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Hi
My Ambassador is up very soon but I don’t have any IC stays planned until December.
Are there any implications if I don’t renew now and just wait until the day before my next stay?
No, you can also pre book your upcoming stays meanwhile. You only have to have it valid on the date of stay if you want to use any feature of it
Many thanks.
You could maybe also approach your first hotel about can you buy the pass from them, you can also do this.
You also don’t get the 15k points for renewing. Similar position to me, expired January and next stay October. It wasn’t worth 15k points for 10 months of not using it.
If you buy AMB at a hotel you can’t apply it to a BOGOF for that stay
https://www.ihg.com/intercontinental/content/gb/en/ambassador/free-weekend-certificate
Advance reservations are required and when joining the Ambassador programme in the hotel, the Weekend Night cannot be redeemed for the current stay.
I’d just have them process it the day before then if this has crept into the terms and conditions.
I’ve done that. Had an IC process the renewal a couple of weeks in advance to make sure I was eligible for the 15k renewal points. Then at checkout they inadvertently took the renewal amount off the bill. Oops!
I’d just have them process it the day before then if this has crept into the terms and conditions.
Unless OP is already in same city as the hotel, or has other paid or redeemed nights before the weekend night, that may not be possible. Hotel front desk staff are not going to renew AMB for a random caller.
I’d just have them process it the day before then if this has crept into the terms and conditions.
It’s been there for several years as I thought about doing the buy on day and use for that stay but a post on flyer talk said it went against the T&Cs.
Had that with a Accor menbership when the hotel manager was happy to sell me the prpgram. Especially if there’s already an existing slightly later booking already in the system I really can’t see why a hotel would get stressed about this.
If you get a hotel that wouldn’t then just renew online the day before.
If you want to maximise AMB then just buy it a week before the stay as a week before is when they start to allocate individual rooms and the AMB upgrades.
I’ve noticed that before that the uograde appeared in the booking from a round that time.
And I believe this “buy at the hotel and you’ll get a shed load of extras” is based in a myth and certainly can’t be relied on.
Depends on your attutude I suppose, @BAFIS. You’ll note this wasn’t something I said in my suggestion above.
However if one stays at a hotel and can direct revenue to them then why not if they are able and willing to provide what is needed. There may be some incentivisation for them that this plays into, and there could be a benefit, or there may not. I take nothing for granted and would never have such an attitude about it. But renewing online isn’t personal in the way that renewing via a hotel that you are or will be the guest of, is.
OP- Have you considered contacting IHG. If you have been an Ambassador member for a while you might be able to get their ‘one off’ 6 month extension for free.
I’m guessing you’d still get the 15k bonus if you renew at the end of the extension.But the 6 month extension may be more useful during a period when you do have a lot of IC stays
15k points at 0.5cpp is only worth 4 months of the fee
Fair point John.
I guess it depends on your perspective. I would go the other way and say if I had a lot of IC stays in the pipeline then the renewal fee is a justifiable expense and you don’t need the free extension. I would save the extension for a period of low usage when I’m not sure if I want to renew or not.
In reality I just renew every year anyway and use that as a reason to travel and use my voucher.My Amb was due to be renewed in January. Decided not to renew and so received lots of “last chance” emails.
Succumbed in late April to the “final offer” since I had an IC booking in May, so got the 15 points and a much better USD rate!
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