HarryHolden68

That's it for me. Although I have been a Spire Ambassador since Spire was formed with 100-120 nights per year, I have found a new mistress that I have fallen head over heels over. Sure she is not perfect, but she makes IHG look like the ugly sister. She offered a 90 day status match, increased to December 2019 with 8 nights, which happened without fuss.

• It came to me from Mrs Harry who pointed out that with IHG, I was more often than not booking a club room where a club lounge existed just to make sure I had access. How can that be? How can lounge access be a complete lottery to a top tier member. IHG - Either do it, or don't do it, but FFS please be consistent
• "No blackout nights". Try booking a weekend ambassador certificate this winter at the IC Sofia. Nope - not available. During the London Olympics in 2012, every single IHG hotel within 30 miles of London blacked out all reward nights for both games fortnights. Try any hotel where an event is on locally where you want to redeem your points, nope to that too. No blackout nights is just dishonest.
• Hotels upgrading to rooms with no discernible improvement (pool view / bigger balcony and bath are all "upgrades" according to InterContinental's I have stayed at this year). Rooms that are not highlighted on the bookings page and are not upgrades to anyone but the hotel. Upgrades to club rooms but no lounge access you cheapskate
• A contact centre who cannot understand basic requests and often provided a very good answer to a different question than the one I had asked
• Early check-in for Spire members, launched with great fanfare earlier this year. Not for me on the three occasions I have tried.
• Staying on points sir? Have a room in the basement, next to the lift with a view of the boiler and no benefits for you.

As Mrs Harry says, if you are staying in an IHG hotel, just book a club room and let it all go. The rewards club is so inconsistent it is more a wish list than a statement of benefits. IHG, the lack of control over what your franchisees do and their combined greed has made me leave you. I will be a Spire member through 2019 as I have already qualified, but you will be seeing a lot less of me in the future.

Instead, my new mistress offers

• Guaranteed lounge access where there is a lounge
• Guaranteed free breakfast in the restaurant
• Space available upgrade as IHG - but on all but one stay, this has been a "proper" upgrade to the executive floor or a suite. On the one occasion the hotel could not upgrade, they offered £30 bar / food credit on top of lounge access.
• A decent customer contact centre where the agents speak my language and answer my questions
• Hotels that do not act like franchise mercenaries
• Lounges that offer a decent breakfast and dinner if you choose.

Bye Bye IHG, It was nice knowing you and I have great memories. I am sure I will see you around in places where my new mistress is not around but that's it.

I would like to say it's not you, it's me. But that would be a lie.

FlyerTalker688786

I want to say that after 2 bad stays in 2 ICs in Australia (upgrade to Club without access), I moved to the new Mistress as well. But there are several points to remember with the new mistress:
1, Only Club Lounge and Continental Breakfast are guaranteed. Many of this new mistress's hotel has no lounges. And Continental breakfast only in some of its hotels are not worth the fuss;
2, Upgrade is the hit and miss too. One level upgrade is normal. And there is no difference sometimes between the Deluxe and More Deluxe, basically the same room.

Despite that I have moved my business gradually. I have spent $2,000 this quarter so far on my mistress which could normally gone to IHG. I anticipate to move all my business by year end when I drained out my IHG points. Then I could start to build up my lifetime Diamond status with the new mistress.

BrightlyBob

Super Mario

I've tried to go to other brands. I even spent time with Hilton right before IHG. Hilton, while has beautiful properties, wasn't cutting it for me mostly on price and rate of return on rewards. There really is no "perfect brand". However, every person has unique needs.

Where Hilton and Marriott really succeed is if you frequent premium brands. That's where most of their elite benefits really shine. I mean, how can I not want lounge access if offered? The problem is, I've found the costs to be high to chase down these benefits that while nice, aren't 100% accessible, and aren't life-changing. At least for me. I have to be "reasonable" in my business stays. I am rarely near luxury properties in my business travels. In comparing the "big 3" it's normally between Hampton, HI(X), and Fairfield in the cities I go to. Marriott's offering is almost always the highest in price. The other two duke it out. None of those have lounges. Breakfast is also nice to have, but and overblown topic. For business, it is no problem at all. For leisure, if I want it, there are plenty of brands that consistently offer it. However, I can appreciate the concern around the lack of consistency amongst IHG, to a degree. Marriott is really good in that area.

I've had good luck at my IHG stays as a Spire Ambassador. I guess maybe I go in with a different perspective and maybe lower expectations. At the end of last year, I stayed at a Staybridge for a few days near Disney. That is seriously an underrated brand. Big, modern, clean, suite. Cheap point redemption (even cheaper now with the new CC). Had a decent breakfast. They even did a "lounge" night. In San Juan last month, I was at the IC. Previously bought ambassador with all of my excess points. Got upgraded to a club room with lounge, breakfast, snacks. Great resort. I earn enough points for that room in 6 HI(X) stays in one accelerate quarter. It is hard to hate these things. They don't royally kiss my behind, but they surely don't crap on me either. I get upgraded more often than not. It isn't a hotel full of other Spire Ambassadors wherever I go, all demanding to be treated like an elite. I'm not expecting Jr Presidential suites. The points are plentiful. They have more than enough options and brands to get something halfway decent.

I see the disappointment across all brands in almost all areas. Everyone is complaining they aren't getting upgraded, the reward night they wanted, etc. I mean one of the OP examples was not getting the reward night wanted during the Olympics. I'm not sure that's all that unreasonable. I think IHG needs to get their heads out of the sand when it comes to consistency, luxury properties, and customer service to name a few. Spire could also include some more perks. However, they offer some darn good value. I'll stick around for now, but that could always change. I'm willing to listen, and try new things. Until then, I'm excited for the upcoming 2 nights at the IC in Miami.

Dave Noble

Given that Club access is not a listed benefit , then having to book a club room to guarantee club access seems what should be expected - surely some hotels giving it is better than what you are suggesting in that it never be given

That a hotel may have no rooms remaining/available for awards is extremely different to a blackout date

Upgrading to rooms with better position/views etc are covered by the terms

No benefits on award stays is a listed restriction in the terms

If you have found a chain whose hotels you like, have hotels where you are going to and has a scheme works better for you , then moving makes sense. There seems nothing in the post that indicates that hotels were not providing benefits that they should do

Personally, I find that Accor tends to work better for me these days and has a nice system where points have a specific Euro value. It used to be that IHG was best since it had hotels nearly everywhere I travelled to; these days not so much and Accor grew its prescence

1flyer

We all know that Spire doesn't need anything close to 75 nights. It's feasible to obtain it with 13 nights (if booking nothing but one-night-stays on a 5k bonus point package rate). In practice, most FTers will need more nights to hit Spire. But something like 25-30 (paid, not rewards) nights is realistic for many. And that should count for something. It's much harder to achieve top-tier status on MR, HH, LCAH, ...

winkny

The benefits side of IHG was never the strong one.
They lack any real benefits and this is a known fact for many years.
The strong side of the programs always was the ability to collect a ton of points and use it for free nights.
But they are moving from this too in the recent years , with closing accounts for registering for promotions , inflating the price in points for a free nights.
At this moment the program become almost useless and probably IHG will lost a lot of its customers when they drain theirs balances as "chongcao" point out.

I find that the prices of Accor in London are better then IHG for similar or better quality hotels for the past few years

lost_in_translation

I relegated IHG to my secondary programme a couple of years ago for precisely this reason (firstly behind Hilton, then SPG more recently).

At the end of the day, it all depends what you value from a loyalty programme. The way I see it, you should have a main programme and a back-up programme so that you have a choice of at least two chains given often hotels of the same chain in a city price in lock-step. IMO, if you're Europe-based it makes sense to choose one from each of the following two buckets:

1. Mainly about elite benefits: SPG, Marriott, Hilton, WOH
2. Mainly about generating free stays: IHG, LCAH

If you care more about upgrades / other benefits your main programme should be from bucket 1, if you care more about cheap / free stays your main programme should be from bucket 2. You'll notice that bucket 1 is also where the chains with most of the higher-end properties sit and bucket 2 has a relatively large number of budget properties, on which basis the way each chooses to target their loyalty programme does make some sense.

Unfortunately, in Europe in particular it's difficult to survive without one of IHG or LCAH given the relatively limited coverage of bucket 1 vs. IHG and Accor which are almost everywhere. IHG has not enough in the way of high end properties or elite benefits for it to be my main choice, but IHG still get stays from me in second tier locations because there is often no alternative.

craigthemif

I travel hack Accelerate with the bare minimum of nights - whenever I need a low cost HIX or similar - and actually stay elsewhere most of the time. It never ceases to amaze me that people needing 75+ hotel nights per year choose to spend them at IHG. The benefits are just so much better elsewhere.

markis10

CanuckFlyHigh

I was ready to quit IHG and then I stayed at Thalasso for 7 nights for free. That was before they basically black balled reward nights. Now I have no reason to stay.

BarryL

IHG is always a 2nd choice for me, which is an upgrade from 3rd last year. When Kimpton's are in the area and within market range price, I'm digging those. I hit Spire in 17 nights this year, if you play the game.

I think Marriott/SPG offers the best club access. Outside of Ritz, where they don't want MR/SPG trash staying anyways.

My plans are to slightly loyal to IHG, hoping to hit Inner Circle.

tom911

I stayed 9 nights at the Indigo Tower Hill on award nights during the swimming events, so not quite true that every IHG property within 30 miles of London was blacked out.

htb

All correct. And people are leaving the program because of this. So I don't quite get your argument, if there is any.

HTB.

Dave Noble

To start with - the OP was complaining about lounge access and the inconsistency in getting it - there is no lounge access benefit so seems bizarre to be complaining that he sometimes got it and using that as one of the reasons to leave

There is nothing dishonest in IHG's statement that there are no blackout dates

If finding a business that meets one needs better, then fine, it makes sense to do so - but the whole post seems to be complaining that he got what he was entitled to and somehow was being badly treated