Overlapping stays – what happens?

[steetiehj]

Sorry, I know there are a few subjects on this, but I couldn’t get an answer regarding my situation…

I’m travelling to a Holiday Inn on the 6th of July with my wife and staying until the 10th (4 nights). On the 7th and 8th of July, I’ll be travelling into London but leaving my wife at the hotel. In London, I have booked another Holiday Inn for those two nights, and then I will return to my wife for our last night.

I understand we won’t get 6 nights counted towards our status, but does IHG favour one over the other? Obviously, we’d prefer the 4 nights to count rather than the 2.

[Tom]

I’m guessing so probably not the most helpful reply, but the 4 nights will count as they start first. The 2 in London probably not as they’ll be the overlapping nights. However, I wouldn’t be that surprised if you get all 6 as they are different hotels.

I once got 6 qualifying nights from booking 3x rooms for 2 nights at the same hotel.

[John]

Well the easiest solution is to not book IHG for the shorter stay.

I believe the 2 night stay will get credited as it will (probably) post first. When the 4 night stay posts, it will find that 2 of the nights have already received a night credit so those may fail to credit. It is unclear whether this will cause the entire 4 night stay to fail to credit.

If the 4 night stay posts first, then it should be fine.

Contacting IHG customer service should be able to get the situation resolved.

Also it only really matters if you are aiming to get an exact multiple of 10 elite qualifying nights.

[AndrewT]

I agree the that as the two night stay will almost certainly post first it’s a question of how the subsequent four night stay gets handled. I can’t comment from specific experience in this scenario, but IHG are normally pretty good at managing overlaps. If the four night stay doesn’t post anything a quick call or email to customer services should sort it.

Or as above, book somewhere else or don’t use your IHG account for the shorter stay. Depends on how many points you’d be giving up I guess, as I think you still earn on the spend. If you have status technically the second hotel could get touchy about giving duplicate benefits. The system does tell them when you have overlapping stays, whether they notice or care is out of your control.

[steetiehj]

Thank you so much for the advice. I’ll leave as is and see what happens.

I recently noticed that I receive emails from IHG Business Rewards informing me that I can earn points by making bookings on behalf of others. I wonder if this is a way to bypass the rules, although it seems to be aimed at the US market and I am in the UK.