IHG says that they will (sort of?) honor Into the Nights promo

Yesterday everyone got into a tizzy because it looked like IHG had changed the terms of its Into the Nights promotion

READ: Did IHG change the terms of your Into the Nights promotion?

For many people, the requirement for how many stays they needed to book with the mobile app had changed, from 1 up to 7, 14 or even 17 stays.  My offers had not changed at all, but that didn’t really matter because we had already decided not to do the Into the Nights promotion in the first place!!!

READ: Why I’m not bothering with IHG’s Into the Nights promotion (and maybe you shouldn’t either)

Time to get the rant on!

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised when companies try to be sneaky or underhanded, but I am.  I actually work in the IT department for a large organization (bigger than IHG) and I don’t think something like this would fly where I work (but maybe I’m wrong?).  Although I personally don’t have much customer interaction, the department I am in is very customer facing, and when I think of the people there that ARE typically making the decisions that affect customers, I can’t imagine something like this going on.

That is why we spend so much time working on promotions like this BEFORE they go out – once they’ve been released into the “wild”, they’re out.  While it probably is in the fine print terms and conditions that IHG reserves the right to change things at any time, in the real world, the negative feedback that they would get (and DID get!) is not worth it.

IHG’s response

Originally, Mommy Points (and others) was given a response saying, basically, “go pound sand”

Initially you were not given the correct set of offers. Upon IHG Rewards Club Service Center realizing this, the correct set of offers were assigned.  The offers you now have are the correct set that have been personalized for you.

After several people reached out on Twitter (and in my guess, probably a very busy day at the IHG corporate offices!), they backpedaled, and posted an “official” response at FlyerTalk, saying:

We apologize for the recent issue regarding the Into The Nights Promotion. We have identified the solution and are moving toward quick resolution.

We have been advised of the following:
· All affected IHG Rewards Club members who we know have made progress towards the offer, but then received a revised hurdle offer, will have their offer marked as “completed.”

· IHG Rewards Club will be sending a direct email communication to those members who have made progress toward their offer. We will be letting them know we will be honoring the original offer and marking their progress as complete.

· IHG will be honoring their original offer and IHG Rewards Club Members will see their offer as complete if they made progress toward it. If the members have yet to stay toward their offer, but have already registered, it will transition back to a hurdle of one stay to complete.

· IHG will not be changing any point values, so the members will receive the original amount of points that the offer showcased.

· IHG Rewards Club Members who have yet to register or to see their offers will receive the variable stay amounts. To those who may inquire why they have a variable amount, we are honoring the original offers that members saw when they received their offers. All members who are newly registering are receiving the correct variable amounts.

This is a pretty lame response IMO.  Basically boils down to “We tried to change the rules mid-stream, we got caught, so now we’re backpedaling”  Kudos at least for not trying to stick with the changes though.

There was a great post from Travel Summary about now not being able to “trust” them with this promotion.  They’ve shown both with this and the other technical challenges they’ve had (READ: IHG Into the Nights stays not showing up?) that whether it’s incompetence, or just things being rushed out half-finished, I don’t have a lot of confidence that all of the requirements will be successfully marked as completed.

So if you are taking part in this promotion (I’m not), I would definitely recommend keeping records of where, when and how you completed the promotion – you very well may need them!!

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