Expatriate

Properties with an Executive Lounge -- how many ways can IHG make things difficult for any customer (esp Diamond with 250+ nights in past two years)
a. no check-box in Amenities (or elsewhere) on the App or .Com
b. asked for a List , in particular cities & country ... Rewards Dept and Guest Relations said "doesn't exist"
c. can you IHG run a query on your Properties database and send me list of those with Executive Lounge ? No, we can't , ask us for specific property
d. if for a Specific Property, why contact Rewards Dept -- just read the description for the Property. But, the descriptions many times don't mention Exec Lounge or not, OR says "due to Covid...please check with us" ...it's 2023 (descriptions out of date)
e. historically, some brands have had Exec Lounge (Crown, IC) , but there are some minimum criteria for a Property to have an Exec Lounge.
Can you send me the criteria? No, don;t have a complete list
Can you search on the criteria that you know of, against the Property database, so we know the Potential Exec Lounge Properties ? No. These criteria are not tick-boxes.
Can you ask the IT dept to do this search / sort / filter?
f. Some new email address appeared in the correspondence ihgdiamondelite@ihg.com <-- this person gave responses for Portugal properties, all but one conflicted with answers i received from On-Property Guest Relations people (i had written each property and summarized and forwarded to IHG ... 12 hours later that Diamond Elite rep was providing conflicting answers ... Diamond rep seems to not know what an Exec Lounge is ... On-Property people sure do.)

Just ridiculous, IHG exists how many years __ 20,30,40, 50 ? and doesn't know / can't provide list of properties with Exec Lounge??? Hilton & Marriott have as a check-box

and IHG offers Annual Exec Lounge as a Milestone choice ... how is Member supposed to make an informed decision if this Annual Exec Lounge benefit is of use ?

and how is any potential guest, wanting Exec Lounge experience , supposed to make a booking for what they are wanting (the Exec Lounge) ?

nicolas75

It is undoubtedly regrettable that this selection criterion does not exist.

But you have to understand that most customers choose first a destination and then a range of hotels.

But Flyertalk is there to respond to this.

Basically, almost all InterContinental hotels offer club lounges in Europe.
With the exception of Marseille, Bordeaux, Paris Marceau, Dublin, Porto, Estoril, Rome, Amsterdam and Edinburgh.
Geneva had planned to open a club lounge (not yet opened).
Chantilly certainly won't have a club lounge.

Some Crowne Plaza hotels, mainly in Germany and the UK, have club lounges. Please check their internet site.

336

Didn't a club lounge open recently in Edinburgh?

nicolas75

I thought it did but I did not find any information about it on the hotel’s internet site.

HadesNL

Expatriate : your post illustrates the random quirkyness of IHG that we all know and love
AND that wants you to bang your head hard in the wall out of disbelief,

In the past each brand of IHG had its own overview page that lists the brand's hotels
Each individual webpage of each hotel there would mention if there was a lounge.
Before the pandemic there was a new marketing direction angle,
the emphasis was on "live the Intercontinental life at Club Intercontinental"
That page had all lounges mentioned but at only Intercontinental hotels per region .

That page was erased during the pandemic and never returned ......disbelief

Thanks to all collective wisdom of datapoints of noble FT-members on the IHG-board
And to my own little obsession with a bit of geekish script writing.
We present the ultimate list

For reference sake,

FT: Complete Masterlists of IHG hotels with lounges

Voco hotels & Holiday Inn hotels & resorts
Masterlist Voco and Holiday Inn Lounges

Crowne Plaza hotels & resorts
Masterlist Crowne Plaza hotels & resorts lounges

Intercontinental hotels & resorts
Masterlist Intercontinental Hotels&Resorts Lounges

Regent hotels & resorts
Masterlist Regent Hotels&Resorts Lounges

You might wish to know why above lists are elusive....
- bloggers find IHG not aspirational enough compared to Hyatt
- no bloggers dares to shameless copy this list as i have been blessed with the talent of a working evil eye containing everyone's grudge as i guard out of gratitude everybody's input, help and much appreciated feedback
- it is our IHG-community work of art ..... effort to create it, effort to keep up, effort worth doing effort to find

HadesNL

My sweet nicolas75 .... and dear 336
Ask and ye shall receive for Christmas / Hanukkah....
https://edinburgh.intercontinental.c...ercontinental/

Expatriate

Appreciate your thoughts on Europe and UK ,,, anyone with thoughts about rest of the world ?

Yes, i choose a country(range if countries) / destination (multiple destinations) on a trip, so i look at group of countries.
Is that any excuse for a long-established hotels group to not know or unable to produce a list of properties within one or small group of countries or cities?

Please check the internet site ... of course i did that ... did you notice i mentioned IC and Crowne? That several properties make no mention of an Exec Lounge, or a mention about Covid closure , yet this is 2023 ,(almost 2024) and Covid re-opening happened couple years ago.

I did find an Exec Lounge in a non-IC/non-Crowne property, in the UAE.

IHG has terrible systems & programming eg. very slow crediting of points compared toher programs (and many errors since 2019)
... and this item suggests its database of Properties is lacking some "characteristics" of a Property
,,,IHG wastes people's time and seems to not care to implement suggested changes, for more than a couple of years.

FLYGVA

Expatriate
I assume you are aware, that we do not only have a discussion thread about the lounge amenity, but Flyertalkers (see also the post of HadesNL upthread) from this forum are about to compile a list of threads with information about IHG hotels with lounges (and what is offered):

InterContinental Hotels and Resorts
Regent Hotels
Crowne Plaza
Voco and Holiday Inn Hotels

The IC Club Lounge list referred to by HadesNL is a partly accessible over the wayback machine (e.g. for Asia / Middle East / Americas / Europe). Not does is help much, as we now have our own and more up to date list

Expatriate

Thanks. Will look and add content.
Been away from FlyerTalk for nearly 20 years ... travelled 189 countries (no new countries since 2016), mostly overland and fewer international brand properties during those years. Contributed significantly to Lonely Planet Thorntree and Horizons Unlimited during those trips.

Recent years 2019 onward been emailing the Loyalty Programs (Rewards Depts and CORPORATE) and posting on Twitter..... with IHG's INaction in past 2+ years and i think one response on Twitter ... back at FlyerTalk !!

Expatriate

Can someone provide link to IHG properties having Club/Exec Lounge, post-Covid reopening?
Yes, historically, generally properties: IC and CP (Crowne Plaza) had/have lounges, I found a Voco, couple of posters mentioned a few HuaLuxes

How can decide if Lounge benefit of use, if don't know what properties have them?

Exec/Club Lounge concept has existed 20-30+ years. IHG in business 20+ years and
1. IHG website and IHG App both don't have a check-box "Exec Lounge" ..... Hilton , others have
2. IHG has no link on website or App to properties with Exec Lounge
3. IHG Rewards Dept and country/regional Guest Relations and IHG Diamond Elite: all have said there is no List (eg PDF)

What international hotels company has no clue about characteristics of its hotel Properties ??
One IC property told me previously they had an Exec Lounge, but did not meet IHG's criteria, so lounge was removed.

4. so, Rewards Dept or Global Chief Customer Officer ....run a database query on whatever this criteria is and send list OR post it on a website
... "can't do that"
Why not? if your Properties database has one or more criteria eg. Lounge "Yes/No" or more informative Lounge Operating Hours (days of weeks and Hours) this gives two+ pieces of info
... "i don't know"

Hmmmm ...again, Global Chief Customer Officer ...no response on this and list of features for App and Website , and Points Crediting processing slowness and errors

5. Just go to the Property and click ... of course, and searching a few countries (adjacent, several properties) for a single trip.
Firstly, this is rather one-time process Exec Lounge doesn't appear / disappear weekly or monthly.
Secondly, of course can look at individual Property by Property reading through descriptions, but how to decide for a Milestone ?? That's different than one particular trip
Thirdly, some descriptions say Exec/Club Lounge but then says May/May not be open because of Covid eg, in Portugal. ie, the property descriptions can be out of date .... so Property descriptions not even reliable?

6. Contacted properties (where could find an email address on website ...no consistency/ standard for this ...and/or by google searches) and Guest Relations ...summarized responses and replied all. 12 hours later, a Diamond Elite email responds with opposite info for 5 of 6 properties. so Diamond Elite rep(s) reliable ?

Hmmmm, what to think ?
IHG properties' people hard-working and property physical aspects are what they are. But IHG global IT ... !@#$% ...and seems Global Chief Customer office doesn't prioritize IT items and/or hire good programmers and/or hire or train Rewards/Diamond Reps product or properties knowledge.

IHG Spire/Diamond since initial year.
100+ nighter per year. Stopped staying at IHG in August at 139 nights. Time-wasters at IT and central & Corporate to resolve errors/make things simpler for members

FT good. But a global corporation should be doing such work and central/Corporate/IT lets down the hard-working teams at the properties.


This post was copied from this thread by the IHG froum moderator, soi it is okay and not cross-posting

FLYGVA
co-moderator IHG forum