Get a free night at ANY IHG hotel globally when you try out IHG’s new UK properties
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UPDATE – APRIL 2024: This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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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IHG, the owner of InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn etc – has launched an interesting new offer to drive traffic to its new UK hotels.
Earlier this year, IHG acquired Principal Hotels. This brought a number of high quality UK city centre hotels into the system. Over the next 12 months the majority of these will be rebranded as Kimpton or InterContinental hotels. At the moment, only two properties have been rebranded (London and Cardiff) and those are under brands most people won’t recognise (Kimpton and voco respectively).
What is the deal?
IHG has therefore got a plan:
If you stay TWO nights at any of the hotels listed below, before 31st March, you will receive a voucher for a free night at any IHG hotel. The voucher must be used by 31st October.
It is important to note that the two nights do NOT need to be consecutive and do NOT even need to be at the same hotel.
Stays must be ‘qualifying’ for IHG Rewards Club base points. This means that reward nights and certain heavily discounted rates, which do not earn IHG points, will not trigger this offer either.
You can register here.
What hotels are included?
This is the list – click through for full details:
It is also worth noting that all of the hotels below are also now bookable for reward nights via ihg.com. A reader emailed yesterday to say that he had been able to book one of the Edinburgh hotels for New Years Eve, saving £497 cash rate!
Kimpton Fitzroy London (photo below)
The Met Hotel Leeds
Principal York
Principal Manchester (photos above)
voco St David’s, Cardiff
Principal Edinburgh George Street
Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square
Blythswood Square, Glasgow
Wotton House, nr Dorking, Surrey
What is the small print on the voucher?
We don’t know.
The rules say that it is ‘room only, standard rooms only, Regent Hotels excluded’. This implies that it books into standard reward night inventory. I would imagine that if a reward night is bookable, you will be able to use the voucher. It would have been helpful if IHG has said this upfront.
We do not know if the voucher is sent as soon as you complete your second night or if you need to wait until the promotion ends in March.
What is the value of the free night voucher?
It is NOT the cost of the room you book.
Because the voucher almost certainly books into reward availability, it is worth a maximum of 70,000 IHG Rewards Club points. This is most you can pay for a reward night via IHG Rewards Club.
When IHG is running a 100% ‘buy points’ bonus, as it occasionally does, you can pick up 70,000 points for $350, which is currently £277. You shouldn’t value the voucher at more than this.
And, of course, the voucher is only valid until 31st October. If you are not planning to visit somewhere with a highly-priced IHG hotel (New York, Paris etc) then it isn’t even worth £277.
Is this worth a mattress run?
Potentially, but with only a few hotels taking part – and some of them being very expensive – your options are limited.
On Saturday 6th January, for example, The Met Hotel in Leeds is £40 (single bedded room). Book a couple of nights like that and your free night voucher is bound to be a profitable one. Remember that you must check-in in person – you can’t make a booking and then not show up.
There is also likely to be a new round of IHG’s Accelerate promotion in the New Year. Your two nights for this promotion should count towards your targets for that offer and trigger other bonuses.
Do I need to register?
Yes. You can register online here.
Overall …..
This is a good little offer from IHG Rewards Club and, if you can shape your travels between now and the end of March to take advantage, it should work out profitably for you.
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.
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