Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

500 Avios (or 1,500 IHG points) for a two-night IHG stay + 500 free Avios for new members

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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.

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Avios and IHG Rewards Club have joined forces to offer you 500 Avios points for signing up – no stay required. 

500 Avios (or 1500 IHG Rewards Club points) are also available to EXISTING IHG Rewards Club members with their next stay.

This is the third offer of this type we have seen in recent months.  First up was Virgin Atlantic, second was Avios but only via Iberia Plus.  We now have the British Airways Avios version – and this time there is something in it for existing IHG members too.

Full details are on the IHG website here.

IHG BA Avios promotion

Part 1:  500 Avios for new members

IHG Rewards Club is the loyalty programme for Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo etc. 

A lot of Head for Points readers will already be IHG Rewards Club members – but perhaps there are members of your family, perhaps people with whom you share a British Airways Executive Club household account, who are not?

The small print, and indeed the large print, makes it clear that NO STAY IS REQUIRED.  All you need to do is:

Sign up for IHG Rewards Club via this page of their website – DO NOT USE ANY OTHER PAGE

Set up your profile so that you earn British Airways Avios and not IHG Rewards Club points from your stays

Do it before 31st December

Intriguingly, the small print says that if you use the BA IHG page to join but do not select BA Avios as your preferred earning partner, you will receive 1,500 IHG Rewards Club points instead.  These may be more useful than 500 Avios to some people although they are worth the same in my book.

New members also receive a ‘fast track to Gold’ challenge.  Stay three nights within 90 days of registration and you will be upgraded.  Gold status is not worth a huge amount with IHG, however, and in any event comes automatically with the free IHG Rewards Club credit card.

When do you get the Avios?

The wording is suitably vague:

“Avios will automatically be awarded by Airline partners on completion of Registration, and in any event before 15th February 2018”

but there is a good chance they arrive quickly.

Part 2 – 500 Avios or 1,500 IHG points for EXISTING members

The majority of Head for Points will already be IHG Rewards Club members.

The good news is that this deal has something for you too.

You will receive 500 bonus Avios or 1,500 IHG Rewards Club points with your next booking, as long as you follow these rules:

You MUST book via this special BA page of ihg.com, using the ‘Book Now’ link in the top right

You must book by 31st December

You must stay by 28th February

You must stay at least two nights

If your IHG account is set to earning points, your stay will earn 1,500 bonus points.  If your account is set to earn Avios in British Airways from your stays, you will receive 500 bonus Avios.

You can sign up, or discover more details, on this page of the IHG website.


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 (64)

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

  • TripRep says:

    Rob – Is the Virgin 500 miles with IHG sign up dead?

    Searched all I found was this…
    https://headforpoints.com/2017/07/30/500-virgin-miles-for-joining-ihg-rewards-club-no-stay-required/

  • Macca says:

    How does this offer affect the Accelerate targets? If I book a stay through this deal with it qualify in my Accelerate targets?

    Thanks!

    • JamesB says:

      To remove any risk that is why I switched my earning preference back to points before my next stay.

  • KP says:

    The points market in the UK is now so bad that we jump over 500 bonus avios. I mean…500 avios only gets me a coffee and cashew nuts in BA BoB, if that! 🙁

  • Lewis Watson says:

    Igys snow globe competition has a promo code section. Anyone know any codes?

  • David says:

    OT – Hilton honors reward stays.

    I’m looking to book the Hilton Tokyo in May for 3 nights with points. If I state that it’s a room for one person, it’s 51k/night. If I say it’s for double occupancy it’s 56k/night.

    Given that there’s the additional guest stays free rule, and that as a Diamond I get free breakfast anyway, is there a risk that if I turn up with my partner having booked a room for one that something might go wrong?

    Any advice much appreciated!

    • Rob says:

      No, this is the only way you can book (given that the hotel cannot easily refund the extra points) given the ‘partner stays free’ rule.

      • David says:

        So just book for one? This has made my day!

        Thanks Rob

        • TripRep says:

          yep, done this a few times, works with cash rates too, it’s a neat feature of Gold and higher, esp. when you expect to get breakfast and hope to get exec access. No wonder Hilton Gold is so popular for a mid tier status.

  • Tom says:

    OT.

    Referred my other half from my Amex plat. She chose the Gold card, was accepted, and 18k MR points have landed in my account. BOOM!

    • Anne says:

      Had the same – great result! Now does anyone have a data point for Plat referral to free BA card? Not expecting 18k but wondered if anyone had already tried?

    • Genghis says:

      @Tom. Have you tried buying the Harvey Nic’s gift cards yet?

      • Tom says:

        Hi Genghis – not yet. Might head into town today prior to the cousin coming up.

        Either way I’ll drop my donation into St Gemma’s!

  • DS says:

    The hotel on the photo looks like the Heathrow Holiday Inn Bath Rd. which was sold to Leonardo years ago and is no longer an IHG hotel 😉

    This reminds me, what happened with the Staybridge Heathrow project?

    “Due to open in 2018, the 190-room Staybridge Suites property will be built alongside the new 433-room Holiday Inn and will be located on Bath Road, close to the main entrances to terminals one, two and three at the airport.”
    https://www.hotelowner.co.uk/5698-ihg-to-open-dual-branded-hotel-at-heathrow-airport/

    • Rob says:

      It was indeed, I had it in the system from the announcement of the Leonardo deal!

  • Liz says:

    OT but IHG related. Just noticed in the IHG app that they have added free Kindle books as an extra.
    1 free book for Club bi-annually
    1 free book for Gold quarterly
    2 free books for Platinum quarterly
    3 free books for Spire quarterly
    Not a huge benefit and not sure of the choice of books but I have just linked my amazon account to it and downloaded a free book to my Kindle to test it out. If you don’t have a Kindle you can just download the Kindle app. Email came through at zero cost.

    • JamesB says:

      Been around for a little while already but thanks for reminder as I forgot. Meant to check how much choice of titles we have.

    • Alan says:

      Not a great selection and not working for me – click through, sign-in to Amazon, says sucessfully redeemed and takes you to Kindle app download page – however never actually generates an order so you never get the book! Gone back and forwards with IHG support, no luck so far but they’re escalating it. Be interesting to hear if anyone else has had success.

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

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