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Three little tricks to help you hit your IHG Accelerate target

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If you are working towards your IHG Accelerate target – and this is probably the most generous hotel promotion you will see this quarter – there are three little tricks and kinks which can help you meet your target.

Thanks to the HfP readers who helped with these.

IHG has launched a targetted bonus for buying points

Many of you will have received an email from IHG Rewards Club yesterday offering a bonus of up to 75% if you buy points.

I am not, at 75%, a serious buyer.

However, I will be buying 1,000 points.

Both my wife and I have an Accelerate target which is ‘buy some IHG points’.  If you got that, now is your best chance to do it as you will receive a 30% bonus on a 1,000 point purchase.

To see if you are targetted for a bonus, visit the IHG ‘buy points’ page here.  You will initially see the normal pricing but the special offer will appear once you are logged in, if you qualify.

‘Earn When You Redeem’ – option 1

Many people have a challenge which involves making a points redemption.

This triggers on making the booking and NOT on completing the stay, it seems.  If you have this challenge, make a hotel booking for a few months down the line – beyond the 30th April promo closing date for safety.  You can always cancel later.

‘Earn When You Redeem’ – option 2

Alternatively, there are some digital downloads available in the IHG rewards catalogue.  The Language Translator Software is FREE.

A reader downloaded this and it triggered the ‘earn when you redeem’ bonus, albeit it took a month to show up on his Accelerate home page.  Easy.

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.

  • Tilly71 says:
    26 Jan26 January 10:56

    Slightly OT, can you keep an amex gold rewards cards open whilst awaiting the annual 7.5k mr bonus to hit your account and downgrade to the bank fee free amex card or do they have to close your gold account?

  • John says:
    26 Jan26 January 11:28

    Has IHG been running these sorts of promotions (as opposed to the 4-digit promo codes prior to 2013, which were occasionally against the T&Cs) continuously over the past 2 years?

    I still have nearly 150000 IHG points and haven’t needed to pay for an IHG hotel for some time, meaning that I haven’t paid attention to the recent promos. But I now have plans to use up the points by May. Do people think there will be another promotion like this once this one ends?

    No biggie if not as I can start working on spending my Hilton points.

  • Martin says:
    26 Jan26 January 13:03

    Do redemptions work the other way? I.e. booked last year for a stay during the promotion period?

  • Dougie Forde says:
    26 Jan26 January 13:21

    I took out the IHG Barclaycard a few months back and the bonus points credited. However I’m still down on the system as being a Club member rather than Gold. I emailed their helpdesk but they wouldn’t really answer my question. Does the system update this?

    • Gavin says:
      26 Jan26 January 15:46

      My points only credited today. £2 spend on 27th December = 20000 points. Still showing as Club though. I’ve not got any stays lined up currently though so not bother to chase

    • Tim says:
      26 Jan26 January 19:48

      same happened to me, but i went through barclaycard customer services and they sorted it out. was upgraded on monday

      • Dougie Forde says:
        28 Jan28 January 12:31

        Thanks for the advice – rung Barclaycard yesterday and my Gold Elite kicked in today. Happy days

  • Liz says:
    26 Jan26 January 13:51

    I take it when you click through from the targeted link and buy 1000 pts it will register in your accelerate program automatically – or do you have to click through from the accelerate page for it to register?

    • Simmo says:
      26 Jan26 January 14:25

      I clicked through from the accelerate offer, IHG then told me there was a better offer, and gave 40% bonus.

      • Liz says:
        26 Jan26 January 16:38

        Brilliant thanks for that – just did the same and got 40% instead of 30%!

  • Kim says:
    26 Jan26 January 17:05

    Hi not sure how we will do on the current promotion but just used my husbands 2 free nights from the 2015 promotion to book the Intercontinental in Monterey in California next August (To go with our Business class flights from Dublin via the BA and Avios promotion). The nightly cost per room was a staggering $649 plus tax! No way would I have paid that on a 25 night trip so thank you HFP for all the info!

    • Gavin says:
      26 Jan26 January 22:00

      That’s in a great location, I love Monterey. Can recommend the Alvarado St Brewery if you head away from Cannery Row for food and beer

      • Kim says:
        1 Feb1 February 14:16

        Thanks Gavin, only just spotted your post. We will definitely give the Alvarado St Brewery a try, (along with the Fish Hopper thanks to xcalx). We are always on the look out for recommendations!

    • xcalx says:
      27 Jan27 January 09:43

      Hi Kim

      I have a $50 voucher for the Fish Hopper on Cannery Row . I had two vouchers but only used one on my last visit to Carmel. Its good for food and drink or drinks only, no minimum spend. There is no use by date.
      Its yours if you can use it. You can pm me over on flyertalk same name and I will pop it in the post for you.

  • Tilly71 says:
    26 Jan26 January 17:06

    OT question, added wife to make a HH account in BAEC today to pool all miles together, can see the HH amount in my account as I’m the head of the HH account but how do you use the pool amount to redeem for flights etc. When i search flights it only shows my accounts total available to use?

    • John says:
      26 Jan26 January 17:08

      Just do it as normal and it will work (avios taken proportionally from all members)

  • Tilly71 says:
    26 Jan26 January 17:18

    So just to be absolutely sure, when you go to book using miles as redemption in the head of the households account, it will allow me to use 100% of all miles available in the HH account. Its just on one of the sections for redeeming miles for flights it stated I did not have enough even though the HH account did?

    • Tilly71 says:
      26 Jan26 January 17:41

      Ok, just done another dummy booking using a total of miles between my accounts and the HH total amount and it works, strange why the other booking part states I did not have enough?
      Thanks for all your help.

    • Rob says:
      26 Jan26 January 17:42

      There is a little trick you can do.

      If you want to zero out any of the accounts for any reason, and your avios.com account is NOT a household one, you can move out miles temporarily to do a ba.com booking.

      eg. Your BA HHA has 175 Avios in it. Person A (you) has 100 Avios, B has 50 Avios, C has 25 Avios. Persons B and C are no longer active and you would like to zero their account.

      You are booking a redemption for 120 Avios.

      You move 55 Avios from your BA account (you are person A) to your avios.com account. This means the ba.com HHA now has exactly 120 Avios in it. Make the redemption and all accounts are emptied. You can then move back the 55 Avios from avios.com to your own BA account.

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