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IHG Rewards Club ‘Big Win’ offer seems to be coming back

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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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‘The Big Win’ promotion from IHG Rewards Club, the Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental etc loyalty scheme, has been one of the most generous hotel offers in recent years

It is the only one that got me making ‘mattress run’ stays – where it was worth my while to book into the cheapest property I could find just to trigger the bonus.

It seems that a ‘Big Win’ clone will be launched tomorrow.

Intercontinental hotel Los Angeles Downtown

The initial impression is that it will not be as generous as ‘The Big Win’.  The information we have is based on comments at Flyertalk and Loyalty Lobby, which themselves are based on posters which have been put up early in certain hotels and an early leak by Lufthansa.

The promotion will be called ‘Into the Nights’

The requirements will be targeted.  The more IHG stays you have done recently, the tougher your criteria will be.

You can earn ‘at least’ 2 free nights or 50,000 IHG Rewards Club points or 10,000 airline miles

For new members, the targets look easy

Lufthansa has leaked the airline miles ‘new member’ version early on its website here.

This shows the following targets which are presumably what you are given if you are a new IHG Rewards Club member:

  • Stay three nights
  • Book two stays directly via IHG
  • Stay at two Holiday Inn hotels
  • Stay at two different brands

You could easily achieve this target with three one-night stays, two at different Holiday Inn properties and one at a third property in a different brand.  That would earn you 10,000 bonus airline miles on top of the standard miles from your stay.  That is an excellent result.

Press release

This is the press release from IHG:

ATLANTA (Sept. 4, 2014) – InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is kicking off the fall travel season by offering IHG® Rewards Club members more opportunities to earn toward free travel through its next hotel rewards promotion, “Into the Nights.” The promotion offers members at least two free hotel nights at any IHG®-branded hotel anywhere in the world including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo® Hotels, Holiday Inn® Hotels, Holiday Inn Resort® Hotels, Holiday Inn Club Vacations®, Holiday Inn Express® Hotels, Staybridge Suites® Hotels, Candlewood Suites® Hotels and EVEN™ Hotels once a tailored set of offers is complete.

“We put great value on a loyalty program that builds relevant, rewarding travel experiences and cultivates a meaningful relationship with each participant over time,” said Bruce Lahood, vice president, Global Loyalty Consumer Marketing, IHG. “When our members told us they wanted a free night component in our next IHG® Rewards Club promotion, we created an even more valuable set of personalized offers. Members choose the reward for their loyalty that matters most to them – bonus points, miles or even free nights. It’s rewards on their terms.”

Registration for the “Into the Nights” promotion begins on Sept. 4. Once registered, members will receive their tailored set of offers and begin earning IHG® Rewards Club bonus points or bonus airline miles when they stay at any IHG®-branded hotel between Sept. 4 and Dec. 31, 2014.

If it is possible to earn two free night vouchers – which would be worth 100,000 IHG Rewards Club points if used at a top InterContinental – it may be worth a mattress run to achieve it.  I would value those two nights at £500 and would be willing to spend half of that to earn the vouchers.

I will do another article on this on Friday when I have seen what my own targets are.  If you click this link on Thursday (IHG works on US time so it may not work until the afternoon) you should be able to see your personal target.  The link will divert to the IHG home page if the promotion is not yet live.


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 (85)

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

  • Antonio says:

    Anyone else seeing “We are sorry, but there was an error. Please try again later.” when you try to log in?

    • thesaver79 says:

      I am getting it! Maybe we haven’t been targeted?

    • Kipto says:

      Yes. Me.
      One question, can you stay on any two nights if you qualify or is it weekend only ?

      • Rob says:

        It is not clear. I have asked their Twitter team for clarification. I am assuming they are the same as the credit card free night vouchers and are valid for 12 months at any hotel.

      • Trevor says:

        I can find no mention of any T&C’s regarding the free nights, so no idea where or when or how long they are valid for. Think they need a bit more work on their site which doesn’t completely work yet (wouldn’t be a first), along with their T&C’s. And then there’s the joy of contacting them to try and actually get the qualified criteria to register and post the points…
        On the whole not too bad a promo, tho I’d say challenges slightly more than before for slightly less benefit. Luckily mine and OH’s fairly easy to achieve, but it remains to be seen/calculated how worthwhile it’ll be and what those free nights actually mean. Last Big Win wasn’t worth it for OH, but I completed successfully.

    • N says:

      Me too. I’ve had one IHG stay in 8 years so I thought they’d be really keen to get me back. 🙁

  • jac says:

    my targets
    43K points or 2 free nights for completing 7 of 7 offers:
    9600 points, stay 8 nights ay any IHG
    19200 points : stay at 4 brands
    100 Take a survey
    4800: Stay 2 Saturday nights
    5600 points: stay smart, stay at 3 HI Express
    2000 points Book 1 night using the Bonus points Package with breakfast
    1500 points: Book 1 night with your IHG Rewards Credit card

    Not sure about the 3 nights at a Holiday Inn Express (I only stayed once at a HI Express and that was a mattress run for the last Big Win.
    However the main problem would be the spending on the IHG CC. My last Big Win first had the requirement to apply for the IHG card and use it for one night, I quickly applied and used the card but then my targets changed and it said I had to apply / use the IHG Black card. So I applied also for the IHG Black card but was told I could not have both so I cancelled the IHG card but then was told I could not reapply within 6 months… so I now have no IHG visa card and with application closed I would not be able to reapply (IHG rewarded me the points for the Big Win manually when I sent then the email showing how they had changed the targets after I had applied and used the IHG visa card but I am not sure whether they can assist this time).
    Anyone any idea if I could apply again and maybe earn a bonus again (as their IT system changed)

  • Simmo says:

    Platinum Member – 1 paid stay this year so far, 1 on points

    30,300 Points or 2 Free Night(s) Complete 4 of 4 offers and earn 30,300 bonus points or 2 free nights (Guess I’d take the 2 nights?)

    10,000 – Stay 9 Nights at any IHG (have this already booked)
    100 – Survey
    7,200 – Stay 5 Saturdays! – Will be hard! (Have 2 booked already)
    2,400 – Book 2 Stays with bonus points
    Unlock bonus offers?

  • flibbly says:

    Hmm, I seem to have a pretty small bonus but decent individual amounts..

    Complete 6 of 7 offers and earn 18,000 bonus points or 2 free nights
    8,400 – Stay 5 night(s) at any of IHG’s 4,700 hotels worldwide
    9,600 – Stay at 2 brands
    8,000 – Stay 2 Saturdays at any of our IHG hotel brands
    4,800 – Stay at 2 Holiday Inn hotel(s)
    2,000 – Book 1 stays using the Bonus Points Package with breakfast rate to earn more points faster.
    1,500 – Book 1 stay(s) with your IHG Rewards Club Black Visa and earn 1,500 bonus points.
    9,600 – Travel 2 time(s) internationally

    Only problem is I cancelled my IHG Visa a few months ago, so I can’t do that one!

    Its certainly better than the last Big Win which would have required me to travel to the other side of the world.

    (Plat via credit card – two or three paid nights stayed this year)

  • flibbly says:

    How do you select two free nights rather than bonus points? (or will I be asked to choose if I qualify?)

  • Dave says:

    Stay 7 nights at IHG hotels = 9600 points
    Stay in 4 brands = 19600 points
    2 Saturday night stays = 4800 points
    1 night bonus point package with breakfast = 2000 points
    Stay in 2 different countries = 9600 points

    Complete 4 of these offers for a bonus 18000 points or 2 free nights…

  • Craig says:

    I’m getting this error too:

    We are sorry, but there was an error. Please try again later.
    I also only registered for an account an hour ago.

    • World Traveller says:

      I’m also getting that same error message. I have however received an email from IHG confirming I’ve been registered for the promotion. Without being able to log into the microsite setup for this promotion I’m unable to find out what my targets are.

    • World Traveller says:

      Mine is finally working now. Today I logged in, the system then asked me to enter my email and click to subscribe for email offers. Then clicked to submit my email address and I got shown my offer.

  • Harry says:

    My own offer seems to make me think that they are getting greedy. Both of the Big Win’s saw me obtain in exess of 175,000 points that were a stretch, but I did achieve them with only 1 x forced holiday to Washington DC. This time around, I have

    My offer is for 61,000 points with a 61,000 point bonus for achieving all 6:
    29 nights = 21,000 points – Will achieve this
    5 Saturdays = 7,200 points. Never book these
    7 different Holiday Inns = 12,000 points – Will achieve this
    3 bonus point packages with breakfast = 2,800 points. Never book these
    4 stays that include Friday or Sunday = 6,400 points. Never book these
    3 different Stays in 3 different countries from residence = 11,200 points. Will achieve this

    I also have a mysterious “Unlock bonus offers” at the bottom with nothing to click on. No idea what that is. As 3 of the 6 offers are completely outside of my stay habits which are 2-3 mainly UK hotels between Monday and Thursday, the odd weekend away is fine, but 5 Saturdays out of 15 with 4 made into a Friday / Saturday stay and 3 foreign trips (I have one planned) make me unwilling to invest in a relatively low number of points given that I have already earned 110,000 qualifying points and over 400,000 points in 2014.

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

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