See the Monaco Grand Prix with your Marriott Bonvoy points

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• Alan says:

  14 Apr14 April 08:07

  Glad to hear a full analysis is on the way, the breakfast addition is excellent – especially with Hilton downgrading to a partial credit in the USA.

  Also interesting that for items like lounge access they’ve put in a minimum number of nights to avoid US cardholders with automatic status all getting access. Now they just need to offer a UK card again to enable points earning!

• lev441 says:

  14 Apr14 April 08:14

  Pleasantly surprised about the changes to IHG rewards..

  Just a shame the benefits are not starting straight away, as I have a 1 week stay coming up on Monday….

  • dst87 says:

    14 Apr14 April 08:20

    Ditto! I have a ~2 week stay in a couple of weeks as Diamond. Typical!

    • Andrew J says:

      14 Apr14 April 09:02

      The FAQs say “from May” for the breakfast benefit – so you might be lucky

• lev441 says:

  14 Apr14 April 08:15

  Also – Just realised I never got my Spire Elite 25,000 bonus points this year… Has anyone else had this issue?

  • Dilbert says:

    14 Apr14 April 08:28

    Yes I’m the same. Haven’t got around to chasing it.

  • iamfugly says:

    14 Apr14 April 15:18

    I chased it via the online chat. I got it resolved in about 10 mins. It does not appear automatically. It appears as a Choice benefit you have to redeem in your account, so you need to click said button before it appears on your available points.

    • ChrisC says:

      14 Apr14 April 17:25

      The issue for many is that it’s not been showing to select in the first place on the website.

• toddy says:

  14 Apr14 April 08:25

  Would be keen to understand if the Diamond benefits are for rewards stays too?
  Also, what happens if I (when!) I fail to re-qualify for Diamond? Is it a soft landing to Plat?
  Thanks & look forward to the full analyis!

  • Marcw says:

    14 Apr14 April 08:26

    Yes, benefits are included in reward nights – it’s written in the t&C’s (towards clause 50).

    • toddy says:

      14 Apr14 April 08:35

      Excellent.
      A shame they don’t start earlier, as I’m staying in a few IHG properties in Florida over the next couple of weeks.

• Sam says:

  14 Apr14 April 08:37

  Is the club lounge access in Europe gonna be retained for the new Diamond members? Seems unlikely which I think is making it worse, as club lounge comes with its own breakfast anyway…

  • Rob says:

    14 Apr14 April 08:47

    Club access at ALL hotels is now guaranteed. It is a nights and not a status benefit.

    You need to understand what IHG has done. It has totally devalued the benefits for people who get status for free via credit cards, but given very attractive benefits to those who qualify by nights.

    • Andrew J says:

      14 Apr14 April 09:05

      As someone who always achieved Spire through nights rather than cycling money through NS&I on Curve this is a welcome change – actually rewarding loyalty which is what a loyalty programme should be.

      • Harrier25 says:

        14 Apr14 April 14:35

        Of course, ‘cycling money through NS&I on Curve’ is what we were all doing….not!

      • iamfugly says:

        14 Apr14 April 15:27

        Based on this principle I assume you frown on the practise of transferring Amex Rewards points to any loyalty programme!?

    • Sam says:

      14 Apr14 April 12:45

      It is a conditional guarantee. At the 40th night, or depending on when the voucher is redeemable after the 40th night.

      You’re saying this is making people who stay by nights attractive. Now it makes me think: why giving these elite status away to credit card holders if you’re not happy to recognise the status benefits in the first place?

      And credit card holders do not necessarily get status for ‘FREE’ – they need to have enough spending to achieve the required elite qualifying points.

      • John says:

        14 Apr14 April 13:34

        Well, I guess it’s a bit like Qatar’s “First Class lounge” vs Al Safwa

      • JohnG says:

        14 Apr14 April 16:02

        I can see, and appreciate, why they’ve done it. People like me signup for Ambassador and do maybe 10 nights in IHG hotels in a year and previously we’re treated basically the same as someone who had done 30-50 nights and given hotels considerably more revenue. It also meant that I had no motivation at all to do more nights due to IHG rewards because I’d get nothing extra if I did stay more (as the Spire trigger point was far too high to be realistic for me). Someone who is doing 40, 50, 60 etc nights without status from a credit card will be much better off now.

        I’d love to see a hybrid model on cards. For example giving you a status tier for reaching a spend threshold, and also increasing the impact of spend/nights using the card on status/rewards; 2 qualified nights counting as 3, 1k qualified points counting as 1.5k or similar. That would at least incentivise card holders who get status via the spend threshold to stay more.

• Amy says:

  14 Apr14 April 09:14

  As someone who has mostly leisure stays, I will be sticking with Hilton where possible. The balance of nights I can put their way vs. reward won’t work for me with IHG now. Seems to be a good improvement but only at a substantial number of nights.

  • Lady London says:

    14 Apr14 April 13:55

    Yes it looks like they are going after corporate travellers with this given the number of nights rather than spend requirement

    • JohnG says:

      14 Apr14 April 16:11

      You’ve highlighted something I hadn’t considered. It seems odd that status tier can be pts or spend driven, but that the tier bonuses can’t. You could very plausibly manage 100 nights for £10k if you mostly stay in lower end hotels and you’d have Diamond status 11 benefits (that you could choose 100k points for) based on number of stays. Do 25 nights at an average of £400 and you’d spend the same amount (£10k), achieve Diamond based on spend, but only get the first stay bonus (5k points). So really they’re prioritising customers who spend comparitively little per night but stay a lot, and it’s customers who stay a reasonable amount and spend big when they do who are losing out.

  • Harrier25 says:

    14 Apr14 April 14:38

    Yep, Hilton remains my best option for the time being too, mainly due to the continued qualifying Gold tier status achieved via the Barclaycard.

• NorthernLass says:

  14 Apr14 April 09:23

  Is there any way to find out which of the “selected Kimptons” offer the new benefits?

• strickers says:

  14 Apr14 April 10:27

  I’m about 15 nights away from Spire this year and the website is showing my Diamond expiry as the end of next year?

  • Nick says:

    14 Apr14 April 12:09

    Ditto!

    • strickers says:

      14 Apr14 April 12:50

      Did you take out or renew Ambassador this year?

    • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

      14 Apr14 April 16:21

      This is weird – I am a Diamond Ambassador also but my membership shows as expiring 31/12/2022. I earned Spire last year via card spend. I took out Ambassador membership in February this year (it shows as a separate 31/3/2023 expiry on my account) in advance of a Six Senses stay. I wonder if the old Amb renewal trick would have worked for extending the new status? Looks like my status will lapse before I renew Amb so I won’t get to find out…

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