Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

My targets for the IHG “Into The Nights” promotion

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.

Click here for our article on IHG’s ‘2000 Bonus Points’ promotion which runs from 1st April to 31st May 2024. You can register for the offer by clicking here.

Keep up to date with new hotel offers by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

The website for the very impressive new IHG Rewards Club promotion, ‘Into The Nights‘, is now live.

If you log in at the site, you will see your targeted offers.  There were some problems with the site yesterday which stopped some people logging in – I can only hope that they have been resolved overnight.

To be honest, it looks pretty good for me and my family.  Whilst I am an Ambassador and my wife is Platinum, we have done few paid IHG stays this year.  My Mum has no IHG status and has no stays on her account since the last ‘Big Win‘ promotion last year.

I will show you what we have got as it may help you understand your own targets better.

These are the assumptions I use:

  • IHG Rewards Club points are worth £5 per 1000 (based on using 50,000 for a £250 5-star)
  • A ‘Free Night Voucher’ is worth £250 to me because I will use it at a high-value InterContinental

I am making an assumption here that the ‘Free Night Voucher’ will be the same as the one given with the IHG credit card.  This would mean you could use it within a year, anywhere, as long as reward nights were available.

If it turns out there are restrictions on the validity of the free night vouchers then I would need to reduce their perceived value.  I will not be making speculative bookings for this promotion until the small print of the free night vouchers is published.

Case Study 1

Into The Nights 3

This is my Mum’s ‘no status’ account.  If she completes all five tasks, she will earn 25,000 points plus the 2 free night vouchers.  That is £625 of value using my valuations.

The easiest way to get this would be:

1 x 2-night stay and 1 x 3 night stay at two different Holiday Inn Express hotels, ensuring each stay included a Friday or Saturday night

Central London Holiday Inn Express hotels are not exceptionally cheap.  However, I reckon I can find something for £60 per night (Croydon, potentially).  That would be a total cost of £300 at worse.  I am definitely ‘in’ on this basis, given that it only requires two different hotel visits.

Case Study 2

Into The Nights 2

This is for my wife.  This one is a bit trickier and would depend on whether we could trigger the two overseas stays.  Let’s assume that we can’t.

Hitting the first six targets on the list would probably involve:

1 x Holiday Inn Express stay for 2 nights, inc a Saturday

1 x a different Holiday Inn Express for 3 nights, inc a Saturday

1 x Holiday Inn night (assuming I want a cheap brand)

1 x another brand to hit the 3 brands target (Crowne Plaza Heathrow?)

In total, that would earn 33,600 points (£168) plus 2 free nights (£500) for a total of £668.  Whilst this is achievable, it would be a lot of trouble to do the four stays necessary.  I will give this a miss unless a couple of business trips outside the UK come up to hit the ‘Globetrotter’ target.

Case Study 3

Into The Nights 1

This is mine. There are no brand caps on this which makes it a bit easier.

If I do it all in the UK, I would need:

2 x 2-night stays over a Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun

Another 2 nights anywhere, anytime

One of these stays to be on a Bonus Points Package with breakfast (not sure how easy these are to find, and not available at Holiday Inn Express hotels as they give free breakfast)

That would net me 33,600 points (£168) plus 2 free nights (£500 of value) for a total of £668.  This might be possible.

However, I have two overseas trips coming up.  I am not booked into IHG properties but I could find a suitably cheap local one for a mattress run.  Note that the stays must be in two DIFFERENT countries.  As I only need to hit 6 of the 7, I could then exclude the ‘7 nights target’.

That would let me do:

2 x 2-night stays outside the UK, each comprising a Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun, one of which is a Bonus Points Package with breakfast

This looks attractive.  I would only need to do 2 check-ins, for a start, which saves time.  My earnings would be 34,800 points (£174 of value) plus 2 free nights (£500 of value) for a total of £674.  There would also be a slug of base points.  This should be possible for under £300 of expenditure.

The link to check your own target is here.


IHG One Rewards update – April 2024:

Get bonus points: IHG One Rewards is offering 2,000 bonus points for every two cash nights you stay (not necessarily consecutive) between 1st April and 31st May 2024. You can read our full article here and you can register here.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Comments (143)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Dave King says:

    Well i certainly have been priced out of this offer – 44 nights for 32,000 points, 5 brands for 14,000, 5 Saturday nights for 7,200, 7 different HIEX for 12,000, 7 nights with bonus points and breakie rate for 6,000, 7 extend your weekend nights for 12,000 and finally 3 international trips for 11,000. I might make a few of these offers but doubt i’ll make 6 out of the 7 for the big bonus of 31,000 or 3 free nights………

  • Fenny says:

    Well I have no idea what my targets are. I’ve logged in and it tells me 25,000 nights or 1 free night if I complete 1 offer, but doesn’t tell me what I have to do to get it. I joined IHG in March and haven’t stayed with them yet. At this rate, I’m not likely to.

    I’m less than whelmed by the whole experience.

    • darrenf says:

      Same targets (and problem) here. Though I’ve been an IHG member since 2006 I’ve only stayed a couple of nights in the past 12 months.

    • Pszczolka says:

      I’m getting the exact same thing – platinum because I have the card but I haven’t had any stays this year and I get no offers. I’ve emailed them to see if that’s an error or it means I can’t participate (which would be a shame as I have 5 weeks of travel coming up and no hotels booked)

      • Keith says:

        Me too, I’m getting that. Any reply form IHG? I also have some travel coming up, so would like to participate.

  • Sprout7 says:

    Could anyone confirm if the “2 free nights” are dependent upon reward night availability or if they can be used where rooms are available but no reward nights.
    many thx

  • Chris says:

    Does anyone know of a good site for checking hotel rates over a time period to find the cheapest dates? Trivago used to have it if you clicked Info you got a nice Skyscanner-esque bar graph of all rates over a time period which was ideal for this kind of mattress run but they seem to have removed it

    • Rob says:

      Travelocity US had it but dropped it last year, I even wrote about it

    • takke says:

      What I find useful is querying IHG’s site for a long stay over all the dates you are looking for – you can then look at the rate broken down per night and see when it’s cheapest. It won’t give you the right rates because it’ll have an extended stay discount, but I think it gives a pretty good idea of the nightly rates relative to each other.

  • sandgrounder says:

    Three nights, two different holiday inns, two Saturdays, download app, book two online including one on the app. Very easy, but only 10.5k (plus 50k/two nights)

    • Dan says:

      I have basically the same but only for 4.5k+50k. Is a little lower than others but should help me fast track to gold and my employer will be paying for some. Still, bit of a sacrifice vs platinum benefits with Accor

      • Cam says:

        Same easy targets as you guys but total points only 2,250 then 10K or 2 nights. Should have left a bigger tip last time I staiyed I suppose!

  • Scott says:

    I’ve got an easy enough one.
    Cheapest for me seems to be popping into somewhere like Rotherham, staying (i.e. checking in and clearing off) Fr/Sat or Sat/Sun twice for around £74 each time at the HIX (gets me 2 x weekend stays, 2 x Sat stay, 2 x HIX stay, 4 x nights). Possibly £186 to do mine.
    The need one more stay at a HIX (3rd HIX and 5th night). Was going to do the one at JFK as I’m there on a Saturday night anyway but may just do another cheapo one in the UK.

  • Gabriel says:

    No chance for me: 15 nights, 5 brands, 4 two-nights weekends, 3 international stays… 🙁

  • Stripy says:

    I’d like to second Chris’ question above.
    Also, would I be correct in assuming you have to be careful how you books these nights as, presumably, bookings through Hotels.com, Expedia, Priceline etc…. won’t count (just like they don’t count for elite status/points accumulation)?
    If the above is correct does anyone have tips for where to search for lower rates that IHG then matches via their ‘Best Rate Guarantee’? Thanks!

    • Alan says:

      No, you’d definitely need to book direct, those sort of third party stays won’t be valid.

      Good luck with a Best Rate Guarantee claim – I submitted one on Saturday (resubmitted on Monday after advice from the IHG Twitter team) and still not heard a thing, despite them saying they’ll reply in 24h. Needless to say the better rate has now gone. Have now escalated to their corporate office but not holding out much hope.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.