IHG Rewards Club “The Big Win” Promotion Sep 1 – Dec 31, 2013

IHG Rewards Club has launched its “The Big Win” Promotion for stays September 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013. This time, the promotion is targeted and you can check your particular offer by visiting “The Big Win” Promotion Registration Page. Each account receives a customized offer where you can earn at least 50,000 IHG Rewards Club points by completing all the pieces of the offer. My offer was for 87,500 points.

IHG Rewards Club is the new name of the loyalty program previously called Priority Club. It covers the brands InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

Even if you don’t currently have any upcoming stays at any of these properties, it’s free to check your personal offer and register for the promotion. You never know where your travels will take you!

My personal promotion offer from IHG Rewards Club was the following:

• Stay at any IHG hotel and receive 1,000 points.
• Stay a total of 4 nights and receive 6,400 points.
• Stay at 2 different IHG Brands and receive 20,000 points.
• Book 2 separate stays through an IHG hotel website or mobile device and receive 4,000 Points.
• Complete a simple survey and receive 100 Points.
• Stay at 2 of the locations below and receive 12,000 points. Select properties in Montreal, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico City, Washington DC, Denver, Chicago, Sao Paulo, and NYC (participating hotels are listed on the promotion page).
• Complete all of your offers and receive an extra 44,000 Points.

If I manage to stay a total of 4 nights at 2 different brands in the selected cities, I can earn 87,500 points. That’s on top of the base points I will already be earning. An IHG Rewards Club point can be bought for 0.7 cents each using the Cash and Points trick. The maximum reasonable value I can assign to those 87,500 points is $612, but I’d probably value them at closer to $450-500.

My thoughts: While I would certainly take advantage of the promotion if I had genuine travel that lined up with the cities above, it doesn’t look like it’s going to pan out for me. I am planning to be in LA in October with a possible trip to San Francisco this fall as well. I already have friends there I’m staying with so my travels won’t be taking me to any of the listed properties. The IHG properties in New York near me are far too expensive to make booking stays there profitable, but I did find a few properties in LA for about $100 a night. Booking stays there for the purpose of earning points would cause me to be close to breaking even and, at that point, it’s just not worth the trouble.

Conclusion: For anyone who has travel that lines up with maximizing the promotion, this can be a great deal. If you have a similar offer to mine and can manage to get in two stays of up to four nights total at two different brands in the listed cities, you can be rewarded with a value of $400-$500 in points. Unless you can find an extremely cheap convenient property to maximize the promotion, it’s probably not worth going out of your way to earn the points.

What offers did everyone else get?

Also, before planning your stays, you may want to look into some of the other hotel promotions that are running the next few months:

• Hyatt “Discover New Possibilities” Promotion Sep 9 — Nov 30 For Up to 50,000 Bonus Points After 20 Nights
• Marriott Rewards Megabonus Free Nights Promotion Sep 15, 2013 — Jan 15, 2014
• Starwood “Take Two” Promotion: Double Points For Stays Sep 1 — Dec 15, 2013

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