IHG Rewards on loyaltylobby.com
 

Thinking that articles about the IHG Rewards program are approached in a generally biased way on loyaltylobby.com (unlike the Marriott or Hyatt loyalty programs, for example), I sent recently a comment about it.

This article generated a lot of comments, which generated a second, more balanced article.

Your comments are more than welcome.

I find quite a bit of LoyaltyLobby's content to be very "me me me" and ego-stroking, but I tend to agree with a lot of the criticism towards IHG and have some of my own:

• To start, I rather like some of IHG's brands. I grew up looking up to the Regent brand, spent a lot of time in InterContinental and Crowne Plaza hotels around the world due to my family's travels, and I am very attracted to the Kimpton portfolio from the design and offerings perspectives. Heck, even Hotel Indigo is shaping up from a conversion brand into a convincing design-driven upper-upscale product. With the Regent and Six Senses acquisitions, and the tie-up with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I think IHG can offer a very distinctive premium portfolio to round out their strength in the midscale segment.
• That being said, the loyalty program itself [in my eyes] is weak, unappealing and convoluted:
  • Looking comparatively at upper-/top-end statuses across the board, Hyatt Globalist is achieved at 60 nights, Hilton Diamond at 60 and Marriott Platinum/Titanium at 50/75. Spire Elite is typically achieved at 75, which would put you at the top with Hyatt and Hilton, and at Titanium with Marriott... yet you don't qualify for upgrades up to standard suites, get executive lounge access, guaranteed late check-out or breakfast like you do with IHG's competitors.
  • The typical structure of Gold/Platinum/Spire is one thing, but then you come up against the Ambassador and Royal Ambassador programs, and Kimpton Inner Circle to boot. I'm all for invitation-only levels or tiers that have specific spend requirements [i.e. Marriott Ambassador] for special benefits, but the fact that IHG doesn't publicize Royal Ambassador or Inner Circle qualifications doesn't do much to build guest confidence as a guest could qualify one year, do things the same the next year and not qualify because the invitations are discretionary and requirements nebulous. IHG is essentially running three loyalty programs that intersect with one another yet have their own requirements, and it's confusing and unnecessary even for the seasoned among us.
• What's going on with Six Senses? We're over two years into the acquisition, and we still don't have full participation or inclusion in the loyalty program, or even a word about if/when that'll happen.
• IHG missed an opportunity to rejigger the program with the relaunch of Rewards Club to IHG Rewards. Instead, all we got was meaningless marketing fluff about "eliminating 'Club' to create a more inclusive and welcoming brand" - yet the program is exactly the same. Which leads me to my next point...
• As a graphic designer and editor, I find IHG's recent rebranding to be half-assed and unforgivably lazy. The lack of attention to detail is astounding: the websites all look the same barring a logo swap, IHG Rewards still has "Rewards Club" mentioned in the website name and across multiple pages, IHG Development still uses the big orange logo and so on. The iPhone app looks/is extremely old and has poor flow, yet the recent update just swapped the old logo out for the new one and kept everything the same. Apple Wallet functionality was removed ages ago. I can't help but feel that when Marriott launched Bonvoy or Hyatt rebranded Gold Passport into World of Hyatt, the swap-over efforts were comprehensive and far-reaching whereby all websites, apps and portals were changed with everything from new colors and fonts to images and layouts to drive the whole thing home.

I know we're in the middle of a pandemic and that there have been huge cuts to budgets and workforces, but IHG is and remains a multinational corporation, and as such I expect more from them. I want to like IHG more than I do, and want them to offer a more compelling product and experience, but it seems like their well-intentioned efforts keep amounting to air balls.

khabah

For starters, I tend to skip over articles written by Sebastian on LL as, let's say, I don't care so much for the style and quality of the contributions. Of course this is entirely a personal preference.

Overall on the IHG Rewards topic, I'm pretty much with khabah on this and can see the point LL is highlighting. IHG is okay for me these days for certain properties I frequent and like, but they lost my loyalty in general over time with me dropping from 100+ nights a year to 10-20 (Covid times aside) these days.

I have been AMB since 2003 and was RA for ~10-11 years and the program just doesn't work that well for my purposes any longer. Spire as an IHG Rewards top status is totally underwhelming and flaky on guaranteed benefits and not worth any effort on its own.

AMB is okay if I got stays planned where it may get me a decent 1-category upgrade and I do appreciate the 4pm late checkout, but the new rules to have hotels get away with 10k points for not granting certain benefits encourages the wrong behavior in some properties that like to play games.

I'm also ticked off about the crappy way IHG handled AMB certificate extensions so far with the absolutely laughable 2x 3 months extensions being all they have done so far. One family member already lost a certificate after 4 tries to use it failed and mine will be next soon. Appeals fell on deaf ears so IHG will move further to the bottom due to what I consider a sh**ty approach to that topic. Other chains have shown how to go about that, IHG did not care so far.

Lastly, Nicholas, your travel profile is not really comparable to many others who stay with IHG. I can see why it may work much better for you with RA and also (probably more importantly) strong relationships and repeat stays at select properties that treat you very well.

Such treatment and reward of loyalty at the individual hotel level is one of the things that makes me still frequent certain ICs even though there are very good options from other chains around as well. Just that these days I rather pay for certain rooms or benefits I want instead of hoping my IHG loyalty status will make it happen. :) YMMV
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Putting IC aside, IHG used to compensate the lack of hard benefits (breakfast, club, ...) by having a great return in terms of points. But gone are the days of the promotions stacking like crazy and I've found accelerate promotions to miss my travel pattern. Since I am usually better treated as a Hilton Diamond or Marriott Titanium/Platinum than as a Spire and the point return is not so biased towards IHG any longer, I can therefore understand the negative feel.

As for IC, Ambassador provides a great set of benefits for a reasonable price, even though the possibility for hotels to get around upgrade / late check out for 10k points was quite a disappointing change. I would have preferred the fee to increase but maintain guaranteed benefits.
I have been a Royal Ambassador for a couple of years and I quite enjoyed the treatment at most hotels, much better indeed than as a Diamond or Titanium. So I was of course disappointed to lose it a few years ago. While I can see the point of being a "by invitation" tier, visible thresholds would probably have pushed me to spend a bit more to maintain it.
Having clear goals helps with the "gamification" of loyalty programs, if I were a loyalty blogger I would also prefer such program to keep my readers entertained. I'll grab more attention with "spend 15 nights however cheap and get free club access and upgrades" than with "spend 200usd for ambassador then 20,000usd in hotels and get free club access and upgrades"

We mirror experiences. I started with Six Continents, remained RA for over 12 years. RA is a delight, but the frills meant I really never got why those outside a world cushioned by reimbursed expenses would pay IC prices if they aren't RA.

The test for me came when I was booted out in a year where I'd chalked up just over 100 paid IC nights at hotels on all continents, and another 50 or so in other IHG brands. I got a free year as Ambassador, delivered with IHG's wish that I would continue to strive towards a return Royal Ambassador status. I'm afraid they're disappointed there: my pastures new are Bonvoy and HH.

Now I'm down to a half a dozen HI and HIX nights each year and a couple of stays at ICs where they continue to treat me well, an RA manqué. I note that RA privileges have been cut in quite a few areas, but I'm pleased to report "my" hotels continue with the earlier system of benefits. I'm pretty sure Nicolas continues to receive benefits of the ancien régime: I remember an elegantly dressed Frenchman next to me at the Semiramis reception, arguing forcefully that his RA status demanded club access (that was back in the days when such luxury was not guaranteed to us RAs). Maybe that wasn't our valued contributor Nicolas, but the chap gave me a valuable lesson in how to secure my rights :)

Any residual bitterness about my sacking aside, and as someone tangentially involved in marketing, I'm puzzled by a couple of things in IHG's loyalty programme:

• the bonkers split into two separate programmes, one for IC (and above) brands and another for lesser brands;
• the parsimony and inconsistency of the upgrades and frills the two programmes offer;
• the lack of any "lifetime" element to the programme;
• that hotels accept the bonkers incentive for an infrequent guest to pay $200 to IHG corporate to upgrade, rather than simply pay the hotel for a better room.

At the end of the day Ambassador membership might work for some, just not for me.

I stopped visiting loyalty lobby and unsubscribed from emails etc about a year or so ago.
I travel a lot for work and across a few chains, so things happen and things don't always go to plan.
But when you would read the compensation clinic articles, it came across to me that it was the slightest sillyest things that would be getting complained about, and then it was almost with great fanfare they would grandstand how they got x amount of compensation, and in such a smarmy patronising way I feel.
I would think to myself each time after reading how much I'd hate to be like that myself, almost lording over the staff and hotel and think why do I read this. So just took my clicks elsewhere. I personally use this site, tpg and headforpoints these days and sub to thier mails instead.
If you don't like a site or thier options, just move on and put your clicks elsewhere, if enough folk do, they'll change sooner or later.

Love it or hate it, John et al are actually living in hotels full-time. I find that perspective far more valuable than the cut-and-paste from corporate marketing other larger websites are prone to.

When you stay a lot in hotels, you realise that IHG simply isn't competitive when it comes to elite benefits and in the absence of lucrative Accelerate promos, the earn/burn isn't there either. Is that biased, or just telling people what they may not know?

Well, I surely miss those stackable x-nights 10k points promos. ;) My colleagues back then didn't understand why I would stay at a (new) HIX a bit further away over a Novotel nearer to client offices. Ahh those were the days.

While I appreciate that such things won't last (RIP BMI Diamond Club), as others outlined, at least then the rewards one could reap aligned with the name of the program and helped to overlook lack of strong benefits. These days it neither allows for outsized points accruals nor provides strong benefits. YMMV

From my point of view, it makes a difference, if you stay frequently in the same hotel over a long time or have only a high / the highest status, like IAN-UK mentioned in his post. And loyaltylobby and all the other bloggers tend to review a hotel or program quite often only after one stays or one year of membership. The reports of their stays are in a certain way helpful, as you see the real life pictures. But rating a hotel after just one stay is simply not the way a balanced review could and should be done.

It is also not the way, loyalty is built. You learn that, if you have your go-to hotel in certain cities or places over a long time. It takes time to built a kind of relationship with the hotels. And having a high status in the frequent guest program is only one element. In so far, I am by no way surprised about the upgrades some members of Flyertalk receive and others do not. And to me, it is far more important what I get in the hotel I use frequently. Because this keeps me returning.

In the blogs - and loyaltylobby is only one of them - you read how to maximize and somehow beat the system. And yes a breakfast or hors d'oeuvres in the club lounge could be nice. But could this be really compared to a light dinner in a proper (hotel) restaurant as alex suggested in a comment on loyaltylobby? There are more moments, when I am happy to pay to have a nice relaxed dinner or breakfast rather the overcrowded buffet fighting in lounges. Or simply could not get in the lounge because I have to work (and you do not work on tender documents in a public space). Sometimes, I even prefer the hotels where not everybody gets lounge access.

In so far, nicolas75 , you have a valid point.

Ahah, that wasn' me ;)

At Semiramis, I always receive Nile view executive suite with of course club lounge access when booking cheapest rate (I must say I love atmosphere and quality of service at the club lounge).

During my last stay, I booked 1 month subscription for a friend at the hotel's gym (he was staying at a rented house for a project, and asked me if I could arrange something for him at the hotel I would stay at).
At check out, the gym club subscription was offered without asking! (USD 150 value).

I was also simply amazed at Semiramis by the quality of service delivered at concierge desk: chef concierge found (on Sunday!) two bicycles to be rented (actually, he knew someone in a parking lot who could rent us 2 bicycles, from a rent a bike store that was closed that day).

Very pleasant stay at InterContinental Bordeaux last week
 

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Upgraded to Opera view junior suite.
Dinner was offered as minibar was empty. 👍

Great stay stay at InterContinental Marseille this weekend
 

Lovely stay with amazing weather.

Upgraded to executive harbor view with terrace.

So pleasant to get a sunny terrace to have lunch (and remember times before Covid-19).

First time since a long time that minibar was operational.
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Wasn't the point of this thread to discuss the IHG Rewards program as a follow-up to criticism of the program on LoyaltyLobby? It seems it's now turning into a glowing review thread for one member's unicorn experiences as a top-tier status holder.

khabah

Upon reading the title I was expecting a compliant about framing IHG Rewards too positively.

Quiet surprised with the complaint...

RA life was generally very good (with the occasional disappointment or stingy property).

The cold shower came after not being renewed despite a 13k IC room rate excl tax spent. Without any margin reconsideration it was decided that I was out... Something I still don't understand.

From what OP posts I can only have the impression that his experiences are not what a standard RA receives. I am happy to see that at least some guests remain valued, and are enjoying it. Albeit IC's selection is very arbitrary.
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I'm pleased to hear it!
It was a bravura performance but really quite embarrassing. They were difficult days when club lounge access wasn't routinely offered to Royal Ambassadors: but it seemed a tad infra dig to browbeat reception staff into giving in.

Those suites are delightful.... except for the bathrooms: I've been saying there since the turn of the century, and the bathrooms were dated then.
But you'll know when you've made it (in Semiramis terms :D) when they allocate a presidential suite to you.