Everything You Need to Know About the IHG One Rewards Program
IHG Hotels & Resorts has unveiled their new IHG One Rewards program. I break down exactly what those changes mean for you, and how you can take advantage.
When I first started travelling, I’ll admit that I wasn’t as focused on points and rewards programs. However, I quickly realized that if I was going to be taking a flight with a particular airline anyway, it made sense to sign up for program. Why not, right?
The same is, of course, true for hotels. With a good points program, there’s no downside to being a part of it - only benefits.
Recently, IHG Hotels & Resorts launched the IHG One Rewards program. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I recently had the chance to stay at the Staybridge Suites in Niagara Falls, and have been talking about some past stays at IHG properties in partnership with IHG to help let my readers and followers know about IHG One Rewards.
Since I’ve had some folks asking for more information, I thought I’d put this together quickly as a one stop shop.
A Bit About IHG Hotels & Resorts
IHG Hotels & Resorts is one of the world’s leading hotel companies. They’ve got nearly 325,000 colleagues working across more than 100 countries. In total, there are over 6000 hotels globally, with nearly 885,000 rooms.
Believe it or not, there are almost 2000 more hotels in the works, which would add about 275,000 rooms to the portfolio.
In total, there are 17 brands, and they’re categorized into their broad collections - the Vignette Collection, the Luxury & Lifestyle Collection, the Premium Collection, and the Essentials Collection. There is also The Suites Collection, for those looking for longer stays.
You can head here if you’re keen to know how brands you know fit into their respective collections.
What to Know About IHG One Rewards
IHG One Rewards is the new loyalty program from IHG Hotels & Resorts. It debuted on April 13th, 2022, and enhanced benefits were announced that would take effect in early June of 2022.
Basically, the goal of the new program is to deliver more flexibility and control to guests, as well as more value and relevant benefits.
There are now 5 tiers - Club, Silver Elite, Gold Elite, Platinum Elite, and Diamond Elite.
The tiers were purportedly designed to help members earn points faster and have more ways to use them. Here’s a Membership Summary for you, so you can look at how your tier effects your benefits, points, exclusive access, and hotel perks.
This new program will be powered, in part, by the IHG One Rewards mobile app, which is meant to help guests see their rewards more clearly, as well as giving them choice on how they’ll make use of them.
If you’re keen, you can join here to be part of it.
Here’s what I appreciate about the program:
I like to see that there are no blackout dates for reward nights. I’ve always been frustrated with programs that encourage you to earn, and then when you go use your points, there’s fine print to say points can’t be used on particular nights.
The stress of expiring points isn’t my favourite, so I’m pleased to say that points don’t expire with the Silver Elite tier and above.
Member rates and promotions across the board.
Free internet, which is a must for folks like myself who are often travelling for work.
It might be strange, but I’m perhaps most excited by the fact that lake check out (2pm) applied to all membership tiers. That is a sweet perk, if you ask me.
Answering FAQs About the IHG One Rewards Program
There are a few commonly asked questions I’ll tackle here just to make sure I’m covering all angles of the program.
Firstly, All Elite (Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond) statuses have been extended through February 2023. This means that any member who, as of January 1, 2022, was Gold Elite will remain Gold Elite, any member who was Platinum Elite will remain Platinum Elite, and any member who was Spire Elite will automatically become Diamond Elite beginning April 13, 2022.
The new tier structure and an updated Elite status tracker will appear in IHG One Rewards accounts on or before 17 April 2022, as I mentioned above.
Here’s what IHG Hotels & Resorts notes relating to bonus earn, “Elite tier bonus earn is the points Elite members earn, over and above the base points earned for each dollar spent, based on their status.
Elite members receive an additional bonus based on their tier status, which is 20% for Silver Elite, 40% for Gold Elite, 60% for Platinum Elite, and 100% for Diamond Elite.
These bonus points are calculated against the points earned on Qualifying Stays, and the percentage earned is determined by Elite tier. For example, a Silver Elite member earns 20% bonus points on all Qualified Stays. This means if a Silver Elite member completes a stay that qualifies for 10,000 IHG One Rewards points, they will earn an additional 2,000 Elite Tier Bonus points on the same stay, bringing their total point earn to 12,000 for their stay.”
Milestone Rewards are also coming soon. Basically, members will be able to select a Milestone Reward every 10 qualifying nights, starting at 20 qualifying nights. So, for example, when you git 40 nights, you’d get 10,000 bonus points, 5 food & beverage rewards, 1 confirmable suite upgrade, and one annual lounge membership.
Your Earning Awaits
I hope that my breakdown of the new IHG One Rewards program was helpful for you! There’s even further information here if you want to dive even deeper.
Wishing each and everyone memorable future travels, filled with late check-outs aplenty!
We want to humbly thank IHG Hotels & Rewards for the opportunity for this collaboration. All opinions are completely our own.
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