Ambassador Upgrade & Complimentary Weekend Night

[squawk7700]

I’m thinking of upgrading to Ambassador and just trying to do the maths/get my head around the rules for the weekend complimentary night.

Am I right in thinking that once I’ve paid $200 for the upgrade and logged back in to IHG, it’ll recognise my status and then offer me the weekend complimentary night rate?

I want to book the Intercontinental in San Diego for a Fri/Sat night in April. Total price currently for best flex rate is $742 ($371 per night). I can expect after paying for Ambassador that same room to cost me only $371 instead?

And even better than that, I should get the bonus 20K points on top as per the recent promo e-mail I received?

[Rob]

You can check pricing now – see intercontinental.com/ambweekend

You MUST book via that link. Annoyingly it doesn’t reprice so you’ll still see it at $742 but in the hotel they will remove the charge for your 2nd weekend night.

There is some confusion over whether it does trigger the 20k because you aren’t paying for one of the nights. I guessed not but a reader who did a similar renewal offer recently said it did trigger on a BOGOF stay.

[squawk7700]

Thanks Rob. The Ambassador rate says $412 per night….what I can’t see is if one of the nights is more expensive than the other.

If for example the Friday was $500 and the Saturday $300, can they be cheeky and only give me the Saturday night for free?

Re the 20K points I might play it safe and switch my Crowne Plaza booking a few days later to a Kimpton…

Final question: can Emyr book the Ambassador free night rate and would there be any benefit in him doing so?

[NorthernLass]

It’s the 2nd night free, so yes they would. Saturday is usually more expensive though, so you would gain in that situation. If you do a dummy booking and go through to the payment page, it will show the individual cost of each night. If there’s only 1 price showing, it means it’s the same price on both nights.
Kimptons seem a bit different. We’ve used Ambassador certs at Kimptons twice and on both occasions they halved the total cost – and this showed in our account before we actually stayed. I don’t know if they have different IT which can’t cope with the Ambassador certificate, or they’re just not au fait with the terms!

[dst87]

squawk7700 wrote:

Thanks Rob. The Ambassador rate says $412 per night….what I can’t see is if one of the nights is more expensive than the other.

If for example the Friday was $500 and the Saturday $300, can they be cheeky and only give me the Saturday night for free?

You should be able to see the per-night breakdown. It’ll be the second night that’s free (which can work for you or against you depending on the nightly rate).

[squawk7700]

Brilliant, thanks for the heads up.

Does anyone know, if I make the reservation using the Ambassador Weekend Rate, can I then pay to join Ambassador nearer the time or must I be a signed up member to get the rate? Just trying to stretch the validity of the status as I don’t need it until March/April.

[Rob]

If it lets you book, it lets you book …. try it.