IHG is back with the latest installment of their quarterly promotion. Â We’ve had “Into the Nights”, “Share Forever” and now IHG Accelerate.
(SEE ALSO: Why I’m not bothering with IHG’s Into the Nights promotion (and maybe you shouldn’t either))
(SEE ALSO: New IHG Share Forever summer promotion)
Each of these promotions has been essentially the same – you are given a series of “tasks”, and can earn points based on completing these tasks. Â The IHG Accelerate promotion is no different.
IHG Accelerate promotion site now open
The IHG Accelerate promotion site is now open at http://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/offers/falloffer/registration
You can sign up for the promotion starting now, but you get no credit for stays until September 1st, and all stays must be completed by December 31st. Â These stays must be regular paid stays, so no Points With Cash and no award stays will count towards the IHG Accelerate promotion.
(SEE ALSO: Do IHG Points + Cash stays count to earn rewards?)
NOTE: You DO need to sign up for the IHG Accelerate promotion, or you won’t get your bonuses.
Here are my IHG Accelerate promotion offers
My wife and I both have IHG accounts (of course), so we both checked our offers.
(SEE ALSO: Why you should get 2 IHG cards at the same time)
Here is my wife’s IHG Accelerate promotion offer
- 5,000 points for 1 stay in September
- 5,000 points on my first stay
- Then tiered bonuses with a total of 46,800 bonus points for 19 (!) nights of stays.
Here is my IHG Accelerate promotion offer
- 1,000 points for my first stay
- 2,300 points if I pay for it with my IHG credit card
- 3,000 points if I book a “Bonus Points” package stay
- 12,000 points if I stay at a Holiday Inn (includes Resort and Vacations)
- 10,200 points if I stay 5 nights
- An additional 21,500 points if I complete 4 of the 6 offers
Smart readers will note that even though it says I get a bonus for completing 4 of the 6 offers, my offer only shows 5 offers to complete. Â We’ll see if that’s a typo, or if that’s a missing offer, or something like that.
2 free nights for new IHG members
The big win of the IHG Accelerate promotion is that any “new” members of IHG can get a free night after 2 IHG nights. Â Then ANOTHER free night with your 3rd or 4th stay.
IHG Rewards Club is also offering special rewards to non-members who join IHG Rewards Club and enroll in the promotion. These members will be awarded one free night at any IHG hotel, anywhere in the world, by booking and completing just two separate stays at any IHG hotel brand. If they do it again, they’ll receive two free nights – perfect for a weekend getaway.
I put “new” in quotation marks since I am quite sure there are plenty of people who will create new accounts to take advantage of the IHG Accelerate promotion. Â If you try this, I urge caution – from reports I’ve seen, if you use any credit card that you’ve used before on your old account, your accounts will likely be merged and/or shutdown
Analysis of the IHG Accelerate promotion
If you’re a new member, this seems like a pretty potentially lucrative promotion. Â For 2 stays at any IHG hotel (say $150), you’ll get a free night good at ANY IHG hotel
Here’s the Intercontinental Bora Bora
As someone with not a ton of paid travel upcoming, I don’t think I will take part of it, but if I do, I will probably make one stay on my account (booking a Bonus Points stay). Â Depending on what my “missing” offer is, I could potentially complete my offer with only 2 stays, getting 40,000 bonus points. Â Of course, until next week, I could still earn 30,000 points from 1 night at a Club Carlson.
For other analysis, you can check out posts from View from the Wing, Loyalty Traveler or the Flyertalk thread.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
What I got…
5,000 Stay Once Get 5,000
6,800 Stay More, Earn More (5 nights)
2,000 Apply for the IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card
1,000 Earn When You Redeem
35,200 Your Achievement Bonus
By the way, sneaky e-mail subscription checkbox at the bottom. That’s BS.
I’m quite pleased with mine:
1) Stay once get 5000
2) Stay 5 nights earn 6800
3) Stay at 2 brands earn 12800
4) Stay for a weekend (Fri+Sat or Sat+Sun) earn 4000
5) Book 1 bonus points package stay earn 2000
6) Pay for 1 stay on your IHG rewards club credit card earn 1500
7) Complete 6 of 7 offers and earn 32000
Note that I already have a 7-night stay planned at a Holiday Inn Express, that will get me (1), (2), (4) and (6). All I have to do is book a bonus points package at any other brand and I’ll get the rest.
Karl – that’s a pretty great offer! I wish mine was as good
Pointswithacrew, your offer is easily mattress run worthy. You can probably get your 40,000 points, plus maybe 5000 more with just two stays, which you should probably be able to do for $180 or less, so even if you get nothing out of the stays, 0.4 cents per point. With your penchant for staying at low level properties, you can probably get at least three more nights at HIX, so a total of 5 nights for $180? Sounds like deal to me, an even better deal if you happen to luck into pointsbreak stays.
Yeah – I was thinking about that this morning while exercising. I do have an aversion to actually paying for anything… (I know, I know, it’s a problem), but I do have an upcoming stay for the Family Travel for Real Life conference in October. On points, the hotel is like 20 or 25K, so not a great deal, so I was going to pay for it (plus I get a reduced conference rate), so I’m thinking about doing it there.
I have something decent –
1) stay once 5,000
2) stay 5 nights, 10,200
3) stay 3 times w/points+cash, 5,400
4) IHG credit – 2,300
5) 3 out of 4 of the above, 27,100
Since generally I think points+cash is a poor value, this means a single 5 night stay could get me 44,600 points, which isn’t bad. At 0.5 cents a point this is $223 in value.
Hong Kong based Gold Elite. My offer seems reasonable…
1) stay once get 5000
2) stay 2 weekend(s), Saturday plus one other night, get 6400
3) spend $40 on F&B at IHG hotels, get 500
4) join IHG dining Rewards (Club) get 10000
5) complete 4 of 4 get 28100
until finding out the Dining Rewards programme does not operate in Hong Kong.
Doh! sounds like it’s time for a “new account” then maybe
I may have got the easiest ever variant of this for my personal situation. As of a couple of months ago (new job) I now do three nights a fortnight at a Holiday Inn. Existing Plat member. My offer:
5,000 Stay once in September and earn 5,000 bonus points
5,000 Stay once
6,800 5 nights (total)
3,000 + 3 (8 total)
3,000 + 3 (11 total)
3,000 +3 (14 total)
3,000 +3 (17 total)
30,000 +3 (20 total)
So effectively 58,800 extra points for staying 20 nights in a time period where I’m already scheduled to stay 23 nights. Painfully easy.