smartassmurf

Ambassador services wrote back to me this morning. They have comped me RA status for 2006, but they said it was a one time exception.

I would have pulled all of my business from them if they hadn't, and I made that clear. I think they made a logical choice considering they would have lost 40-50 thousand dollars a year off of me.

Tristan you have a PM....

Poco

I can't understand people's reluctance to post their stay histories. If people on this forum are indeed giving IC huge numbers of nights per year and still losing their RA status then perhaps by comparing our situations we will see a pattern and collectively figure out a way to fight back.

On the other hand if IC is downgrading people who have a smaller number of stays then I can't blame IC. The point of a program like this is to provide an incentive for a large volume of business. I would love it if any hotel chain offered me things like room upgrades and free minibar in exchange for a say 20 nights a year. But what sense would that make? The goal of a loyalty program is to drive business and loyalty, not to please everyone, especially casual guests. Otherwise where's the incentive?

So to get the ball rolling, here's my stay history and status background...

Total IC Hotel Group nights this year: 58 (with 4 more booked)
Total IC nights: 47 (with 4 more booked)
Number of different ICs I've stayed at: 3
Points Earned in 2005: 217906

It started the year as a Gold Ambassador, I hit Platinum by April. Unsolicited I was ugraded to RA in late July immediately following a stay at my third different IC of the year. A month later I got a complimentary RA renewal.

That's me, anyone else? I think both upgraded and downgraded experiences would be useful to this forum.

tristan727

For the record - even though the data I've provided can be used for the purpose requested, since I was rejected indeed -although that would have been fairly obvious really, & hence not much help...my RA status was extended by an additional 6 months after appeal, due to a glitch where the hotels apparently had me down as a regular Ambassador.pheww!

People with a photographic memory, may recall I've made a handful of posts over the year, saying upgrades & prezzies were as good, if not better, when was a regular Ambassador...now I believe I know why!

Camino1

I am RA but these details are not the basis because I was renewed a few months ago, overlapping from last year, I think, and have fewer nights in 2005.


Qualifying Nights Towards Elite Status in 2005 40
Points Earned in 2005 140312
InterContinental Hotels 5

Poco

Interesting.

All the complaining about how unreasonable IC is and still only one other person posts their stay history. And no one who's been downgraded posts anything.

Could the downgrades be justified?

pauleeepaul

I got the Dear John letter over the weekend. While I only got the RA through the 3 stays and PC PLT fast track wrinkle of earlier this year I am a little peeved since I have only had RA for about 9 months and have had several IC stays in different properties as well the usual HI and CP volume, stacking up to a projected 50 nights in total this year with 18 nights in 6 different IC properties (Santiago, Montreal, Miami, Amstel, Buenos Aires and London.) The absence of an IC in two major destinations that I go to regularly (LAX and BRU) makes it hard to do better than this. Further, the absence of definitive rules on what qualifies for RA is annoying. If I was 2-3 nights or stays away I could possibly justify a leisurely long weekend or two to get over the hump. The "if you have to ask you can't afford it" attitude that this approach conveys, in a word, sucks.

smartassmurf

Poco, I don't think I have ever said I thought the downgrades were necessarily unreasonable, the way they have jerked the program around is another matter.

I have also made it clear I rarely stay at IC branded hotels, and in fact was upgraded to RA with NO IC stays, but was upgraded because of my request with the proof of the massive amount of money I spent at their other brands.

There are no IC branded hotels in my travel areas (work), but the status is very important to me when I travel on pleasure.

In fact I have no PAID IC stays this year either, but I would argue I spend as much at their other hotels than most of the people in the 1% that will now be RAs, and this is why they extended my RA status for another year and even comped it. I would argue also that I think they will keep giving me RA every year to keep my business, I don't see how not would be a rational business decision.

As we all know platinum benefits don't mean much besides more points, if they pull RA status from me I will switch programs because I am pretty sure I can get treated better in my work travel areas with another program such as Hilton or Marriott, as I log about 250-300 nights a year traveling (I am over 240 with PC right now this year).

It is their choice right now to keep or lose my business, they chose to keep it for the time being. I think they are going to be making a lot of choices like this with their RAs that they are downgrading if they have large amounts of spending at their other hotels.

My opinion...

dahorns

well I'm not at over 240 nights like smartassmurf
I have retained my RA for 2006, hopefully I will for 2007...

As last week I was at 46 nights total HI/HIEX/IC props, of which 3 were ICs for 6 nights... I have 4 more stays booked in ICs and 3 stays in HIEX before end of year... to date I've earned 249.6K points

Casimir

I am bumping this thread in the hopes that people who are being downgraded and those who retain their RA status will post the information requested in my OP in this thread. Particularly given the experience of kimster -- 51 nights in IC's, no other (or very few) nights in other ICHG hotels = NO RA STATUS -- I continue to believe that this empirical data could easily help us to construct what the de facto requirements are for RA.

I will post when their decision on my March renewal is made. Casimir

kamfer

Downgraded with 37 nights !

2 nights in CP, 6 nights in HI, and the rest (29 nights) in ICs.
Only 33 paid nights since I used my free week-end certificate and a few 2/1 promos in Europeen ICs.

Hope that helps

Casimir

Thanks kamfer ! Your post led me to my daily check on RA status. Much to my delight, my RA status today was renewed to March 2007 .

What makes this fact interesting to perhaps others than just me is my 2005 stats:

Total ICHG nights: 102
Total nights in IC's: 33
Number of IC's stayed at: 6
Total PC points: Over 500,000

As I suspected (ok, really more hoped than suspected), the PC folks ARE apparently looking at more than a simple 50 nights at IC's rule. This seemingly was confirmed in another thread where somebody received a letter to this effect from IC.

Now, if we can gather enough data, maybe we can even figure out their formula!

Hope this helps, Casimir

Steady-EDI

Renewed on a complimentary basis until Nov 2006. (Perhaps I slipped through before the rule change?)

Total ICHG nights: 46
Total nights in ICs: 25
Number of ICs stayed at: 9
Total PC points: approx 285,000

Have we ever worked out the difference between upgraded Ambassadors and those RAs (like me) who have never been Ambassadors?

kamfer

[QUOTE=Steady-EDI]Renewed on a complimentary basis until Nov 2006. (Perhaps I slipped through before the rule change?)

Congrats for your renewal Steady

My status will be expiring in February 2006.
I would be curious to find out under what rules your renewal was processed.
If it was under the new rules, then we can assume that the qualification point would be somewhere between your stay record and mine, which are really not very far one from each other.

Doppy

Just got the downgrade letter 2.5 months before my RA status expires. Says I didn't make the 1% "based on nights" criteria.

Ambassador benefits are pretty lame, IMO, and IME they're not honored particularly well. I was a SCC member for years and the hotels have never done much for regular SCC members or regular Ambassadors. A bottle of water - sometimes?

Even as a Royal the hotels have been pretty spotty about delivering on the regular Ambassador benefits (e.g. welcome amenities, "VIP" greetings and not arguing with me about a 4PM check-out). So, I'm going to cancel my future IC reservations and take my business elsewhere. If IC were upfront about how many nights they wanted, even if I didn't make the cut, that would be fine. But I hate "guess you status" programs.

I only had about 20 or so nights at 5 different ICs, though they weren't at $150 rates, that's for sure.

Casimir

Thanks for your post, Doppy . If you wouldn't mind sharing the information, how many nights did you have in Holiday Inn brand hotels in the ICHG? This is important because some of us were renewed without having 50 nights in IC's, and we have heard that non-IC's will count in some discounted fashion toward RA status. It would help to have as complete information as possible. Thanks, Casimir