What's the problem now with bonus point packages?
 

I am baffled. I emailed the below note on IHG customer service:

I have two stays that have already posted on my Accelerate promotion as stays, but they have not triggered the "Your Rate Bonus Points Package " bonus even though those 2 nights (attached below a screenshot of my account) have posted in the "Stay" task of the same promotion.

Could you fix this issue asap and post the points of the missing task.

Thanks

And the reply I got was:

I'm sorry as after a thorough check on your stays in question, stays did not qualify under Accelerate Sep-Dec 2017 sub offer Your Rate Bonus Points Package.

- Earn 2,800 Points bonus points when you complete x stays booked under the Your Rate Bonus Point Package (not the Bonus Points Package Rate)
- At any IHG® hotels in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (excluding China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan)

Each offer has a specific set of rules to complete it. You may see these rules, as well as the terms, by logging on in the Accelerate website.

Bolding is mine. But seriously, are they trying to fool customers? That is complete nonsense without any explanation anywhere how to differ "your rate bonus point pack" from "bonus point pack". In fact, my similar bookings in previous Accelerate promo did have no problems whatsoever with the same bonus point packages that I booked directly on IHG and they also posted correctly like charm. Now what?

i just created a question about that in accelerate thread... look at the t&C details, there it only says BONUS POINT PACKAGE not YOUR RATE BONUS POINT PACKAGE

Last two accelerator promotions, there were different result in weekend stay promotions. One set of rules specify only Saturday stay required. One set of rules states 2 nights with a Saturday. The result was people got the accelerator bonus points with only 1 Saturday stay without staying 2 nights including a Saturday. During this quarter, this was fixed and no longer people get trigger the promotion with only 1 Saturday stay.

Your Rate Bonus Points Packages are new thing for Asia Pacific this quarter and IHG is progressively pushing it. That is why you are offered this promotion. The T&C did not make it clear but the promotional title did. My take is that if you strictly follow T&C and the title would result in the correct method of triggering the promotion. If you only follow T&C without the promotion title then it is your own fault to take the chance.

So if you booked a Your Rate Bonus Points Package and did not trigger the bonus points, my sympathy to you and hope you may get the situation resolved.

But if you only booked Bonus Points Package and did not trigger the Your Rate Bonus Points Packages as the promotion description, no sympathies for you trying to game the system.

IHG is not perfect, mistakes can be made. You can either learn to live with its perfections (as long as it works to your favour), or maybe it is time to stop moaning and move on. Just my 2 cents.

@chongcao
thanks for a clear explanation. Those details had passed me. My fault. I stop moaning about that and need no sympathy. But this has an implication -> I move on, like you suggest, but I move on by moving all my year-end stay stay elsewhere. I just requalified as Spire and was having several stays booked but now cancel and stay at other hotels. That is my "punishment" to IHG for them being very unfair in making almost impossible T&Cs lured in "small print style" - I did have a bona fide intention with my bonus package stays, not to game the system but intending to book as required for the promo, and had I understood those little details I wouldn't have then booked falsely (why should I, no reason).

Bye bye IHG.

Close the thread.

Thanks for the reminder of why I pass on IHG and Accelerate.

I was tempted, but I have some version of Bonus Point Package and there's no way I'm going to risk it if IHG are distinguishing between Your Rate and regular rate bonus points. (the only logical reason being to catch members out...)

Two rates, one with eqp the other not, sounds logical to me to differentiate.

Now I'm even more annoyed with IHG. Which is the one that is no longer counting as EQP?

There are 3 bonus points package we are talking here.
1, 10,000 or 15,000 Bonus points package:
These package is a hotel promotion and the bonus points are posted by hotel, which is not EQP (i.e. non-EQP)
2, IHG Bonus Points Package:
For example, 1,000 Bonus Points per night, 2,000 Bonus Points per stay, 5,000 Bonus Points per stay, these are EQP;
3, Your Rate Bonus Points Packages:
So far these rates only has Your Rate 1,000 Bonus Points Per Night (with or without Breakfast). The other IHG bonus points are not included. Basically the Your Rate 1,000 Bonus Points per Night is a small discount based on 1,000 Bonus Points Per Night package. All are EQP.

The thread here is about the accelerate promotion. Some members were given a task of to book one Your Rate Bonus Points packages. To qualify for this offer, members MUST book the third rate I mentioned above. But some members thought it is OK to book the second rate rather than the third rate since T&C did not make it crystal clear.

It is a simply matter. And I hope my explanation had cleared some confusion you have.

I haven't been on Flyertalk for a while, but have dipped in over the last week and was made aware there were differences in bonus points offerings. My Accelerate has a task to book 2 x YOUR RATE Bonus Points packages. On looking at my selected hotels for last weekend, I saw a 'YOUR RATE Bonus Points package available, and also a deal that was good value for 5,000 points, but it was just a Bonus Points package. I went with the YOUR RATE package to get extra points through Accelerate, otherwise I would have booked the ordinary package.

An additional problem is that certain hotels don't offer the "Your Rate Bonus Point Package" but do offer the standard Bonus Point Package.

Maybe it's an issue of me thinking I know everything and not paying attention to the details. But I struggle to picture how the vast majority of IHG members - those who stay a few times per year and have never visited Flyertalk or heard the term"travel hacker" - are going to know the difference.

If a hotel offers 1,000 Bonus Points per night Package and Your Rate, then Your Rate 1,000 Bonus Points Per Night Package is offered too. There is no exception. If there is no Your Rate offered to the hotel, that is because your Rate is not a universe rate yet, it is still being progressively rolled out in the IHG system. You do not need to know the difference. It is either offered or not. Book with the hotel offer such rate or not.

My point is precisely that - when there is no Your Rate offered by the hotel, it is easy to waste money on a bonus rate package without knowing that it won't count for Accelerate.

The accelerator made it crystal clear that book one YOUR RATE BONUS POINTS package. If such rate is not available, try another hotel.

Not sure if it's still the case but this is what I have seen back in March:

I have emailed a HIX in WA and asked about the 10k bonus points package and the GM said it's EQP.

There are several hotels that offers "fast track to Gold", selling a package with 10k points to make you "Gold".

I agree with FFlash - it's confusing to have 3 types of bonus points package. I never like the your rate bonus points rate because the hotels I needed wanted EUR 10 for 1000 points which makes no sense.

For me I'm done with what I want in this promo - a 2 nights stay in a HIX that triggered 9k points.

Thanks for the warning(s) here. I'm always impressed by the generosity of everyone who posts here to help others avoid the tricks and traps of these programs.

My favorite (so far -- haven't faced it in over a year) is the difference between per night 1000 bonus and per stay 5000 bonus. Got caught on that once, but it was only a two-night stay anyway. Why would you pay the higher 5000 bonus rate for more than the one night?