mister__big

There seems to be quite a few folks who have 50 nights or so and didn't get renewed, yet some folks are getting renewed with much less nights than that. The lack of transparency from PC about the number of nights needed is making me think it's not worth it to make a mattress run to maintain RA unless you're close to 50 nights already, since there's no telling if you'll be renewed even if you have 50+ nights.

BA1A

To quote Raffles:

"The criteria for achieving RA status is not published, although PC says that it is for ‘the top 1% of Ambassadors’. However, it is believed to be 50-60 nights in the past 12 months across the whole PC system (all brands) plus at least 3 stays at DIFFERENT InterContinental hotels."

More detail can be found in post #4 of this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/inter...els-forum.html

BA038_Passenger

I hope you're right BA1A. I should have over 60 nights across CP and IC by mid-feb for the last year. Mostly CP, but plenty of qualifying stays in 4 IC and a non-qualifying stay in another on a F&F rate. My ambassador membership will expire in April. If I qualify in Feb, would i only get RA until April, or would it be for a year?

Cheers!

GordonGordon

Yes, you would get RA until April 2011 (for 1 year & 2 months). I have never heard people get more than that, except Alf with his thread "Royal Ambassador Expiration: Never", but it was proven that he was "the Swindler of the Year at FT".

IAN-UK

Clearly I live far too quiet a life - I never heard this story. Want to share ?

tristan727

Stupid question probably irrelevant to this thread....but any ideas appreciated how to get back (earned it, lost it, referred to it , then lost it again) RA in time for my week-long trip to Mauritius, next month, much appreciated - only had about a dozen nights this year - got tons of points & cert etc. I hear mini-bars are bloody expensive out there.

SamsoniteBoy

Unfortunately I don't think you have too many options unless you have a very generous friend or colleague with a spare referral cert.
Your only other option is EBay & you may have to pay over Ł500 there.

wpyeh

This is my story just happy a few minutes ago. Sorry for this unorganized post.

Stay 50 nights in IC/CP/HI/HIX for 2009; 15 at IC @ 4 different hotels.
Paid alomost 65-70 nights (book about 15-17 room nights for family events).
Total points collect from March to December around 90,000 (overlap nights metioned above did not count, did not collect points until March 2009).
I did not receive RA status, so I decide to call AMB service line and ask for RA consideration.

First call to US toll free number.
After press 3 from menu selection and about 3 minutes wait, I was able to speak with a female agent.
And....After explaining again and again (my situation) for about 10 minutes to the female agent, she refuse to send my request to any specialist for consideration nor allow me to speak with her supervisor for plea.

So I decide to call UK number for another try.
2nd call to UK service line.

Call go through immediately with no menu selection nor waiting.
A young and polite agent took my call, listen to my request, and he asked me to stay on line for about 60 seconds.
He came back and told me that: because I stay for 50 nights and I actually will have more then 100,000 points (if I selected point option from January 2009), so they will give me special consideration to become as a RA.
But I need to make choice between:
A) become RA now but RA only vaild until July 30th this year (my annual AMB deadline)
or
B) he will give me a reference number for today's commitment; all I need to do is call back with number for renewal in June, I can have a full year RA until July 2011.
He suggests me to take option B) and this is what I did, and I will check back in June for my RA.

Sorry again for this long and unorganized post, really happy to became a RA after one year "work" in IC system.

BA1A

Congratulations, that is what you call a result ^

Shareholder

Why did you even bother calling at this time? RA renewal is based on your membership year not the calendar year, so it is rather obvious you would have qualified unless your nights between June and December of this year were less than 20 and you had no intention of doing many more than that for the first half of this year.

Errr....

‘ello all


Decided to join PC in December of 2009 and recorded my first stay January 5th 2010 (Holiday Inn Express, Birmingham, England – oh the glamour!)

I typically travel 18/20 nights per month, split pretty equally amongst:

As far East in Europe as the Czech Republic
As far West as San Diego

Whilst I “live” in the UK, only 2 or 3 nights will be in UK hotels

In addition, I’ve signed up for the “1000 points per stay Feb - April” promotion; I’ll quickly be able to move from Club>Gold>Platinum

Therefore, with RA status in mind, when should I apply (and pay) for Ambassador Status?

My understanding is that I have to:

• Have 60 stays per annum
• Spend > $7,000
• Have not less than 3 IC stays
• Been an ambassador for at least a year

The first 3 points are no issue, however when should I apply for ambassador?

Should I take the plunge now and spend $150 of my own cash?

Should I wait till I have 24,000 points and get it for free?

Or is there a timeframe that I need to be aware of? I.e. when is the qualification period for RA?

Have I missed anything in order to maximise my chances of RA?

Thanks in advance

Yes classic “type A” personality, now that I’ve decided on something, I want it as quickly as possible!

gregorygrady

Definitely seems to be a new pattern developing here. Luckily it's in our favor. ^

gregorygrady

All hope is not lost for you. You can still hit the second RA qualification sweep as long as you have ~55-57 IHG nights between March 1, 2009 and Feb 28, 2010. So if you can get a chunk of the CP Gurgaon stays in Jan/Feb, you should be okay, assuming you didn't have a lot of stays in Jan/Feb 2009 that will drop off and bring your rolling 365-night total down too much. Good luck. ^

gregorygrady

# of points earned per year doesn't matter. Amount of money spent doesn't seem to matter either. You don't HAVE to have been an Ambassador for at least a year. If you meet the criterion in the first 3 months, they should upgrade you to RA right away AS LONG AS YOU ARE A CURRENT AMBASSADOR MEMBER!

From recent reports, all that seems to matter is that you get somewhere around 55-57 total IHG nights with at least 3 stays at SEPARATE IC hotels. Recent reports seem to indicate that these 3 IC stays can even be award stays. ^

Personally, if I were in your shoes, would purchase your Amb membership at the front desk during your first stay at an actual IC. Some report that helps their upgrade chances on that stay. Alternatively you can hope a promo for "Free Amb status with 3 IC Nights" or some similar promo comes around in the near future to save yourself the $150. Although personally I'd arguably shell out the $150 anyways just to get better perks on your 3 IC nights than try to save $150, but that's just me. If I could time the IC stays, I would ideally try to time the IC stays so I'd completed ~50 non-IC nights first, then sign up for Amb, knock out my 3 different stays, thus qualifying myself for RA right away, and therefore not losing/wasting many months of my Amb membership while not being an RA. @:-) But if you are going to be doing ~20 nights per month long term (~200+ nights per year), then probably it doesn't matter as you should qualify for RA year in and year out until your travel stops. All you need to worry about is getting 3 IC stays per year it seems..............................Good luck. ^

BTW another tip, with 200+ hotel nights per year, you should also look around at various hotel programs and try to become top-tier in more than one so you can shift your stays based on what promo each chain is offering at the current time. @:-)

Errr....

I'm liking your cunning plan, thank you for your insight ^


Yip, I'm thinking SPG after I qualify via IHG

I spent c 180 nights in hotels last year, more than 100 of those were in Sheraton/Westin - mostly booked via Hotwire or Expedia

You guessed it - I didn't bother signing up for any hotel loyalty programmes last year...

Expensive mistake I'm thinking....


Of course staying in a hotel is dependent on me getting out of LHR....been here since 9.30 this morning to get CO5....still no idea when it's gonna leave!