RA new criteria now is under review
 

Yesterday I emailed the Ambassador Customer Service to ask about when to renew my RA. The staff mentioned that IHG is now reviewing the new criteria in order to maintain or achieve the Royal Ambassador status.
I do believe the new criteria will be 75 nights - 30 nights at IC - 3 ICs.

Below is the original content from the email.

Warm greetings from the InterContinental Ambassador Service Center!

We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that Royal Ambassadors will be evaluated for re-qualification during day before its actual expiry date. Please know that Royal Ambassador status will be reinstated if an existing member was able to meet the required criteria in maintaining the status. Otherwise, member will be given a Complimentary Ambassador status for one whole year.

On the other hand, since a new Elite Level was introduced by IHG Rewards Club, our corporate office is now reviewing the new criteria in order to maintain or achieve the Royal Ambassador status. Rest assured that once new criteria has been decided, it will be published on our website for member's reference.

We assure that once a member met the requirements, status will be automatically renewed for free and will be valid for another 12 months. You may contact our service center by last week of February 2016 to confirm if you will qualify for another year as Royal Ambassador.

Thank you Mr. Hong, and we hope this information have assisted in clarifying your query. Please let us know if you need further ssistance by sending us an e-mail to [email protected].

If they move the goalposts significantly they should give good advance warning or exceptional renewal at old levels on a one time basis. Anything else would be pretty rough.

I would assume that the old rules (60/20/3) stand until the new rules come into force in any event. I should meet the higher requirement anyway though.

You never know with IHG thought!

Changes should only be made on the 1st january to be fair to all.

The 1st Jan is meaningless since AMB years are dispersed across all months and consequently so are RA renewals. It would be very unfair to make a change like this just before someone's year ended when they were too late to do anything about it.

The published details on Royal Ambassador status states

If IHG changes what it chooses to use to determine when to offer it, there is no change to the terms.

Not when your quotation is itself a change to the terms and conditions.
Just ~2 months ago I could log in and it gave the 60/20/3 rule the eligibility requirements.
See here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/inter...ter-spire.html


So they've already changed the published criteria. The question here is when do those changes go into effect for existing members who were potentially at the end of the qualification period and were under the belief they've done enough to qualify?

Even when it had that value given it also stated that it reserves the right to change these criteria at any time and without prior notification .

Simply said to qualify for an RA invitation one must stay minimum match of 20/60 nights

Does not say you will get RA at 60nights, just that is a minimum needed before one is considered for RA

Well you can question the enforceability of such "we can do anything we like" clauses especially in Europe but fundamentally these schemes exist to encourage customer loyalty and repeat purchases. So it would be a very stupid organisation which made huge changes to the scheme without giving reasonable notice considering the potential legal and commercial downsides.

Now as others have said IHG may well be that stupid but time will tell.

I am sure it is coming based on IHGs inadvertent adding text to t&c's on 10th July for a few hours and probably using those same published higher values

Trouble with a big increase to nights needed for RA status is the lack of a common start month so which ever month in a year is chosen to up the required nights for RA, choice will give some RAs much less notice than others, in some cases too little notice

many RAs participate in multiple hotel programs so just book about the known minimum of one part of the known circa 60/20 nights equation to obtain/renew RA.
No valid reason to make RAs 75nights due to now getting Spire with RA as we will all easily reach 75k points now the ridiculous 2k/stay is gone

This year I am one of those as only just hit my 20x IC nights over last weekend with RA my year ending 31st August, but also have 90 paid qual nights just in 2015 so if changed to 75/30 which I met in the past I would struggle this year. If changed mid July with my RA year ending August I'd simply have dropped my RA and used Hilton's more

this year it would have caused me issues on IC nights front, except I am lucky to be renewing right now for period Sep2015-Aug2016 before IHG announce the now expected change and hopefully my next 12months will be a more even mix of IC/IHG nights again

Now that RA qualifications rules are not written anymore, I am afraid that such threads posted by people having no historical activity on Flyertalk are going to flourish...

Discussion based on assumptions built on rumours isn't going anywhere :).

What is clear is that PC/IHG owns the game and can do whatever it chooses with the structure and rules. Fairness may be something they aim for, but it's likely not their guiding light.....

The other thing to remember is that Ambassador and the rest of the PC programme are quite separate.

Ambassador grades of membership are mostly useless for those who don't stay more than a few times a year at ICs.

And by that same token, PC/IHG are likely more concerned with IC stays when handing out RA. I don't really understand why they should give a hoot about stays at Holiday Inns etc: they have the Spire business to take care of that.

I thought all levels were done of an annual basis

You have at one stroke written off a good 40% of FT posts, especially on hotels chains fora :)