KathinJax

Well, mine is very underwhelming - I have to stay 3 Sat nights in 3 brands for a grand total of 31,000 points.

My Mother's account was changed back to points, but they gave her 6,000 miles in 5 stays.

My Dad was also given 31,000 points for 3 stays in 3 brands on 3 Saturday stays.

I rarely travel in the first quarter, so I doubt that I will make any of these stays.

I just finished registering the rest if my family. It looks like the 3 stays/3 brands/3 Sat nights for 31,000 points is the lowest offer.

zhengqiji

77700 pts for me.
Need to finish 7 tasks. 4 nites, 2 Sat nites, 2 HI hotels, 2 HIX hotels, 1 breakfast book etc..

Dave Noble

It isn't impossible, there are 18 saturdays during the promotion period; it just doesn't seemingly fit what you do and isn't , it seems, an incentive to do so

That you only spend a small amount of time on weekend stays seems to make sense that they would set a target higher than what you have done. Surely the aim of such promotions is to try and encourage people to do additional stays to what they would be doing normally, not just paying bonuses for doing what you would do anyway

valdor

My offer is the hardest to complete so far:
"views.dashboard.offer.dd.header" for 83800 points. What the hell is that even about?

FlyerTalker688786

Have this too!

Guess it must be booking direct? But no indication what exactly it is.

mecabq

Mine is similar to the one I just completed:

-- 24 nights: 17,600
-- 4 brands: 12,800
-- 2 best flexible rate with breakfast: 2,400
-- survey: 100
-- 7 different IC: 24,000
-- "views.dashboard.offer.r.title": 7,200 (work in progress!)
-- 4 Saturdays: 6,400
-- "Win big"; complete 6 out of 7: 26,000
Total 96,500

Not very generous. My bad luck is that my RA period ends 04/30, and I already stayed as much as I had planned to (hopefully) requalify after packing my stays into this promotion (71 nights, 43 at 10 different ICs). If only it were even one month later, then I could consolidate many stays in May and at least use them toward the following year's RA qualification.

I have six more IC nights booked this year (which I am counting toward the 71); I guess I can cancel these and move them in January to get a head start. But it would require a minimum of 10 nights, 7 of them at different ICs and 4 of them on Saturdays, which could be difficult. And this would be for 78,900 points (assuming I don't hit the 24 nights badge).

P.S. I wonder when the InterContinental Dubai Marina is set to open? Media reports say by the end of 2013; not only is it not accepting bookings, or does it even show up on the reservations page with an opening date, but it's not even listed under new hotels.

username

Mine:

25 Nights for 18,000
4 Brands for 19,200
Flexible Breakfast Rate for 2,000
Survey for 100
3 Saturdays for 5,600
3 HI for 5,600
3 HIX for 5,600
Big Win (all 7 tasks above) = 56,000

Total = 112,100 - same as the fall promotion but more hassle as I usually travel to the same place and the 3 HI + 3 HIX are just too painful.

Probably a no go for me. Maybe by skipping this one, the next one will be easier

paulmoscow

It could work for people who stay at IHG hotels once in a blue moon with requirements like "stay 1-3 nights with us."

But for FlyerTalkers who travel regularly AND can compare their own offers with what others got, these promos are bordering on offending side.

My new goals are equal to "spend $5K/get 40K points." Why would I want to do it if a single stay converted to a F&F rate will easily cover expenses to buy these points?

Dave Noble

Different travel profiles - different offers : doesn't seem unreasonable ; I cannot see how it is offensive at all. No one is forced to participate or even register for the promotion. It would seem obvious to me that the general target selections per person are going to be aimed at going beyond what they currently do otherwise they might as well just have a "click to receive free points" page

scubaccr

I can understand IHG setting so called stretch targets, BUT having the history of first bigwinm seeing i am opnly at 2 of 8 required Saturday nights, then setting the same obviousluy unwanted, unachievable tasks is down right stupid, insulting.
If they even look at my 2year stay history, they can easily see 1weekend per month (ie Saturday) stay, that is not going to change.

IHG's promo is to get me to stay more, but by setting impossible task, promo has negative effect, in fact as introduced replacing other run of the mill promos to a certain extent, IHG precluding me from sucessfully participating just drives this previously loyal 1-hotel-brand customer to a competitor, Hilton, and once I have my unexpected HH Diamond next year, the IHG RA hold is substantially undermined, and I may just stick with Hilton instead.

The aim of ihg promo is to have me incrementally add more nights ... with achievable tasks based on acording to ihg data mining, personally targetted goals. The incorrect goals don't even have a neutral effect on me, they are negative, and IHG are driving me to a competitor, which is not the aim of this promo exercise. IHG need to be careful as I am not the only high spender who is being driven to competitors in disgust.

Wan1dap

I may be wrong but I think you have the choice to stay at IHG or not. To say they are setting you an impossible task or driving you to a competitor is nonsense. They clearly don't analyse your stay history (or anyone else's) and I wouldn't expect them to. As for your last sentence, that's just childish. I'm sure they know that RAs are not necessarily just staying at IHG (unless they just qualify by the skin of their teeth each year). Most "high spenders" will share the business around: I easily manage RA, Hyatt Diamond and HH Gold each year. I don't feel any hotel chain "drives" me in any direction. That would be a pathetic victim mentality.

perthite

I've got a views.dashboard.offer.q.title. T&Cs allude to some sort of dining requirement.

scubaccr

IHG marketing are full of themselves saying BigWin is setting individual challenges for individual members. This is obviously not the case.
Until this year 2013 I stayed exclusively IHG, no other status needed, but I recently obtained HH Gold, so I now have a choice I lacked before.

Anyway since new bigwin promo is yet again useless to me, and IC stays in Europe offer a paltry 4k/stay, IHG are pushing my stays elsewhere instead, which is my choice and right, I have at last woken up and realised my loyalty doesn't pay as it is not being reciprocated.

Now I have HH Gold status, switching stays is no longer the big let down on treatment it would have been in previous years, but moving my nights is not actually what IHG intended to occur.

essexadventurer

My other half had no stays this year until the original big win and had a very easy original offer (satisified by 4 nights already planned then switched to her account) for 102k points.

On the new offer she has an equally easy ride. Has 6 objectives (most difficult is 2 Hotel Indigos), but only needs 5 for the big win. Total is 120k points but still over 100k if we skip the Indigos.

On my account I didn't amend my stay patterns for the original big win and so only got a couple of the objectives. My new offer is for 100k points for completing 6/7 objectives. There is one cyrptic offer in mine at the moment, but overall most of the challenges look doable with minor adjustments to existing stay patterns.

I have to wonder whether the mounds of points being dished out are a pre-cursor to a devaluation at some point Between us, we're looking at having ~ 500k points which is probably double what we've ever had before even though we burnt down to almost nothing earlier in 2013.

FlyerTalker688786

Bound to happen. More hotels to be moved up the level, just like what happened to Hilton. It will be repeated in IHG. The question is when. Given the latest devaluation was one year ago. I can see late 2014 is the targeted period for devaluation.