Expatriate

Any changes to IHG Rewards program in 2024? IHG seems to be falling further behind, particularly for its most frequent stayers 100+ nights per year

1a. Milestones stop/continue for
100 nights Marriott and IHG
150 nights Hyatt
360 nights Hilton

1b IHG has Executive Lounge choice at Milestone nights 40&70...but there's no List, no check-box, etc of Exec Lounges, so how to determine if this choice is good or useless for you ??

2. Lifetime benefits Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott ( IHG does not have. IHG is terrible at systems / programming )

3. Transfer / gifting of Points , even to family members
Zero cost at Hilton and Marriott
US$ 5 per 1,000 points transferred .... $500 for 100k, $5,000 for 1 million ... how much work is it for IHG to transfer? IHG Rewards Dept spends more time fixing errors than to make such transfer.

Is IHG program worth it?

FLYGVA

I have slightly edited the thread title to highlight, that there are no changes of the programm for 2024 announced and it is more about possible changes and the comparison wth other chains

FLYGVA
co-moderator IHG Forum

FLYGVA

Regarding your question, it always depends on what you are expecting and looking for.

I had Hyatt Diamond Status in the past, but this was very difficult to reach. Until a couple of years ago, Hyatt had only a very small footprint in Europe and hotels were much more expensive than the competitors. Only as the lower brands such as Hyatt Place appeared in Europe, it was easier to reach amd maintiain the status. Changing from stays to nights while relaunching a new programm, it was nearly impossible to reach the highest status for me again. Yes, nice hotels, but not in the places where I needed to go (except Düsseldorf, Frankfurt / Mainz and London).

I had highest Starwood Status since 2010 and I am now lifetime Platinum with Marriott. I liked Starwood and their hotels. With the merger with Marriott, I have more hotels, nice and not so nice club lounges. Thus, the changes from stays to nights was okay and manageable. But in general, I am not satisfied with them anymore. E.g. the different rules for breakfast depending on brand and even if there is a lounge, a lounges closed on weekends and if it is a Resort or not makes is very difficult for someone with less knowledge than us here at Flyteralk to know what to expect. I know a lot of guest, who do not really understood, why they get free breakfast (as amenity) at a Four Points but not at the Courtyard next door where they can spent a credit (adjusted to the local currency by the hotel rather than a set amount) for food and beverage, but not the breakfast (sometimes possible for breakfast, depending on the hotel). You can depending on your point of view also say, that they fail to deliver a straightforward amenity here as well.

Hilton is nice and nowadays my other go-to chain, mostly for one night stays. The breakfast amenity in the US does not bother me too much and I skip breakfast in Europe most of the time as well. The lounges could be nice, but not every Hilton has a lounge and not all lounges are equal.

Yes, you can select lounge as criteria. But some lounges are not really worth anything and I prefer to spend the night in a nice hotel rather than in one with a crappy lounge or a not so nice hotel. In so far, the criteria does not help much.

I am with you, it is a pity, that there is no such thing like lifetime with IHG. But such is life and lifetime is lifetime of the programm, not your lifetime (remember Ansett Australia, BMI, ?). I have been happy with IHG, had a difficult time between 2015 and 2019 with meant I lost my RA (old criteria), but I am happy again. The new programm very much fits my needs like Hilton does (and Starwood did in the past). There is not a single programm which pleases everybody. It is always a compromise.

strickers

A small change and I can't see it mentioned elsewhere, free points transfers for Diamond Elite to other IHG Reward members. The T&Cs on points.com now state:

Beginning December 6, 2023, Diamond Elite and IHG Business Rewards members may transfer points free of charge. For all other Members, the Member authorizing the transfer will be charged $5 US per 1,000 Points transferred, payable via valid, accepted credit card or approved payment method.

HadesNL

strickers : you beat me to it with "breaking" news

It is a start :

https://onemileatatime.com/news/ihg-...nts-transfers/
https://loyaltylobby.com/2023/12/05/...mber-accounts/

Personally,
IHG's IT is as wonky as it is,
its fraud department ruthless,
why they even open this can of worms is beyond me ....
i remember ye ol' great masacre where accounts if suspected of fraud where closed unceremoniously....
there are always those that exploit but there are also innocents
and put that in the view of points transfers.....
a trip through memory lane:
Accounts closed with nearly half million points
IHG Account Terminated (after registering for several promotion codes)
Closed Account
A Cautionary Tale (Account Closed and reopened)


But from IHG's own experience wait and see stance:

1) freakish paranoid about fraud
- the incident of alias " self appointed western" names vs registered names vs family names on Chinese accounts
- the brokerage of awards under common Chinese family names
- account location reshuffing to utilize region promo
- locking in mass award redemptions at specific hotels during festive season, global events
- royal ambassador referal certificate trade & sale


2) underestimating social media and its high volume impact
- the AMB trick pumping
- the instant diamond offer carnage by share & forward


3) competition uses alien concepts that IHG abhores ....
Hilton : we just throw out top status with a creditcard
Marriott : we have a lot of brands+hotels, we don't care about Bonvoy program consistency
Hyatt : we keep granting the best benefits because we don't have hotels in all markets

* above chains seems to suffer from elite fatigue aka too many of them,
which causes the effect of quantity destroying quality

Hilton : everything subject to availability + breakfast credit USA as cost cutting measure
Marriott : we don't enforce our hotels to provide benefits, we don't care if they go rogue, to many elite layers fishing in the same benefits pool at the same time
Hyatt : we dangle a carrot, we swayed all bloggers, we just launched new Guest of Honor privileges, we are proud to have fixed redemptions ...... yes but how long is this sustainable untill the sword drops in going devaluation dynamic pricing? ...psst.. we also limit our lounges to Grand Hyatt & Hyatt Regency properties only,


Worse of the lot is Accor:
- limited points value as it is fixed to currency value
- the Accor benefits earned + all the other Accor paid programs + Enismore : are confusing
- an exception list that is impossible : https://all.accor.com/loyalty-progra...index.en.shtml


My take:
I think IHG is the laggard but keep in mind the following mindset:
that above Hilton Marriott Accor own a lot of luxury hotels which are supported by a huge lower / mid scale base
that Hyatt has a lot of upper segment luxury hotels but lacks lower / midscale properties
that IHG is strong in lower / midscale but lacks true luxury hotels in its portofolio

And keep in mind also that IHG since its inception had its loyalty business based on
- earn points (promo / accelerate)
- burn (get a free room)
- not strong on elite benefits
- uses AMB to push its core lower/midscale audience to upper segment IC hotels


And we have the interesting experiment "spire" in 2015
Yet the focus was still earn & burn points to get award rooms
Still nothing much in benefits.

And we had IHG's laissez fair attitude of the AMB-trick to extend "spire / diamond" from 2015 till 2023
untill it was destroyed by
- overhyping by bloggers
- IHG's realisation that the new IHG1-rewards program was creating stagnant only increasing Diamond pool with no natural wane or gain by program criteria EQP / EQN ... so in otherwords IHG feared elite ranks swelling too fast and become a nightmare to manage as seen with Hilton / Marriott / Hyatt


I would say to give IHG some time to adjust and see how
- the new IHG-1rewards program performs on all its brands in unison ,
- to give them time to control, manage and provide quality of benefits ,
- to restrain quantity infux of hoards with the milestone choice awards

After all,
it has been only 2 years since IHG went from a basic "easy points for free rooms"
to
"we have finally one 1 loyalty program valid on all our brands and we need to focus on enforcement of the program as not to overpromise and underdeliver"




========

My background:
I am one of the few persons on FT that has IHG as its primary program,

Reason:
* always at other chains the huge disadvantage in climbing status by pure EQP/EQN
VS
US-centric easy status by creditcard signup / earn / promos
thus
A lot of "unfair" competition for the same benefits

Psst..
* although a "new " hack to circumvent the inaccesability of US-creditcards does exist
in Dutch only....
https://www.puntentrotter.nl/aanvrag...rt-1-overview/
(But i am too old for that )

And add

Hyatt - no hotels in my destinations
Marriott - past experience with platinum / gold was very underwhelming
Hilton - nothing is guaranteed

As FLYGVA mentioned Starwood SPG program set the tone ...
Yet it is in the past and will never return ..... some generations have even never heard about it

Yet my firm belief is that Hyatt needs to be alert to not go the Starwood end..
And the reason we see only Hyatt Globalist as the greatest thing G-d created is because all bloggers are globalists, seem to stay at only aspirational properties and have their Hyatt Globalist concierges + Hyatt Privé agents keep generating the halo effect .... a pretty shrewd and smart union of strategies.

Which is totally unlike IHG and also impossible for IHG to mimic.
IHG lacks the established elite recognition experience, has to balance lower/midscale with limited aspirational properties availability, still fixing all brands under 1 umbrella concept, weary of alienating hotel owners by generating cost centers by too much elites, in dubio being tempted by easy constant revenue by more creditcard team ups vs controlling the floodgates ....

strickers

@HadesNL I can only see me doing this to top up my wife's account so that she has enough points for a booking. I won't be risking it with anything else as I agree, there will be a raft of account closures due to abuse of the system. How long until we see IHG points up for sale on eBay etc?

HadesNL

I fully agree with that !
IHG points transfer sales could pop in at several coupon / auction sites ....

Hyatt's Guest of Honor scheme
Already had a "lively" 2nd transactional market on the internet ......
https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/e...ouncement.html
The new changes are supposedly to give Hyatt better grip and management on that situation

rmontelbon

Don't you hate statements posed as "questions"?

IHG Diamond is far superior to Hilton Diamond, to assert otherwise tells me you have no experience with Hilton status.

IHG has maintained points value to a far greater degree than any of the others, which have suffered severe, and ongoing devaluation in recent years.

Admiral Ackbar

As a Diamond Amb for the last two years, IHG works for me and it is my primary. Won't repeat what was posted above as I agree with most points: Marriott hotels and loyalty program are meh, Hilton one secondary with an ok program, the breakfast T&C are like a space shuttle operations manual, Accor has nice hotels horrible program (I started out in this game years ago with Fairmont Plat which spoiled me) and Hyatt never has any hotels where I want to go.
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​​I have to say I find your lounge listing (separate thread and this post) a strange hill to die on, if you stay at IHG 100 nights plus, you will quickly figure out which brands have lounges and a quick look at the hotel page will fill you in. I don't get it. I have to say the lounges at ICs I have stayed at are much better than most Marriot and Hilton lounges, some by far. Keep the credit card status warriors out of there IHG thanks!

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HadesNL

More so revealing is creditcard dependence by Marriott / Hilton / Hyatt, with all those creditcard tie ups, creditcard revenue by spend, new branded creditcard launches for every occassion ...... as if they secretly need those ancillery revenues to operate ...

Things that IHG managed to avoid ....

Richelieu

While I can see the interest of knowing wether there is a lounge in an hotel, even if IHG were to provide the inforamtion, it would be lacking useful info: is the lounge great? Can you find champagne in it? Can you live off the breakfast and dinner offering? Whatever the hotel chain does will be inferior to the tool the elite traveler have as its disposal, like, say, a forum thread where lounges in IC and CP are listed, and several hotel master thread with pictures of the lounge and what to expect in it. I wonder... ;-)

TravelinSperry

How so? I am Diamond at both and have received similar treatment as Diamond at both these chains. Only Diamond + Ambassador at ICs have I received treatment > Hilton Diamond (and on par with top tier at Marriott and Hyatt). What am I missing in terms of IHG treatment that makes you believe it is far superior to Hilton Diamond?

beachfan

I find Hilton Diamond to get more generous upgrades on special occassion than IHG Diamond Ambassador gives me. But not enough examples to make a generalization for - but full suite at the Conrad Algarve vs. Junior Suite at Lisbon IC in May and a strict one level upgrade at IC Estoril (special occassion trip).

HadesNL

Per design Hilton Diamond grants every possible desire, even upgraded to a club room comes with club lounge access.
That, i have to admit is pretty nifty, and a feature which IHG unfortunately lacks

PES_B1

How about considering integrating the Chinese IHG promotions with the global IHG offerings? Currently, IHG China has its distinct promotions, which, though significantly streamlined with the introduction of the One Reward program, still have a long list of exclusions and specific terms and conditions. For instance, IHG China is presently conducting a hotel collection event where guests staying at least 8 out of 10 specific hotels by the end of the year can participate in a lucky draw. This draw offers a high chance of winning 50,000 free points. The participating hotel brands include Regent, InterContinental (IC), Kimpton, Indigo, Hualuxe, Crowne Plaza (CP), VOCO, Even, Holiday Inn (HI), and Holiday Inn Express (HIX).

The other prizes in the lucky draw are equally appealing:

Free Ambassador membership
A set of luxury fragrance
A PlayStation 5 with PSVR2
Complimentary vouchers for luxury and premium hotels.
These offers are significantly more attractive compared to the global promotion of earning 2,000 points for every two nights stayed. Unifying these promotions could potentially enhance the loyalty program's appeal on a global scale and offer more consistent benefits to international travelers.