My points bonanza from a one-off Holiday Inn Express stay

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• Gerry says:

  18 Jul18 July 13:57

  Something strange going on at IHG rewards ? Stayed 1 reward night two weeks ago, given 2 x Free Breakfast & free parking, total cost £0.00 still got 8,200 points ???????

• Olybeast says:

  18 Jul18 July 14:19

  I have a trip coming up to Rome. Booked into the holiday inn express there and added all these codes to my account. Let’s see what happens lol

• courtster says:

  18 Jul18 July 22:07

  I love IHG still. Just like most, have been Platinum for years.. But they have made me work for it this year!

  Had some cracking upgrades this year too including the Balcony Suite at the Hotel Indigo Birmingham The Cube and the Junior Suite at the new Hotel Indigo Kensington/Earls Court.

  I reckon once they weed out the Plats that will drop down for 2014 they’ll add some more elite benefits.

• Andrew says:

  18 Jul18 July 23:35

  When I read you had a points ‘bonanza’ for one stay I thought to myself ‘ah well, he’s beaten me’ but no. I added all the codes a few weeks ago and for one stay (paid for by the company) received 13,638 points at a Holiday Inn!

  Qualifying Nights 1

  Earning Details 1,611 pts.
  Bonus Points Earned 805 pts.
  Earn Double Points/Miles 1,611 pts.
  Business Stayers Earn More 1,611 pts.
  ELITE MEMBER NEXT STAY BONUS 3,000 pts.
  ELITE MEMBER NEXT STAY BONUS 3,000 pts.
  1,000 BONUS POINTS FOR 60 DAYS 1,000 pts.
  ANNIVERSARY BONUS OFFER 1,000 pts.

  Keep up the great work!

• Thunderbirds says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:34

  Unfortunately I have too many one night stays and so burn through these codes too quickly to match your earnings for 1 night..! Interesting though that my best for this year @ 13,918 came for a price of £80.48 on the start of year £20.12 per night promotion. All of my promotional codes active at the time were triggered and the nights qualified for status.

  Qualifying Nights 4
  Earning Details 1,279 pts.
  Bonus Points Earned 639 pts.
  STAY 5 NIGHTS GET 10000 POINTS PROM0TION 10,000 pts.
  1,000 BONUS POINTS FOR 60 DAYS 1,000 pts.
  ANNIVERSARY BONUS OFFER 1,000 pts

• Rich says:

  21 Jul21 July 12:23

  A little off topic I know, but does anyone have any experience (either positive or negative) claiming on the IHG best price guarantee?

  The reason I ask is that I had a stay this week at a HI Express where the price was cheaper on Booking.com – I reported it same day to the IHG Best Price email address, but when I followed up with them by phone c30 hours later they said that the stay was no longer available on Booking.com

  Essentially the problem came about because the booking was made only a day before the stay, but also because IHG did not bother checking it until I chased by phone, and then bizarrely sent a mail saying that the claim was outside the 24 hour claim window, despite the original mail being sent well within the 24 hours.

  Various discussions since have resulted in various excuses such as original mail not being received, despite them replying to it, and also the fact that they are “very busy” at the moment- none of which I believe are my fault.

  Anyone had similar replies and if so did you manage to resolve?

  Thanks
  Rich

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 13:25

    They are generally good, but you must phone. Using email is a disaster, is the general view. I know people who have had over £20,000 of free stays through judicious use of this policy. I don’t encourage it because it is a difficult one to pull off until you are fully familiar with the rules and you can easily be stuck with a pre-paid IHG hotel room you don’t want.

    Unless you have screenshots from booking.com I’m not sure what you can do, unfortunately. I assume the hotel was in the UK, otherwise it would not have qualified anyway. By default, booking.com prices in £ for UK residents who visit their site, and the ‘best rate guarantee’ is only valid when the competing website prices – by default – in the same currency as the hotel is based. This is why it is difficult to get BRG’s to succeed in a lot of countries, because it needs to be a country with an online hotel booking website which prices in the domestic currency.

    • Rich says:

      21 Jul21 July 15:41

      I do have screenshots which is the annoying part- I have offered to send but they said they were not proof.

      Will see what they come back with and then maybe send a final email complaint.

      What has frustrated me is that they seemed to blame me for emailing despite this being an option on their site- when I did call (on the day of check in) booking.com were still cheaper for the 1st night which was the one I was claiming for anyway, but because the 2nd night was now full they said it wasn’t comparable.

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 16:01

    The BRG was created to stop hotels leaking cheaper rates into the market by hitting them with a heavy penalty (free stay). A lot of the obvious places to look for cheaper rates have now gone away. You tend to end up looking at niche sites like hotelhippo – and even then, you need to be very careful with wording. King Bed does not equal Double Bed, a cheaper room WITH breakfast will not be matched against a more expensive room on the IHG site WITHOUT breakfast for example.

    The ability of HFP readers to make some very expensive mistakes whilst trying to ‘play’ this guarantee is the reason I have not pushed it. And, for the record, I have never claimed under the guarantee myself so I have no personal stories to share.

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