markis10

Ditto, I have not stayed in an IC out of Australia in two years and we have only got three IC's here yet I qualified in Feb for RA.

JOUY31

My personal experience was very different from the previous years. An initial e-mail exchange, apparently positive, was followed by increasingly non-committal e-mails and phone conversations, telling me a renewal would occur if and when it occurs, or that there would be no exception made. Ultimately, I was renewed, which astounded me, not because of the number of my stays, but due to the increasingly negative tone of our exchanges. I was relieved, but can't say the process has increased my satisfaction with IC.

powerplantop

Most of my IC stays are for personal travel with the wife.

However without RA I would shop around more for my personal travel.

gokiburi

So after 50+ nights in over 4 IC's (Singapore, ANA Tokyo, Sydney, Bali) I have been downgraded to Platinum Ambassador.

An initial call to the ambassador line before my expiry was met with a person who was unable to tell me whether or not my RA would be renewed. I think she said something along the lines of "continue to stay with us and perhaps your RA will be renewed, just wait and see." Disappointed by the telephone exchange, I sent an email requesting what my status would be come expiry date. Long story short, no one was able to quantify the exact number of nights required for RA or how much I fell short this year. They do state however that they will continue to monitor my stays and "look forward" to possibly renewing my RA at a later date.

I'm not entirely happy with not being able to get a real answer and have decided to switch over all my future travel to my now somewhat dormant SPG account. It's a pretty reluctant switch as I've enjoyed the service the past couple of years with IC spending both work and vacation nights with the chain.

wonderbret

I'm starting to wonder if they are making a conscious effort to trim down the number to RAs. I know that everyone on here will argue that we are their best customers (agreed) and that we are the ones who spend the most money (agreed), but I was thinking about the reverse as well. I know that the mini-bars cost the hotel money, especially when we tend to have at it, and host our "in room mini parties". I am starting to wonder how much the IC properties have complained about the swelling of the RA ranks.

As much as I really hate to say it, maybe this is their way of making a more "exclusive" tier to the system. To me, it seems obvious that that has been the intention all along, with the vague standards and all that, but obviously YMMV. Further, I could see them doing something like this before they give additional benefits to RAs, but in the current economic environment, I highly doubt that is going to be the case.

jpdx

It's pretty hard to imagine that the number of hotel nights of the top 1% customers is up in this economy. If anything, one would expect the number of required nights to be down. So I would agree, this new policy represents a deliberate effort to reduce the numbers of RAs. Madness, sure, but hey, it's their program.

In any case, this uncertainty has led me to stop pursuing re-qualification like a maniac. I have 33 nights thus far (including 29 in 11 different ICs), and my RA year ends in March, so it would be entirely do-able. My travel patterns for the next half year would require me to stay in a number of pretty awful HIs if I wanted to stick with PC -- and a decent shot at RA re-qualification would motivate me to do so. But right now, I realize that there's no point in spending nights at inferior hotels. I'll do the 20 or so IC nights that I had planned anyways, and that's it.

dgwright99

Even for only a handful of IC stays per year, RA bennies are very valuable (mcuh more than the tradeable value of the referal), and well worth an extra IC night or to to secure. IME the RA UG alone is worth $200-300 per night on average, and sometimes much more, plus the minibar, early checkin, etc, etc.

For those of us who stay in a lot of HIX/HI/CP on business, and spend our own $$$ on the occasional luxuary weekend at an IC, the RA bennies make it well worth finding the time for an extra IC weekend that we might not otherwise have stayed in order to keep RA.

I only do 3-5 IC stays per year of 2-3 nights each; these are "romantic weekends away" with my wife, and the RA bennies make it possible to spend <$500 on the hotel instead of $1k+. The RA requal requirement does push us into visiting a city we might otherwise not have been on our A-list, but for me it's absolutely worth it.

Really, you might as well ask why somebody who only flies long haul a couple of times per year why they got to all the bother of achieving top tier if they are only going to get the benefit of the SWU so infrequently.

paulmoscow

It's an illusion, because you stay at ICs too seldom. Most of my stays were at ICs and while upgrades can seem spectacular, they cost hotels nothing. We get rooms unlikely to be sold. In my experience American hotels are usually generous, but in European or Asian ICs the price difference is often as low as €30-50 (e.g. Le Grand.)

Early check-in was very valuable benefit for me two years ago, but recently most of the time I arrive at hotels on Friday night. A couple of times when we needed to arrive early, we were asked to come later ("We have a nice room for you, but it's not yet ready. Oh wait, we can give you a crappy room instead, don't you want it?")

ag51

But under the rules you can take the crappy room straight away, then move into the nice room when it is ready. Better than nothing, surely? (and gives you two minibars to raid on one day, if you so choose )

paulmoscow

It is just another fight. In both cases these rooms were NOT offered as a temporary measure, they supposed to be upgrades (on lower floor or without view). Hotels in question are IC SF and the Willard (which was completely sold out on a night before, so any fight would be stupid.)

Flying Lawyer

I am not sure about this. I expect the overall number of travellers and the number of ambassadors to be smaller. However, the hardcore travellers are still on the road (I actually have more hotel nights this year than I had last year). "The top 1%" is a relative number. If the overall number of travellers decreases and the activity of the hardcore travellers stays the same, the "top 1%" reflects a smaller group of and number of stays of the "the top 1%" should increase.

Sydfly

OK, this whole "do I get renewed for RA or not" game doesn't really make sense. For those of us who spent that many nights at ICH hotels per year it should not be a guessing competition. It almost feels like not getting a promotion when you know you've done an outstanding job. That's terrible.

Now, having said all this and having suffered through this feeling for the last few weeks while I carefully planned my stays I just noticed the following line in my account:

ROYAL AMBASSADOR RENEWAL 0pts 0pts

Now, I know this is the last time I will achieve this. My new company's travel policy doesn't even allow me to select my hotels even if I paid the difference. So, that means I'll have to make the most of it in the next 15 months.

For you guys who are anxiously waiting for their renewal, here are my details:

55 total nights at IHG since August '08)
4 differnt ICs (7 separate stays)

Last year I was renewed on the exact same date with 60 nights total. But I just couldn't fit any more nights in this year. Had to spend almost every weekend over the last few weeks in a hotel to make up the difference as my business travel had sharply decreased. I got renewed 2 months prior to my expiry in October. So, in my experience this is the best bet you have to renew your memebership. Don't wait until your membership year is over. Try to achieve the min. 50 or 55 nights and 3 IC stays 2 months earlier. This seems to be when the system runs the check and renews you automatically. I didn't have to call or speak to anyone.

So, hopefully this can give someone some hope prior to the start of the weekend. I, for sure, will have a great weekend after this ^

Raffles

Indeed. For the 'occasional romantic weekend away' crowd, the best deal on the market - period - is Ambassador.

No need to stay 60 nights to get it, just pay your $150!

In return, get that valuable BOGO which gets you 2-4-1 on that romantic weekend and lets you book a far more expensive room because of the 50% discount. The 1 category upgrade, the free movie and the 4pm check-out are all hugely useful as well on a weekend away.

Mr Average willl be paying $1k a night for a suite and has to check out at 12pm. You'll be paying $500 a night, will get moved to a higher suite category and will be staying until 4pm (use those extra hours to watch the movie!).

olegator

new BOGO will not work for suite

dgwright99

I think that Sydfly has found the answer ! I just checked back through the thread, and it seems to be the case that for most of those getting early renewal at the 10 month mark something close to the old 50 PC nights + 3 ICs threshold is still in effect. (in my case ~55 nts + 3 ICs)

For those who do not get the early renewal, the goalposts seem to have changed, and no clear pattern has emerged, but it seems that the bar is now very much higher.