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IHG Rewards Club brings back its generous ‘Accelerate’ promotion for May-July

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As I trailed in an article yesterday, IHG Rewards Club, the Holiday Inn, HI Express, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental etc loyalty scheme, has launched a new promotion – IHG Accelerate.  Yes, it is repeating the one it has run every quarter since October 2015!

But that is not a bad thing.

To be honest, during the last two years IHG has been the only major hotel chain offering global promotions which offer genuine outsize value.  Everyone has their own personal target but, for most of us, the challenge is pretty straightforward.

Here are the headline details:

IHG Accelerate (Version 9) covers stays from 1st May to 31st July 2018

All hotels are participating

Your bonus is personalised – you need to log in here to discover yours 

This was my target for 55,700 points maximum, comprising:

  • 2,000 points for a stay in May
  • 2,000 points on my next stay
  • 10,000 points for staying five nights
  • 9,600 points for two stays booked via the IHG app
  • 2,500 points for three stays booked via my corporate rate
  • 12,000 points for two stays in any country in North America, South America, Central America, Caribbean, Greater China, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa
  • 1,000 points for ANY redemption, including a cheap digital download
  • 2,000 points for getting either of the IHG credit cards
  • 14,600 points for completing six of the seven targets above, excluding the May bonus

This is a pretty weird selection to be honest.  It is unlikely that I can hit the countries bonus based on my current travel plans.   I will be in the US in May but New York is the sort of expensive city where you should redeem points and not pay cash.

A reader told me that ANY corporate rate code triggers that target.  It does not necessarily need to be the one stored in your account.  This can be handy if you are a contractor and have various different clients over the promotional period.

My wife got this one for a whopping 67,700 points:

  • 2,000 points for a stay in May
  • 2,000 points on her next stay
  • 10,000 points for staying five nights
  • 9,600 points for two stays booked via the IHG app
  • 6,000 points for staying one weekend
  • 18,000 points for two stays in any country in North America, South America, Central America, Caribbean, Greater China, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa
  • 1,500 points for paying for a stay with her IHG credit card
  • 18,600 points for completing five of the six targets above excluding the May bonus

This is more achievable although, unless some work travel comes up, she won’t be hitting the countries one.  5,500 points for a one-night stay in May, paid for on her IHG credit card, would be a decent result.

Note that if you have a target which involves meeting a certain ‘food and beverage’ spending target, this is EXCLUDING VAT for UK stays.  IHG also uses a weak exchange rate when converting your spend to US$.  If you were asked to achieve $39 of cumulative spend (£27), you actually need to spend £33 due to the 20% VAT and in reality probably need to do £36 due to the FX rate IHG uses.

Here is a little tip.  If you travel with your partner, or even if you don’t but you don’t mind booking in their name, you might be able to maximise your points by splitting bookings across accounts.  This makes it less likely that you can get the ‘all targets hit’ extra bonus but, if that is unlikely anyway, mixing and matching may work best.

A note on rebooking

Most of the time, existing bookings – ie bookings made before 1st May – made online do count for this promotion.

However, if you have an app booking target it DOES specifically state that stays must be booked after the 1st May.  And they mean it, as I found out to my cost once last year.  If you have a ‘book stays via the app’ target then be prepared to rebook.

Conclusion

As long as your target is sensible, this is highly likely to be the most generous hotel promotion this Summer.  And, with three months to hit your target, you have plenty of time to make the necessary stays.

Log in to the Accelerate website here, register and see what your target is.

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 (67)

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

  • Craig says:
    14 Apr14 April 08:30

    Wording for the App bookings are:

    ‘Qualifying Stays are booked via the official IHG® App and consumed between 1 May 2018 and 31 July’

    Grammatically, if it had to be booked after the 1 May it should say:

    ‘Qualifying Stays are booked AND CONSUMED via the official IHG® App between 1 May 2018 and 31 July’

    If you had a stay on the 1 May this would be very tricky.

    • Axel says:
      14 Apr14 April 08:58

      The targets are only over 3 months, havent they been over 4 momths in the past? I thought IHG Accelerate only had 3 quarters per year.

      • Rob says:
        14 Apr14 April 09:13

        Last one was 4 months, yes.

      • Paul says:
        14 Apr14 April 09:14

        Yes they have dropped August the main holiday period! My targetscand ghosevof mybwifevare a joke so I will be sticking to Hilton.

      • John says:
        14 Apr14 April 10:00

        ‘Quarter’ seems to have lost its meaning at IHG, similar to ‘decimate’.

  • Michael Jennings says:
    14 Apr14 April 09:28

    To me, these all come down to how many nights you have to stay to hit the achievement bonus. For the last three of these, I got:

    Q3 2017 – Two nights, which had to be in different Holiday Inn Expresses
    Q1 2018 – Four nights, made up of two weekend stays of two nights (and I also had to stay in two Holiday Inn Expresses).
    Q2 2018 – Three nights, each of which has to be in a different Holiday Inn Express, and one night has to be in Germany.

    (Assorted faffing around with credit cards and apps and stuff too, but all relatively easy0.

    Now these are all relatively easy, but why all the Holiday Inn Expresses? I’ve got nothing against them, but some other brands might be nice. For one thing, I like to fly from London to somewhere in Europe on a Friday night and back on Sunday night, and there are only so many cities in Europe where the combination of flight timings, prices, and Holiday Inn Expresses works.

    Also, I am in Germany right now doing a weekend for the Q1 target. That target didn’t specify a country but I decided to come here. I like Germany, but again, do I wan’t to go back that soon, and where exactly do I go? Frankfurt would work, I suppose. (There is an airport HIX that I could stay in on the Friday and then one in the city on Saturday). The third HIX fitted nicely into my pre-existing travel plans, so it’s only then one weekend to hit the target.

  • Lady London says:
    14 Apr14 April 09:29

    I have 18 nights for 34,000 points. Basically my target is 1,000 points per stay. Plus 15,000 for completing 18 nights.

    Back to Hilton then. I think IHG marketing must think I’m someone else! NO incentive to do these stays. In fact I’ll now stay away from IHG for some nights I would have booked with them. Nicer hotels and plenty of good rates and better rewards elsewhere.

  • Chris says:
    14 Apr14 April 09:35

    I have ‘renew Ambassador with IC’ – can I buy this with points? Or does it have to paid?

    • Pangolin says:
      14 Apr14 April 10:03

      I had that in Q1. I renewed with points and the bonus triggered, so you should be fine, but check the T&C just to make sure.

  • Andrew Fitton says:
    14 Apr14 April 09:46

    Best one yet for me – 89k bonus points for

    2 * 2000 for staying once
    10000 for 5 nights
    9600 for 2 bookings with the app
    8400 for 2 stays in any HI
    28800 for 2 weekend stays
    25700 for 6 out of 7 targets
    Along with a few 1000 bits and pieces

    Easily doable

    • Lady London says:
      14 Apr14 April 15:38

      Hum @Andrew you’ve got 89,000 points for 5 nights.

      I got 34,000 for 18 nights.

      I don’t think IHG wants me as a customer.

  • Donald Trump says:
    14 Apr14 April 09:51

    OT – Things are getting very heated and nasty between this blogger and some flight attendants. It makes for interesting reading and the fact that some flight attendants are power hungry –
    http://www.travelingformiles.com/its-time-to-do-something-about-bad-flight-attendants/

    • Pangolin says:
      14 Apr14 April 10:09

      There’s no actual story or new information in that blog post – it’s just a generalised rant, of the kind that any of us could make when we feel like it. It’s the kind of thing bloggers post when they can’t think of anything to say.

      They also have a very strange writing style. Every sentence is made a separate paragraph, which makes it harder to read.

  • Craig says:
    14 Apr14 April 10:38

    OT: Just some feedback on Tandem overseas, I used it in India over a 2 week period but just for cash withdrawals. One bank refused it but that may have been down to the ATM being empty. Every else was fine with the app showing the transaction almost immediately. I paid off the withdrawal on the same day and because of the way the app tweaked pending to actual amounts I ended up with an interest bill of 32p which I think is great value.

  • JPV says:
    14 Apr14 April 10:48

    OT: triggered the hilton £50 back on £250 spend split over three separate bookings, all prepaid. People were saying this usually works, but thought I would confirm that it worked in my case.

    • the_real_a says:
      14 Apr14 April 19:16

      Good info, im always a little concerned there things wont track

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