(DEAD) CRAZY IHG OFFER: free Diamond status until 31st December, shows instantly

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• Rui N. says:

  13 Oct13 October 12:48

  Now that we know that this was a targeted offer and knowing IHG history of closing account when targeted offers are used by non-targeted people is quite irresponsibly for this post to be up without some major warnings. But hey, there will be plenty of chatter in the forums in a few weeks!

  • Track says:

    13 Oct13 October 13:03

    Given only 2 months left of the status, it will be colossally easier to IHG to let this run.

    Plus, sometimes there are ‘secret promos’ like this and backdoor opened with intention. IHG can’t put a banner advertising this to all members (that’ll tilt existing elites) but they can open the door.

    IHG One wouldn’t be worried about hotels being overrun by Elites — a lot of savvy travellers fixed their plans for 2022/Christmas and will not switch hotels. Upgrades and breakfast – IHG does not get charged for that. Plus its a Holiday Inn breakfast..

    • Rui N. says:

      13 Oct13 October 13:07

      IHG has closed accounts with hundreds of thousands of points because of people signing up to get a couple of extra thousand points worth 10 quid…

      • Points Hound says:

        13 Oct13 October 14:14

        Can you evidence these multiple occupancies please @Rui N?

        • Points Hound says:

          13 Oct13 October 14:15

          Occurrences*

        • Rui N. says:

          13 Oct13 October 14:58

          I’m not Google. If you want to believe me (and meta, who said the same thing in the previous page) fine. If you don’t want to believe me, also totally fine, I don’t care.

    • Track says:

      13 Oct13 October 13:25

      Simply, there is no disclaimer of such to register for this offer. Yes, there is a general disclaimer about misuse in Terms but its always there.

      If the system registers you for a very generic offer (it does not specify anything on the landing page), then how in practice you ought to know it wasn’t intended for you? Not every offer information gets emailed.

      Additionally its murky to understand — if you see a banner of an offer (even after being logged in), does that mean you are eligible or website shows it to all customers. In practice: without trying to enrol, you can’t confirm your eligibility.

      • Rui N. says:

        13 Oct13 October 13:27

        Good luck with that defense LOL you really should read on what IHG does.

        • CarpalTravel says:

          13 Oct13 October 15:51

          It would be interesting to know how they would identify those that this wasn’t targeting, I guess maybe the domain of the registered email address, or maybe other more cunning routes.

          Agree that there really needs to be a big red Caveat Emptor at the top of the page…

      • Track says:

        13 Oct13 October 13:55

        @Rui N. Somehow, I am confident that a reasonable court will agree with the reasoning.

        Btw, there is NO DEFENCE in these schemes and how companies operate — they might choose not to do business with you because you say tomato and they say tomato and it will not be a discrimination.

        Your multi-hundred thousand points account is always at risk.

        • Rui N. says:

          13 Oct13 October 14:05

          LOL x1000. Good luck trying to argue in a court that a company has no right to close your frequent traveller account for any reason whatsoever.

        • Track says:

          14 Oct14 October 00:03

          ‘to close your frequent traveller account for any reason whatsoever.

          @Rui N. You have just made my point brilliantly. A company can close your FF (or even financial account) at a whim. For any reason or lack of thereof, just citing some internal audit. If you stay too much, if you use promos too many, if you transferred from AMEX and your last name has extra space — it all can be made into a problem.

          The court is not there to force company to do business with you — but to seek a reasonable compensation (whichever company-provided Terms and Conditions say they are not the law and not the golden standard for fair treatment criteria).

  • Rob says:

    13 Oct13 October 13:31

    You mean the major warning at the bottom of the article?

    IHG does not have a history of closing accounts when people register for multiple offers.

    • Rui N. says:

      13 Oct13 October 13:36

      No, a warning that IHG is know to close accounts of people that register for offers not targeted at them. I.e., that they actually do it, it’s not just boilerplate language in the T&Cs.
      This has nothing to do about registering for multiple offers nor did I said anything of the sort, so I don’t understand why would you even mention it.

      • Rui N. says:

        13 Oct13 October 13:37

        *is known.

      • Rob says:

        13 Oct13 October 13:38

        They don’t close accounts of people who register for offers not targeted at them. I have honestly never had any reader feedback on this in 10 years.

        Back in the old days we would all register for multiple versions of the ‘stay x, get 10000 points’ promos and all was fine.

        (Didn’t meant to type ‘multiple’, meant ‘targetted’)

  • Track says:

    13 Oct13 October 13:59

    Tbh and to dissolve the scaremongering, the only mass IHG accounts closures were for Mainland China accounts created purely to take advantage of certain promotions. If I remember that story right.

    • Rui N. says:

      13 Oct13 October 14:03

      Nope. It was regular folk reading about promos on blogs and flyertalk.

      • meta says:

        13 Oct13 October 15:30

        @Rob there are plenty of stories online of people being shut by IHG for registering for targetted offers that weren’t invited to.

        I agree though that there is less potential to shut down here given the scale of people signing up.

        However, they might want to make a point this time by shutting for example only Club Members or those with no/low stay history. In the past IHG has shut people down for only booking reward nights…

        • meta says:

          13 Oct13 October 15:34

          Although they could also put all accounts under audit for a month or two then release.

        • Rui N. says:

          14 Oct14 October 09:47

          On the flyertalk thread about this promo someone already posted 10+ links about situations where IHG closed down accounts. In fact, there are even some cases about upgrade promos. Some people simply got downgraded on those, so people might be lucky this time as well.

    • Track says:

      14 Oct14 October 00:05

      @Rui N. and @meta at their scaremongering again.

      I repeat: the only _mass_, en volume, bulk IHG accounts closures were…

• Stu314 says:

  13 Oct13 October 13:49

  They can close me anytime, points balance always kept low, however as it doesn’t register for me, I’m not going to get into any disputes.

• Jill Kinkell says:

  13 Oct13 October 13:55

  I must be doing something wrong. Logged in via site and …. Nothing. No confirmation of anything

• CathyH says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:03

  its not worked for me. I was already (just) a club member…and still am. am i doing something wrong or do i need to empty cookies or cache or something on my mac?

  • Jill Kinkell says:

    13 Oct13 October 14:06

    I cleared cookies first and still. Nothing

• WJACK says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:06

  F*** me, literally just signed up for the first time with IHG, registered with the link and bang! Diamond Status all in literally 5 minutes

• Lady London says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:30

  Worked for me 20mins ago.

  I only have one stay between now and end of year but went for it. I may live to regret this, as what Rob says about IHG and draconian actions is correct. But my business travel is sunset and I would like some more rays before the sun goes down.

  IHG should know that this *would* influence me to choose IHG hotels for any other stays until the end of the year and if the IHH hotels availablr allow, I would be booking a more expensive hotel than usual for this.

  • CarpalTravel says:

    13 Oct13 October 15:45

    +1 – Likewise. We are booking a week away today and this now will influence our choice, heavily.

• Louisek says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:32

  Thanks! Worked for me. Looking forward to my points stay at IC times sq at Christmas

  • Scott says:

    13 Oct13 October 17:46

    Does mention cash bookings, but not 100%.

• Metty says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:40

  Didn’t work at all so tried copying the HFP link and opening in Incognito. Worked straight away! thanks 🙂

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