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IHG bits: earn and redeem at Kimpton, new InterCon in Singapore, hitting Spire Elite

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IHG news in brief:

Get special benefits, earn points and spend points at Kimpton

IHG, owner of the Holiday Inn, HI Express, Crowne Plaza etc brands, bought the US chain Kimpton Hotels almost three years ago.

Integration has been slow on the rewards front.  The first European Kimpton, Amsterdam (which I reviewed here) opened last year as a member of IHG Rewards Club and not the Kimpton Karma loyalty scheme, causing much confusion.

IHG has now announced that the two schemes will be merged from early next year.  As an IHG Rewards Club member, you will now get extra benefits at Kimpton Hotels, which are mainly in the United States.

You will also be able to earn and redeem IHG Rewards Club points at Kimpton Hotels from ‘early 2018’ which will add a number of interesting – and generally good quality – redemption options in the US.  This is a good result for IHG Rewards Club members and, to be honest, probably a bad result for Kimpton Karma members.

New InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay now open

The second InterContinental hotel in Singapore, at Robertson Quay, opened this week.  This was a little surprising as there had been reports of it slipping into 2018.  I am not sure if it is fully open or not.

It is too early for feedback on how it is, and I don’t know anything about the location.  Basic rooms look very small at just 23 square metres.

If you were hoping for an IHG Rewards Club special opening offer, as often happens, you will be disappointed.  The hotel is selling for the usual 60,000 IHG Rewards Club points per night.

The hotel website is here if you want to find out more.

InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay

A reminder about hitting Spire Elite status ….

With just 10 weeks left in the year, you may be looking at your IHG Rewards Club status points and wondering if you will be able to hit or retain Spire Elite for 2018.  It requires 75,000 status points in a calendar year.

One key benefit of Spire Elite is that you receive 25,000 bonus IHG Rewards Club points for achieving it.  There is an alternative option, of giving a friend free Platinum Elite status, but taking the 25,000 points is a better deal.

This means that, if you are fairly close to hitting or renewing Spire Elite status, it is worth the extra push in order to get this bonus.

The easiest route is to transfer some miles from Virgin Flying Club to IHG Rewards Club.  These count for status as I explain here.  The Virgin / IHG page on the Virgin website is here.

This article (click) looks at what other ways of earning IHG points count for status.  With only 10 weeks left, the Virgin option is probably your best shot.

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.

Category

IHG One Rewards

Comments (100)

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

  • Graham Walsh says:
    22 Oct22 October 09:59

    Is it worth chasing the 9414 points needed for Spire Elite this year in 2017? Does reset to 0 on 1/1/18? But I’ll still have Elite due to black credit card in 2018.

    Elite Qualifying Points Earned: 65,586 of 75,000 for Spire Elite
    Elite Status Expiration Date:31 Dec, 2018 Maintain Elite status

    • Alan says:
      22 Oct22 October 10:02

      Seems a fairly decent deal given the 25k bonus on achieving Spire, but guess it depends on how you value IHG points and how many Virgin miles you have available…

      • Graham Walsh says:
        22 Oct22 October 10:26

        I’ve got a good amount of VA miles so could lose 10k and gain the 25K IHG points. So if I get Spire elite, that would last until the end of 2018?

        • Alan says:
          22 Oct22 October 10:28

          Yep 🙂

        • Rob says:
          22 Oct22 October 10:36

          If you do it now, yes. And that is a decent deal as you’re getting £150-175 or so of IHG points for 10k Virgin. (I’m assuming you’re on 65k IHG status points for 2017 with no more stays planned.)

        • Graham Walsh says:
          22 Oct22 October 12:14

          Cool, thanks for the guidance. I’ll wait a few days as my IHG Black card points will post in a few days for OCT spend and will top up with VS points, so will only need a few 000s

        • Alex W says:
          22 Oct22 October 17:33

          I think the minimum transfer from virgin is 10k anyway. Still a great deal, as you will get 35k IHG points and spire elite for 14 months.

  • shd says:
    22 Oct22 October 10:25

    I’m some way off Spire but thinking of transferring a big chunk of VS miles to IHG in early Jan to qualify for 2018 and 2019 (?) instead of topping up before 31 Dec…. thoughts?

    • Alan says:
      22 Oct22 October 10:27

      I can definitely see the benefit of earning it at the start of the year, but personally I’d want to make sure I was going to be staying in properties that gave me lots of benefits as Spire – otherwise as Rob says you’re getting proportionally less benefit if transferring more IHG points.

      • shd says:
        23 Oct23 October 08:18

        I’m struggling to see *any* sensible way to spend the VS miles as VS miles, though!

        • Alan says:
          23 Oct23 October 08:31

          Fair enough – in that case you’ll give a much lower value to VS miles than I do and therefore it’ll make much more sense to transfer them across to IHG 🙂

    • Rob says:
      22 Oct22 October 10:37

      75k Virgin for 100k IHG (worth £500ish) is not great in itself but if you will have a decent number of stays in 2018 and 2019 then it would be worthwhile I think.

      • shd says:
        23 Oct23 October 08:04

        In terms of requal, only have 33k EQPs now so would need 42k more for Spire. Not going to achive that by a long stretch based on planned stays.

        However, when I hit the Q3 Accelerate 2017 target with my 3rd brand, will reach 700k points to spend, really really really need to get round to burning them over the next year or two.

    • Genghis says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:58

      If you’re renewing SE, it’s always best to wait till year end to make any decisions about hitting it. Getting it for the first time, however, you can get it for two full years if you hit it in Jan. Run some numbers given how many stays you’re likely to do and see if it works for you.

    • Alex W says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:37

      I would try and minimise the number of virgin miles you need to transfer to IHG by doing it towards the end of the year. If you’re ambassador it will extend your status to the subsequent years anyway.

  • DAZ says:
    22 Oct22 October 11:39

    The new IC Singapore rooms do look petite! And I would say it is further out that I would like.

  • Gavin says:
    22 Oct22 October 11:56

    Got to pay £5750 next week for a car by card. Visa and MasterCard are my options. What’s best? 11500 Hilton points, 5750 IHG, 1450 avios (using Lloyds MC) are the points available, and a bit of all important context below

    Paying by Hilton is easy option as the credit limit is high enough, I’d need to adjust the credit limit for IHG card or Lloyds Avios card first but that shouldn’t be a problem. The extra IHG points would take my balance up to afford a mid level redemption, the Lloyds spend would trigger the voucher, I don’t currently collect Hilton points so the points wouldn’t make much difference in terms of redeeming any time soon. I will definitely be able to use the Lloyds voucher next year.

    • Alan says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:08

      Personally I’d value at Hilton £46, IHG £23, Avios £11 so I’d definitely go for the Hilton! I take your point re nudging you over the level for IHG but remember when it comes to Hilton you can do part points/part cash from low levels so you could still extract value from those points. IHG also do points+cash so you might still have enough as-is with them?

    • Alan says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:09

      PS not having the hassle of having to fiddle about with credit limits within a 1/52 timescale is also a positive for the Hilton 😉

  • Tony Burns says:
    22 Oct22 October 13:06

    My IHG black card has a statement date of 22nd of the month.
    For earning Spire points does anybody know if this is then the ‘cut off’ date or do they include all spend up to 31st Dec even though the next statement date will be in January?
    Thanks

    • Alan says:
      22 Oct22 October 13:17

      Spire will count until 31st Dec as remember not everyone chasing Spire will have the credit card, many will be obtaining via stays.

      Obviously if relying on the card it’s important to make sure spend gets through in time on the card so the points clear. Thankfully once the transaction has cleared on the card (2-3 days) I find they post to IHG very promptly, they’re normally in my IHG account a day or so before the statement is generated. I think we all have 22nd (+/- a day or two) as our statement date. Personally I’ll be making sure I’ve hit any required spend by about 15th Dec at the latest.

    • Jonathan says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:37

      The credit card statement needs to post before 31st December to count towards this year. Otherwise it’ll be an early boost for next years target.

      • Alan says:
        22 Oct22 October 17:49

        I thought with IHG we were all on the same date – do some folk have other statement dates?

      • Tony Burns says:
        22 Oct22 October 18:43

        Makes sense so last 9 days if spending fir the year goes towards next year.

        • Alan says:
          22 Oct22 October 18:55

          Yes, I’d complete spend by ~15th Dec to make sure it posts in this year’s points. After that there’s a risk of it going into 2018 spend (I’ve found it can vary a bit by transaction size how long it takes to move from pending to verified with Creation)

  • Optimus Prime says:
    22 Oct22 October 15:51

    Having a look at Indigo St Petersburg. Refundable rate is cancellable until TWO MONTHS prior check-in date. Is this normal or a typo?

  • KP says:
    22 Oct22 October 15:53

    OT: Just boarded the afternoon Man-LHR run. Very pleasantly surprised to be on board an ex-BMI bird. Tv screens for this 35 min flight- yayy!! Now only if it wasnt BoB…

  • thehornets says:
    22 Oct22 October 18:28

    O/T: just like the last few weeks, there are 1,000 free Marriott Rewards points TODAY for those on Twitter. Just answer today’s question (the answer is Pennsylvania) and within the hour you should have 1,000 points in your Marriott Rewards account.

    Click here:
    https://twitter.com/MarriottRewards/status/922145579320229888

    There is a new (easy) competition each sunday to tie in with the NFL season = at least 8,000 free Marriott points!

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