For those who are not familiar with IHG’s Accelerate campaign, IHG (Intercontinental Hotel Group) runs a quarterly promotion that allows IHG members to “earn bonus points on your travels faster”.
It is just as the name implies: “Accelerate”.
This quarter’s promotion period runs from 5/15/17 to 8/31/17.
What is IHG’s Accelerate?
The premise is simple. Each person gets his/her own customized offers. When you meet the conditions of an offer, you get extra IHG bonus points.
These offers can range from staying x number of nights at an IHG property, using the IHG credit card to pay for a stay, or booking a night using cash and points. If you complete multiple offers, you can potentially qualify for the higher “achievement” bonus points.
To qualify for bonus points, you need to login and register for the promotion first.
Personally, I haven’t participated in this promotion until recently. For the most part, my offers were not that great or they were just too challenging to meet for my travel needs.
My Accelerate Offer This Quarter
It’s not a bad list, though I knew I won’t go far with these offers. In fact, I had completely forgotten about this promotion until I started a paid stay at a IHG property. I quickly registered before I completed my stay. If this happened to you, you may be relieved to know that the stay counted!
Despite some progress, I likely won’t bother with the rest of the offers. To start, the economics didn’t make much sense. For example, I only need one more night to complete the 10,000 IHG bonus points offer. However, the lowest nightly rate of nearby hotels is just under $100. I certainly don’t value 10,000 IHG points to be worth $100.
If you end up getting some offers that can be stacked (i.e. a stay can meet multiple requirements), then there may be some added value proposition there.
In Summary
I think IHG runs a brilliant promotional campaign. After all, if customers are trying to book more stays to meet the offers, then IHG has already succeeded with incentivizing customers to book more with them.
After all, there are reasons why this promotion is popular and comes back every quarter.
As for me, unless I see a really great hotel rate that may be worth a staycation, I’m just going to skip the rest of the offers. I’ll just have to wait and see what offers come up next quarter.
Are you participating in the IHG Accelerate program? How far are you from your goal? Does this promotion changes your hotel booking pattern? Sound off below!
Definitely not doing this one. My version would require staying in three different Holiday Inn properties and for at least two consecutive weekend nights. The only thing I’ve earned is 500 points for downloading the app, and it looks like that’ll be it.
I participate all the time. I’ve never done a mattress run. All my stays are normal stays from my travels.
I love the Accelerate Promotions. Last year I got around 50K. This year, by the end of August I will have gotten 61.2K from my stays.
>>>All my stays are normal stays from my travels.
That is probably the best way to go. You got a decent haul between the two promos!
I’ve never done a mattress run either, and I don’t think I’m about to start, either. Unless the offer is absolutely irresistible. 😛
Thanks for your comment.
Twice I’ve participated and in those cases needed only one stay, charged on my card (and one with ‘bonus points’ – not a great deal in and of itself), to gain around 55K points. This time however, I need more than 3 stays for 53K points – a no go.
Nice! What a deal to earn 55k in points with only one stay. I am still waiting for one of those!
I completely agree. I knew it couldn’t last though and so this one is going unused. Maybe they’ll revert to the nice type once again. The good ones were like ‘one stay’, ‘one stay and use the card’, one stay but with ‘bonus points’, and ‘one stay outside of the USA’, and then the remaining 33,000 chunk of points for 4/5 (the unattained fifth one required 5 nights somewhere or 5 different brands, or something like that), meaning that I got the whole shebang last time by staying at the HIE for an early morning flight out of Malaga, paying cash (i.e., IHG card) for a 1000-bonus-point rate (an extra $15 or so).