Lounge Pass – change in T&Cs

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Picked up from the IHG board on FT – 2 changes to the lounge pass

1 – Annual Lounge Membership available on Qualified Stays only, including Reward Night/Free Night.

This seems like a clarification to me that it is basically only usable on direct bookings

2- Beginning in 2025, the Annual Lounge Membership is valid for the remaining days in the year, if any, following the date the Milestone is achieved, plus one Calendar Year, regardless of when Milestone selection occurs, e.g. an Annual Lounge Membership Milestone choice achieved in June 2025 and selected in August 2025 will be valid until 31 December 2026.

This validity period – rest of the year and the following year is the same as now but it’s the part I’ve highlighted that’s changed.

It now appears that if you say achieved the 40/70 night threshold on 7th November 2025 but don’t actually select it until January 2026 then they would count the validity from 7th November 2025. So you wouldn’t get the (almost) 2 years you would now.

It’s not entirely clear – but will in the next few days – if this will affect rewards earned late in 2024 but not selected until early 2025.

[stevenhp1987]

Interesting.

I earned my lounge pass earlier this month. Have been waiting until at least tomorrow to activate it…

I’ll report back.

[John]

I earned a lounge pass today.

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

I’m pretty unmoved about this. It always felt like an unintended quirk so I expected a fix to address it. The breathing space from the 2-year validity allowed me to move nights to Hilton to retain Diamond. But other than generating Honors points, Diamond is nothing to write home about. My 2025 plans will see me past 40 nights at IHG, and Hilton can drop to Gold without causing me any regret.

[u07ch]

doesn’t look like this is implemented yet, renewed mine this morning and its valid to 31st December 2026. I timed my stay to tip me over 70 nights to achieve it on December 27th

[strickers]

Just triggered mine too, same as @u07ch, 31 Dec 26.

[stevenhp1987]

strickers wrote:

Just triggered mine too, same as @u07ch, 31 Dec 26.

+1

[qc]

strickers wrote:

Just triggered mine too, same as @u07ch, 31 Dec 26.

+2 and I’ve taken a screenshot just in case.

[LD27]

My reading of the highlighted change is to stop people like me who hit so many milestones in 2023 that I selected 2 lounge passes as I knew I wouldn’t hit 40 nights in 2024. By doing this, I had two annual lounge membership awards in my wallet. So the second one I selected was always valid until 31 December 2025 and still is. I assumed other people might have done this/thought of this!