New qualification for Marriott BONV°Y lifetime Titanium Elite status has not been available since Monday, 31 December 2018. ;)

But then, IHG has no lifetime status of any kind. :)

IHG is just too much hit and mostly miss. My Diamond UG success is essentially zero, if I exclude one corner room that wasn’t even in a separate room category. Promos can be nice and stackable, but they can be quite limited and are often targeted. If you have them, then this can be great. Redemption value even with a 3+1 award night is much much inferior to Marriott. I can get a lot better value on average with 4+1 at Marriott - by a lot actually. I find IHG points very difficult to use and I value them at 0.4 cents or below whereas Marriott is 0.6 cents for me. That said, I regularly get above 1 cent value with Marriott and that is essentially a unicorn with IHG.

wondering which hotels you are staying at - I am mainly in Intercontinental, Kimpton, Crowe Plaza and my diamond upgrades have been very good every single time (up to paulista suite at IC Sao Paulo from a basic reward room)
P.S. Have to add - I gifted my nephew an Ambassador membership so he got platinum status - his upgrades were amazing - from a basic room to a 110m2 suite at the Intercontinental Ras Al Khaimah (booked via OTA), Junior suite at the Indigo Warsaw (from basic room), King Bed Suite from basic room at the Voco Dubai, King Bed Suite at the Indigo Kuala Lumpur (from a basic reward room). Can't get better than that.

Well, you managed to capture in one sentence what I spent eight paragraphs explaining in detail. IHG's lounges are quality vs quantity. I'm actually going to do a round-up on my experiences in IHG lounges over in that sub-forum in the next few days. Bonvoy's extensive brand footprint in Asia means you're never very far from a lounge of whatever quality. Some may even serve alcohol that is drinkable. Undrinkable wine at Bonvoy lounges has been a common complaint around the world as evidenced by LeM BKK, the Marriott Maida Vale, and the Renaissance Midtown NYC all of which scrape the bottom of the barrel for sheer cheap nasty wine.

In Europe, there's not an argument about Bonvoy's quantity because the footprint of lounge hotels is vastly reduced so it ceases to be a criteria out of main cities (and isn't a criteria at all in some main cities such as Barcelona where Bonvoy hotels like LeM and the Ren do not have lounges... inexplicably because the Intercon in that city has one of the best lounges I've been to anywhere serving free flow Champagne all day). IHG's lounges uniformly serve better food and booze than Bonvoy lounges in my experience and that's comparing IHG's Europe footprint to Bonvoy's Asian footprint. My single experience of a lounge from either group in the US was last year at the Renaissance Midtown NYC where I was pleasantly surprised by what we got in the lounge though my expectations were very low indeed and the wine was from Morocco and didn't travel well.

On the quality vs quantity argument, even if you take a city like Bangkok which is inundated with choices for a Bonvoy lounge then you're only going to stay at one unless you're on a mission and so what may be perceived as an major advantage of Bonvoy over IHG in practice makes little difference to most people. I mean, I'm always going to stay at LeM no matter that the nearby Crowne Plaza is both slightly cheaper and has a better lounge (food, booze, and ambiance) and I wouldn't consider staying at the new Voco next to the LeM no matter what the price even to try it out because it doesn't have a lounge. We're probably going to have a few days at the Intercontinental Hua Hin which is a resort and will thoroughly enjoy the Club Lounge in all its glory including the brand standard afternoon tea and evening cocktails while pitying the Bonvoy elites at the loungeless Sheraton and Marriott.

Without labouring the point, we wouldn't have jumped to IHG if we'd stayed in Asia despite the better lounge booze and experience at IHG because Bonvoy's footprint is so dense and prices competitive but now we're in Europe Marriott doesn't cut it so much with poorer, fewer lounges and unjustifiably more expensive hotels in general.

I also value IHG points round 0.5 euro cents and Bonvoy around 1c. I don't have years of experience with IHG to feel the devaluation but I do have experience of earnings and while my Bonvoy counter creeps up slowly whether there is a promo or not (usually not as we know) my IHG counter jumps up with every stay due to the multiple regular stacking promos. I judge it like this: I look at the cash I paid and the redeemable value of the points I received at 0.5 euro cents per point. A typical example: The Indigo Albufeira cost €100.66 (plus VAT) and I earned 9,609 points worth €48 because I bought the 5000 points package for €19 which is included in the overall rate I quoted. Pretty good ratio. A stay at the CP Porto cost €298 (plus VAT) where I earned 14,698 points worth €73 due to stackable promos. These points valuations become hard cash at that rate when redeeming. I also don't consider buying points in these sales but I do buy the 5000 qualifying points packages because they're costing me €19 for €25 of redeemable value (yes, yes, I know the flexible rate is a bit more than the lowest pre-paid rate so I buy them at cheaper HIXs or Indigos) and they are qualifying points so I can get to Diamond in 40 nights straightforwardly.

There is no comparison on the quality of the lounges at MAR vs IHG. With MAR it feels like they order their food from Costco. IHG has chefs working in the kitchen.

I am currently at an InterContinental in Asia. Here is the menu for 3 days. It’s not a big secret that I don’t eat meat, so looks like there would be nothing for me to eat here. Wrong. Chefs prepared some eye popping dishes for me.

I've always had Bonvoy (and SPG) as my primary program, while my secondary program was Hilton (as Diamond 2018-2022) and IHG (Diamond 2022-2024 w/ lounge pass).
Where both programs fell short of Bonvoy was in consistency and quality of upgrades - and IHG was the weakest here. Diamond Ambassador got me one comped suite upgrade in 3 years.
I also noticed that through 2024 the value of points redemptions started to fall off noticeably. Other programs had devals of course but since decent value points redemptions was one of the strong points of IHG for me the loss in value hit harder.

IHG lounges, with the guardrail of the 40-nights lounge pass, were definitely superior to their Marriott equivalents on the whole (and Hilton is the weakest) but in practice that usually meant staying at an IC, whereas with Bonvoy there'd be a much wider range of properties to choose from.

Since the OP is now talking primarily about Europe I think Accor should get a mention here. I switched to Accor in 2025 as their footprint in Europe is second to none: they have 82 hotels in Poland alone. The thing I like about Accor is not just their massive footprint but the fact that they offer a broad range of properties across the price spectrum - from deep value (IBIS) to luxury (Raffles) with no major gaps in between. The thing that originally put me off considering Accor was the fixed value of points (2 eurocents per point), but the devaluations in other programs have been so massive since the pandemic that I now regard the fixed value of Accor points as a bonus. No more needing to burn points almost as soon as I get them. With a six-figure point stash in Marriott/IHG/Hilton I'd get anxious about the next horrorshow devaluation around the corner but with Accor I can just quietly accumulate them.

I made Accor Platinum last year thanks to the excellent Signature program, where you basically get status points and heavily discounted reward points as part of the subscription. So far I've been impressed with the upgrades, even at mid-range properties. I spent last weekend at Mercure Gdansk and got upgraded from a standard category room to an Exec Suite. They also gave me a complimentary minibar which was full (including beer, wine, prosecco & spirits).

For now, Accor is working well for me and especially in Asia it will be a great option to use alongside Bonvoy, as Accor Platinum/Diamond get free breakfast and lounge access in APAC :)

I guess with Accor, the lack of a breakfast benefit outside of APAC (or weekends) is made up by lounge access? Footprint in Europe definitely makes sense.

as a long time hyatt globalist and marriott lifetime platinum, ihg is growing on me lately.

diamond ambassador with annual lounge pass for the last 2 years, my overall experience is very positive.

i mostly stayed at newer IC in asia. their lounges are mostly superior to others. in term of room upgrade it's quite minimal. but as i'm getting older, i don't care about that much anymore.

ihg status is also easier to achieve (just pay for the point). milestones rewards are quite useful. free booze in US lounges is a plus too.

this year i might not qualify as hyatt globalist because of the upcoming massive devaluation and no access to US credit cards. I also felt their footprint is pretty boring and limited.

has anyone tried GHA? status match looks ok but you can also get Titanium by mattress running 3 brands. or with asia-based world elite mastercard / visa infinite

Hyatts footprint is boring. The more time goes on, the angier I get at the suddenness of the devaluation. Even chase gave a longer time frame.

I messaged Hyatt on Twitter about my unhappiness with the siddenness and they said, we understand but would you like us to make a reservation. Hyatt should've said they'd switch the chartbin 6-12 months. I'm sitting on 800,000'points and can't use them