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Get a free hotel night worth £150 if you join IHG Rewards and do two cheap stays

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IHG Rewards, the loyalty programme for Holiday Inn, HI Express, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental, Hotel Indigo etc, has brought back its generous promotion for new members.

The snag, of course, is that you are highly likely to already be a member of IHG Rewards as a Head for Points reader. It is possible that your regular travel partner is not, however, and it may be worth signing them up and booking in their name.

You can register for this offer here.

How do I get my IHG Rewards free night?

It is a simple deal.

Sign up as a new member of IHG Rewards by 30th November via this link, complete two stays by 26th December and receive a free night voucher good at any hotel charging up to 40,000 points.

EDIT: A comment below suggests that the offer may not register automatically. You should check under the ‘Offers’ tab in your member portal at ihg.com after registering to see if there is another opt-in button.

40,000 points should be enough to get you a night at a hotel selling for around £150.

If you triggered the voucher via two £40 nights at a regional Holiday Inn Express then you are clearly getting a good deal. Even if your two stays are at expensive hotels, it is still a very attractive rebate on your spending.

It isn’t quite that simple though:

  • with IHG Rewards now using revenue-based redemption pricing, you can’t be sure if a particular hotel will be under 40,000 points on the day you want to book it – and points pricing is moving around from day to day even when cash rates are remaining the same
  • you only have 120 days to use your free night voucher from the date you receive it (this is the stay deadline, not the booking deadline)
  • you can’t top up the voucher to book a more expensive hotel – it must cost 40,000 points or less

You (or your travel partner, or whoever is signing up) MUST use this link here. If you sign up via the standard IHG Rewards home page it won’t count.

If you joined IHG Rewards in the last 30 days you can also register for the offer via the link above, although any stays during that period will not count towards the two required. Use promo code 85106 if requested.

This offer is restricted to new members in the UK and USA.

This offer will double-up with the current IHG Rewards promotion

The current IHG Rewards promotion runs until 31st December.

It is a little weak but, hey, if you’re doing two stays anyway to trigger your free night voucher you would be foolish not to register.

You earn no bonus on your first qualifying stay after registration, double base points on your second stay and triple base points on your third and subsequent stays.

Our full article on IHG’s ‘Triple Points’ offer is here.  You can register on the IHG site here.

Conclusion

This is a strong offer from IHG Rewards if you can find a way of qualifying for it. If you need a couple of hotel nights between now and 26th December it is worth moving them to IHG.

It is also worth thinking about if you know you will need a hotel room in a fairly expensive city early next year. Instead of paying £150 for a room in the Spring, you could do two cheap stays this Autumn – even if they weren’t already part of your plans – knowing that the voucher will get you a good saving on your Spring stay.

The deadline to register is 30th November, the last day to do your two qualifying stays is 26th December and you must use the voucher within 120 days of it hitting your IHG Rewards account.

You must join IHG Rewards via this page of their website to qualify for the offer.

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 (22)

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

  • Wolfgang says:
    19 Oct19 October 06:55

    I did sign up läßt time, This summer, but Jever got the free night certificate. Costumer Service Not available. So rather useless

  • JRich says:
    19 Oct19 October 06:56

    Buyer beware. I and my partner attempted to do this promo over the summer and both were rejected by IHG claiming we had not correctly signed up (even though we produced screenshots confirming we had). They then had the audacity to ask us to do 2 more stays in order to get the free night certificate. AVOID

  • Dave says:
    19 Oct19 October 07:00

    A missed opportunity to cross-sell IHG Luxury and Lifestyle bookings via Emyr, especially useful as the new member will not have any status.

  • Chrisasaurus says:
    19 Oct19 October 07:35

    This raises a question I’ve meant to ask – are there any referrals available with any of the chains, besides this offer? Want to spread the love but don’t want colleagues to miss out on a bonus as their very first action!

  • S says:
    19 Oct19 October 07:57

    This article was misleading last time, and it is again. Once you sign up to IHG rewards, you actively need to register for this offer from you account otherwise you do not qualify.

    Ihg were kind enough to deposit 40k points into a family member’s account after they fell foul of this.

    (Not a criticism of HfP as such, ihg are not clear themselves. But this point was made several times in comments before but it’s still not reflected in the new article)

    • Rob says:
      19 Oct19 October 08:17

      It shouldn’t require that, because the promo code is hard backed into the registration link. Will add a comment though.

      • S says:
        19 Oct19 October 08:48

        Nice one. For what it’s worth, another family member emailed ihg rewards to ask them to register him manually because he could not find a way to do it. iHG confirmed they were registered for the offer and the certificate still didn’t show up. So I think this is one where you shouldn’t expect it to work as advertised!

  • WaynedP says:
    19 Oct19 October 11:16

    Unfortunately I have to agree with a few of the negative views expressed above.

    When it comes to IHG customer service delivering on IHG Marketing promises, my experience of IHG is poor, bordering on apparently deceitful.

    My OH (not a member) won’t be signing up to this offer, and I will be running down my IHG points in a Loyalty Programme that (in my experience) seems astonishingly more effective at incentivising disloyalty.

  • David Shamash says:
    19 Oct19 October 12:12

    Even if you are already registered with IHG they presumably identify by email so just registering using a different email should work? David

    • Rob says:
      19 Oct19 October 12:32

      Yup …

    • John says:
      19 Oct19 October 12:38

      You also need name, address and DOB right? I suppose you could give a false DOB, any address and a variant of your name but in theory they could ask for some verification particularly if the bonus doesn’t post

  • Karl says:
    19 Oct19 October 12:24

    I’d echo the sentiments regarding IHG customer services being not great about honoring promos if they don’t think you opted in to them.

    I had a right ding-dong with them a couple of years ago. When they acquired a few of the old Principal Hotels, they had a promo of stay 2 nights, get a free voucher anywhere.

    I did a mattress run to Leeds but no voucher posted. IHG said I didn’t opt-in. I couldn’t prove this but sent them browsing history to show I was on the promo page immediately before booking. After about 10 emails of them telling me to go away and me saying how their IT is an industry joke, I was offered 5k of points. The offer gradually increased before I eventually received the voucher, which was used for a lovely night at one of the New York Kimptons. That took at least 20 emails!

    Moral the story is to take screenshots of any IHG opt-ins, especially if they are for something decent.

    • WaynedP says:
      19 Oct19 October 17:20

      Even with screenshots provided, I’ve been denied a legitimately earned points award. Extremely disappointing. Once bitten, steer clear.

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

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