IHG or Hotel) are not spotted by the RA nights counter

2. Yes you need have Amb Desk manually review your nights which they do for a 365 rolling period ending day you contact them.
For the first time this year I did not need escalate to a supervisor to do this manual check, so the normal reps seem better aware of this issue by now

3. The IHG Rep can not correct your status immediately, as it is not possible for rep to give you RA status manually until you first drop from RA to Ambassador.
The IHG rep makes a note and checks on 1st of month after you drop to plain ambassador and then manually renews you

4. Only original rep who did the manual check is allowed to upgrade you to RA. For someone else to, they then would have to redo the manual check (doh) so instead will just tell you to wait on rep you spoke to nn days ago to refresh your account

Voucher

What if she was on pregnancy leave by then lol. I don't think that's accurate, as I've been in similar situation 2 years ago when they took the case number and re-upgraded me immediately.

Anyway, a lesson learned now: I should make a proper checkout before any extension take place.

Thanks scubaccr for sharing your experience ^