A Holiday Inn attempts bribery to gain positive reviews

We have probably all seen signs in hotels and restaurants we have visited asking if we would be kind enough to recommend them on TripAdvisor or similar sites if we enjoyed our visit.

One Head for Points reader recently found that a Holiday Inn in San Francisco was stooping to outright bribery in order to get positive feedback on internal IHG surveys:

Yes, you got 1000 IHG Rewards Club points for scoring the hotel 10 out of 10.  That is a bribe of £4 – £5.

I know from conversations with IHG staff that the company takes the questionnaire scores very seriously – I’m not sure how seriously it takes attempts to game the system.

What is slightly concerning is that the leaflet implies that the hotel is told the score you give it (how else could they award the 1000 points?).  You may think you are making a confidential submission to Head Office but that is clearly not the case.

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IHG Rewards update – February 2021:

Get bonus points: IHG Rewards is offering 2,000 bonus points for every two nights you stay from 20th January to 31st March 2021. The bonus points will count towards status. Our main article is here. You can register here using promo code 42050.

New to IHG Rewards?  Read our two-part overview of IHG Rewards here and here and our article on expiry rules here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG Rewards points, you can buy them here. You will get a 75% bonus if you buy 10,000+ IHG Rewards points by 25th February 2021.

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.