a9504477

I enquired with the CP Sheffield (previous Holiday Inn):

"We do not offer Club lounge access as a welcome amenity for Spire Member

Club Lounge access is only given when reserving a Deluxe Club room or above"

Crofton138

The policy is clear - lounge access is not a defined Spire welcome amenity but some CP hotels choose to be more generous. I just assume that I will not get lounge access at CP hotels and if it is provided as a welcome amenity, then I just take it a free bonus. If I need lounge access, I will pay the relevant room rate to ensure that I have it as part of my reservation. It's quite straightforward really.

For any Spires getting free lounge access at the generous CP hotels, my advice would be enjoy it while it lasts!

Jer Lar

People just don’t understand how IHG works. Intercontinental lounges are far superior to Marriott and Hilton in every way.

1. The drink selection is of higher quality. You have way better wines and liquor selection.
2. The lounges aren’t packed. Hilton and Marriott elite status is so easy to obtain or buy that the lounge experience is just horrible due to the amount of people having access.
3. Intercon lounges have way higher food quality.
4. Intercon lounges don’t allow kids.

In my opinion, club lounge is an aspiration. What’s the point of calling it a club is access to it is so easy?

I agree though spires should at least get free breakfast but then again intercon has some of the highest quality breakfast I’ve ever had compared to the others.

IAN-UK

I corrected your claim regarding Intercontinental lounges vs the others. If you routinely pay for lounge access, then Intercontinental hotels will generally give you a far better experience. But we are not talking paid access: we're talking benefits, sweetners offered to commercially important guests who ar not paying for lounge access.

In these conditions, IHG offers ZERO, nothing at all, in terms of the lounge; while Hilton et al give access to somewhere you can at least grab a drink and something to eat in relative comfort.

It's bonkers to suggest that the existence of a fabulous place you can't enter trumps, in any way, a less worthy place that welcomes you in.

As for breakfast: under certain conditions, maybe involving being in China, Intercontinental hotels may offer one of you breakfast on one day of your stay; Hiltons will give all of you breakfast, every day.

i notice no difference in breakfasts between brands. Within brands there are good and not-so-good breakfasts.

craigthemif

Unfortunately we know exactly how IHG works. And that is to charge their guests for everything, even if they stay 100+ nights per year. Other chains recognise that somebody staying 50-100 nights per year is an extremely valuable customer who should be treated well.

Every major chain has hotels offering spectacular lounges, and others that just offer the bare minimum. An Asian Conrad is always going to be better than a European IC and an Asian IC is obviously going to blow a North American Marriott out of the water. But that's cultural / location / competition... not the chain itself.

There are also hotels in every chain that offer an amazing breakfast, and others that offer the bare minimum. I prefer many of the restaurant breakfasts I get at some hotels to the lounge breakfast I get at an IC (after paying more for a Club room).

Jer Lar

IHG has far superior redemption value versus Hilton and Bonvoy. Earning rates are also way higher with IHG, especially when combined with their cards.

The issue with Hilton and Marriott is elite status can easily be used obtained without staying too many nights. Hilton gives you Diamond with an Amex card and Marriott gives you 30 nights credit just by having both their cards. The days of having true loyalist that actually stay 50 plus nights are on the decline. Both companies have churned so many elites from nothing that their programs are always being devalued.

I do agree that IHG should give breakfast for elites and could be improved on certain aspects.

craigthemif

This is so completely wrong I can only imagine that you are trolling us.

All of these chains give 10 points per $. Marriott points are generally worth rather more than IHG or Hilton points. And the Hilton credit cards are generally viewed as the best co-branded card when you are completely loyal to one chain and want to supercharge your points earning. It has been 2-3 years since IHG ran a promotion that was genuinely lucrative.

And that's not even mentioning that IHG rewards book into standard rooms and nothing more. You can book any room type with Hilton points, although not necessarily at great value. And both Hilton and Marriott give elites free breakfast and actual room upgrades / lounge access / etc..

taecu

New Benefits Spire in China Hong kong Taiwan Macua = =

https://www.ihg.com/content/gb/en/de...cf002e0a180513

IAN-UK

i have no idea why you continue generalising in this way.

All programmes have sweet spots in terms of redemptions.
A particularly good feature of Hilton redemptions is the nights spent in exchange for points count towards qualification. With IHG they of course do not.


Every programme has feature that can be attractive. If your travel pattern allows, it's sensible to maintain a level of status in more than one programme.
IHG operates the opaque Royal Ambassaor scheme (demanding high but unspecified spend) in part to counter this strategy.

khabah

I find it interesting that IHG is finally rolling out club lounge access, albeit for HUALUXE and Crowne Plaza properties in Greater China only... but then I also think about their odd breakfast for one guest only benefits at certain tiers. I wonder why IHG is so hesitant to offer a thoroughly compelling loyalty product with benefits that challenge those from the Hiltons, Hyatts and Marriotts of the world?

I've said before and know that others echo similar grief about the abysmal layout of program-within-a-program-or-is-it-a-separate-program of IHG Rewards, InterContinental Ambassador, InterContinental Royal Ambassador and Kimpton Inner Circle. The fact that some of them intersect with one other [i.e. Ambassador nets you IHG Platinum] but you can't have another without the some other component [case in point Inner Circle, which only comes if you're Spire], coupled with IHG's arbitrary and secretive requirements for RA and Inner Circle. IHG also just announced a "work from hotel" initiative for certain hotels in Europe and the UK, but unlike competitors' offers that get you qualifying elite credit and points, IHG's collaboration gets you zilch. Really. I understand wanting to offer a unique loyalty product, but being unique by being uncompetitive doesn't make sense.

I'm genuinely starting to like IHG's upper-end brands - I'm a huge nerd for Regent, love Kimpton and have really come around on Hotel Indigo as it shapes up design-wise - but I genuinely believe they're hanging themselves with their lackluster program, and can punch much more above their weight if they were less stingy and more transparent. [Heck, they make Marriott look good - and I can't even stand them anymore.]

khabah

Jer Lar

How am I trolling? I have status in all three brands I mentioned.

As I mentioned multiple times, yes Hilton and Marriott give you lounge access, upgrades and breakfast. Again, upgrades are on the decline in both brands due to the large pool of elites that qualify. Lounges are going down in quality as well due to that influx. Breakfast is te only benefit I’d say is great at this point.

I live in Asia, what I’ve seen from traveling 150 days a year is IHG just offers better redemption. Marriott has just been devaluing since they changed to Bonvoy. Hilton has also gotten devalued since there move to the dynamic system.

IHG doesn’t have the best perks, but it’s just a better if your after free nights, for myself to say the most. I do agree with everyone though they should make the perks better and more attractive.

watch when travel comes back next year how Bonvoy and Hilton perform. They’ve give high tier status to a lot more people for nothing. You can let me know how many upgrades you got and how your lounge experience was.

IAN-UK

I imagine the suspicion came about because of your three contributions to FT, all have sung enthusiastically about Intercontinental hotels, the Ambassador programme and the benefits it affords members.

ICs are fine and they generally offer excellent lounge facilities, but for those who pay to use them. Sadly, access is not a benefit Ambassadors enjoy, so it seemed odd that you introduced the splendour of IC lounges into a thread discussing status benefits.

For me, Hilton impressed with its straightforward and generous Covid policies towards to all guests, but especially to HH members. IHG's approach has been grudging and lacklustre.

noneemac

I totally second this comment! PLUS, let's add that IHG offers BY FAR the most aggravating offshore call center experience. I truly HATE the time-suck and the incompetence of this center. IHG should be ashamed.

ernestnywang

I just wanted to correct that, for AMB members staying in ICs in Mainland China, you get one breakfast everyday. It is annoying they don't offer two, but it is not true that they only offer it on one day of your stay.

Per https://www.ihg.com/intercontinental...ons#icbenefits

exploreaswego

I have to agree with the others to disagree with you. I'm also currently based in Asia now carrying Spire equivalent status across all competing chain brands you mentioned, but personally IHG just lacks everything in general as a chain. From footprint of luxury portfolios, to points redemption value, to even the bespoke club lounge experience you raved about felt stuffy and outdated version of luxury that started watering down its benefits even before covid started happening. Take the IC Bali for example, all top shelf alcohol and wines are being replaced with generic brands, and the introduction of limitation on how many main hor devres you can have seems like a nickel and diming business to me. I cannot believe why people would even want to pay $150usd/person/night for such sad club benefits marketed as a premium. And trust me, this is not definitely not the standard at Park Hyatts and Luxury Collections if they happen to have club lounges.

Luxury footprint wise, I suggest you take a look at the latest quarterly report by LL , only 301 IC, Kimpton and even the newly bought Regent and Six senses globally. It goes to show IHG strength is never the luxury business, it's small but definitely has miles away to go to get to the level of the bespoke level brands such as the Ritz, St Regis, Park Hyatt or even Waldorf Astoria. It's clear the bread and butter of IHG is within it mid to low scale brands of Holiday Inn and HIE that fills up more than 4000 properties (70%) of its entire portfolio. Personally, I have no issues with Holiday Inn, but there are just a meh brand with no strong elite recognition program whether you sleep in Asia or North America, they are just a forgettable and generic portfolio overall.

FYI to your point redemption wise, IHG also recently destroyed all the fun stuff that the program was famous for - Pointsbreaker seemingly retired, Points are Dynamic now - may look cheap during covid, but can swing both ways, and when you count the actual CPP, it isn't much great value at all given the low rates now. And to top it off, no fifth night free on points unless you hold an annual fee credit card that gives you 4th night free. How in the world does all these make this program superior to its competitors? You can say IHG points are easy to earn, but personally, for points earning Hilton win hands down as the easiest program to earn points.

Just compare US cobrand credit card for example - 12x points for Hilton, 6x Gas and Supermarket on Amex Hilton Ascend vs IHG Chase at 10x points for IHG, 2x for Gas, Supermarket and Restaurants. Even quarterly global promos, IHG can never beat the overly generous Hilton points earn rate. Hilton - 2k per stay, 5k per 5 nights, 10k per 10 nights after 30 nights milestone vs IHG 2k per 2 nights stay. I just don't understand how "easy" IHG earn rates can be when with Hilton you stay for the same amount of nights can earn you almost more than twice the amount of points.

I personally ended my Amb status last year, and continue to move my stays to whichever chain that has more rewarding experience or footprint, and unfortunately, IHG has neither. I won't deny we had memorable stays at certain special Kimptons, Indigo and IC around the world, but end of the day if IHG favors its owners and profit over its loyal guests, then we just speak with our business with the chain.