One of the lesser-known secrets of the IHG Rewards program is that you could register your account for all sorts of promotions, regardless of whether or not you had been targeted to receive them. Frequent Miler reported earning 22,000 points for ONE night’s stay, and he was far from the only one who did this.
How entering IHG promo codes works (worked?)
There are a list of various 4 digit IHG promotion codes. The easiest place I know to find them was at this Flyertalk thread. The promotion codes looked something like
4648 NEW MEMBER BONUS
4709 1,000 BONUS POINTS FOR 60 DAYS
4777 5000 POINT PLATINUM BONUS
4996 WELCOME BACK BONUS
The basic idea was that you just went to the IHG promo registration page and enter every single one. Â You might see a Holiday Inn promo code, or a IHG promo code for new members, or any number of different codes. Most would show up as invalid, but enough IHG promo codes would post to your account that you could really get a huge bonus.
A warning on IHG promotion codes
There have been several reports that IHG has started cracking down on this, and closing some people’s accounts. View from the Wing was the first to report that additionally, they have changed the program’s terms and conditions.
POINTS FROM PROMOTIONS
IHG® Rewards Club may offer limited-time promotions that offer bonus points and/or partner credits. These promotions are governed by Membership Terms & Conditions but may have additional Terms & Conditions specific to the individual promotion. Many of these promotions are only available to IHG® Rewards Club members who receive a specific, targeted communication from IHG. Registration for a targeted offer for which you are not invited to participate is not permitted. Doing so is a program violation and may result in the freezing of your account, the forfeiture of all of your point transfers, rewards, vouchers, or merchandise issued pursuant to point redemptions and any accrued points or miles in your account, as well as cancellation of the account and your future participation in the Program.
Will that stop you from entering IHG Rewards promo codes?
I have to say that for me, just the random reports of account closures probably was not enough for me to stop giving this a try. I haven’t had any paid IHG stays lately (though I did stay at a Holiday Inn and a Holiday Inn Express on points, and enjoyed the PANCAKE MAKER.
Pancake Maker at the Holiday Inn Express Downers Grove
After reading about the IHG Into the Nights promotion that they’re having, I even talked about how I could take advantage of all of these IHG promo codes to the tune of an 86,500 point earn!
So I haven’t entered in any IHG promo codes, but after reading the post on VftW, I probably will not. The risk is just too high for me, especially since I just signed up for the Chase IHG credit card, and have nearly 100,000 points in there, not to mention the bonus miles / free nights I might earn from my IHG Into the Nights Promotion.
What about you? Have you ever entered a ton of IHG promo codes in and do you plan to continue?
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I have always entered every bonus offer code I could find, and have earned thousands of extra points this way. If they started not awarding unqualified bonuses I would not be upset. Closing accounts for clicking on bonuses found on their own webpages is just ridiculous. That is a great way to permanently lose customers!
Yeah it’s kind of frustrating. It seems to me that the obvious (and easy?) solution would be to, I don’t know, STOP ALLOWING CODES THAT WEREN’T TARGETED TO A USER FROM BEING ENTERED!!! :-). Sadly, as someone who works in the IT department of a large company, I’m sure there’s a reason that they’re not doing that….
No codes for me until I burn through pretty much all of my 500K points.
Given all the Into the Nights (and Big WIN) problems I wouldn’t assume too much IT proficiency on IHG’s part.
I would just be a little cautious with ihg..I have benefited from these codes in the past but I also had my account with points shut down back when there a glitch giving out pts..they do shut things down rather quickky