Category: Priority Club

Intercontinental Hotel Group announces awesome The Big Win promotion for 4Q2013. Minimum of 50,000 points and no credit required!

IHGBigWinIntercontinental Hotel Group (which includes the Intercontinental Hotels, Crown Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, Even and Hualuxe brands) has announced an awesome new promotion for the 4th quarter of 2013.  The offers vary depending on your stay pattern, but the minimum even for new sign ups include a bonus of 50,000 IHG Points (formerly called Priority Club points). Here is an example offer for a new account that signs up for the promotion.

  • Try one and done: Stay at any IHG hotel and receive 1,000 Points
  • Stay more and earn: Stay a total of 4 nights and receive 4,000 Points
  • Explore more brands: Stay at 3 different IHG brands and receive 10,000 Points
  • Book with us: Book 2 separate stays through an IHG hotel website or mobile device to get our best price guarantee and receive 2,000 Points
  • Win in a weekend: Stay 2 Saturday nights and receive 8,000 Points
  • Get an additional  25000 Points if all promotions are completed until December 31, 2013.

50,000 points is enough for an IHG hotel room at any of their hotels in the world, but the smarter way to use them is for the Pointsbreak rotating list of 5,000 point a night hotels.  If you use them this way, you could get 10 nights free from this promotion which is awesome!

I had a few IHG hotel stays during my Europe trip this summer and status matched to Platinum status from my Starwood status.  My offer was even better than the one above!

  • Try one and done: Stay at any IHG hotel and receive 1,000 Points
  • Stay more and earn: Stay a total of 5 nights and receive 6,700 Points
  • Explore more brands: Stay at 3 different IHG brands and receive 22,000 Points
  • Book with us: Book 2 separate stays through an IHG hotel website or mobile device to get our best price guarantee and receive 2,400 Points
  • Win in a weekend: Stay 2 Saturday nights and receive 4,800 Points
  • Survey the Win: Complete a simple survey and receive 100 Points
  • Live the City Life: Stay at 2 of the following locations below and receive 12,000 Points (My locations included hotels in L.A. , Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Mexico, Brazil, and Canada)
  • Get an additional  49,000 Points if all promotions are completed until December 31, 2013.

This means for my promo I can get a total of 98,000 bonus points on top of the normal points I would accrue!  Yeah!  This will be enough for 20 nights in Pointbreaks hotels which is how I am planning on spending them. Last month they offered the Intercontinental Medellin which would be a great way to take 20 free nights!

Intercontintal Medellin
Intercontintal Medellin

Log into your account on this page today and see what your offer is! You can also sign up for their free IHG Rewards program from that page if you don’t already have an account.  If this sounds like too much work, you can always just get 80,000 IHG points by getting The Priority Club Visa and spending just $1 on it!

Eurotrip 2013: Part 2 – Planning for Hotels in Europe for Maximum Miles

turnberry
Turnberry Resort by Starwood Preferred Guest

This is the second post in a series about my 2013 trip to Ireland, Scotland and Great Britain.  Part of the free plane tickets were funded by the 40,000 point sign up bonus of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

When I started planning the hotels for my Europe trip, I wanted to take advantage of many of the hotel promotions that were going on this quarter and strategically redeem points where necessary when I was getting good value.  I don’t consider myself a hotel expert and rely on the excellent Loyalty Lobby blog to get a lot of my hotel promotions information.  In particular for this trip I accessed the Top Hotel Promotions June 2013 Guide.  I had Platinum status with Starwood and Le Club Accorhotel and Gold Status with Hilton going into the process.  I did a status match with Priority Club and Club Carlson via my Starwood status to get Platinum status with Priority Club and Gold status with Club Carlson. This would insure that I got the best treatment for my bookings on my trip. I saw from the promotions guide that Priority Club, Marriott, Hilton, and Club Carlson had the best promotions currently.

I’m going to give a run down of which hotels I chose in which cities, the prices, and why I thought each was the best choice. I knew we were going to have some expensive stays in Dublin, St. Andrews, and London so purposefully picked some cheaper properties with a good location when I thought I could.

Fairfield Inn by Marriott JFK Airport – $152 on a senior rate (traveling with Dad pays off!)

The Morrison Dublin, a Doubletree by Hilton Hotel – 2 nights @ 246 Euro on a senior rate

  • Hilton’s Daily Grand promotion should give me 1,000 bonus points and 1000 Virgin Atlantic Miles and my Gold Status will get us free breakfast so we can hit the ground running each day without having to go to an outside restaurant.

Waterford Marina Hotel in Waterford, Ireland – 79 Euro

  • This was one that my Dad’s picks because of the golf course located here.

Holiday Inn in Killarney, Ireland – 129 Euro

  • By stacking multiple promotions I expect at least 10,000 Priority club points from this stay (which could be enough for two PointsBreak nights in the future.)

Radisson Blu Galway, Ireland – 2 nights @ 136 Euro on a AAA rate

Holiday Inn Express Queen’s Quarter in Belfast, Ireland – 85 GBP

  • Stacking Multiple Promotions and multi stay bonuses.

MacDonald Rusacks in St. Andrews, Scotland 2 nights @ 282 GBP

  • This was one of my Dad’s picks because of the golf course located here.  They did have “The Club” loyalty program that I signed up for but it doesn’t look like it gives much to start.

Holiday Inn Express in Inverness, Scotland – 93 GBP

  • Stacking Multiple Promotions and multi stay bonuses.

Turnberry Resort, Luxury Collection Starwood – $110+6000 Starpoints

  • This was one I added on because of the golf course and that I could get a Cash and Points rate of $110+6000 star points which gave me a value of 4.1 cents per point redeemed.

Hilton Paddington London – 129 GBP

Radisson Blu Edwardian Vanderbilt London – 2 nights @ 44,000 Club Carlson Points

  • Redeemed 88,000 Club Carlson points for 2 nights in a 328 GBP a night room, yielding a value of 1.1 cents per point

Renaissance by Marriott London Heathrow Airport – 135 GBP

Holiday Inn Express Frankfurt – 114 Euro

  • Stacking Multiple Promotions and multi stay bonuses.

Once all of the points post I will do a summary post to see how I did.  I hope this gives you a feel for some of the thought that goes into booking hotel stays on an extended trip for maximum value.

1000 Free Priority Club Points for completing a survey

Wow, this is an easy one.  If you don’t have a free Priority Club account yet (and you should if you have read our Getting Started guide), then go open one at priorityclub.com and make sure you are signed up to receive their emails.

Then click on this link to complete the survey.

16 questions, takes about 5 minutes and 1000 Priority Club points will be added to your account in 4-6 weeks.  Easy, Peasy.  That is 1/5 of the amount for a free 5000 point pointsbreaks room, like the one I got in Petra, Jordan when I went there at the Crowne Plaza.

This is some of the easiest points out there, so get to it!  Hat tip to our friends at Loyalty Lobby for the heads up on this offer. Also make sure to get your 100 free Club Carlson Points every day as we told you about in this entry. I know I am!

 

3Q 2012 Hotel Promotions overview

I’m going to summarize a great post I read over on Loyalty Traveler with the 3Q 2012 Hotel Pomos that seem like the best values to me or I am trying to take advantage of.

Intercontinental Hotel Group Priority Club Rewards

Club Carlson

I summarized these initially in this post, and then in this post.

  • Buy one night Radisson, get 50,000 points (now down to 15,000)
  • Buy one night Country Inn and Suites, get 44,000 points (now down to 15,000)
  • Buy one Park Inn, get 44,000 points (now down to 15,000)
  • Buy one Park Plaza, get 50,000 points (now down to 15,000)

As you see in the points and miles game, you snooze, you lose! So make sure to check this blog daily or add our RSS Feed to your Google Reader to stay caught up.

Starwood Preferred Guest

You had to register for their current “Nice Choice” promo by June 30, so not going to cover it since it is too late, but I took the get 500 additional Starpoints for each paid Sheraton booking. I am trying to get to Platinum Status with SPG this year so I might take advantage of this offer with a cheap Sheraton stay on some trips if I don’t use cash and points.

Marriott Rewards

One Cat 1-4 hotel night certificate for every two stays, but you had to register by June 30.

Hilton HHonors

Triple Points for Fri-Sun nights, Double Points for Mon-Thurs.  Register now since it is required, but kind of a boring promotion unless you already have status and stays planned.

That’s it for now! I will be sharing my travel and points plans as they come up in my trip planning to give you some ideas of the best way to take advantage of these promotions.

2000 Easy Priority Club Points for taking some quizzes.

Evidently this has been around for a while, but I hadn’t seen it yet and it is some of the easiest points you can get.  Priority Club has some quizzes they have for their program and they reward correct answers with free points! If you don’t have a Priority Club account, sign up for one first, then click on the quizzes afterward below to get your free, instantly deposited points into your new account.  Priority club has some “Point Break” hotels that you can get a night at for 5,000 points so these quizzes are almost half of a free night which isn’t bad considering it will only take 5 minutes or so.  Back in September, I redeemed 10,000 points for 2 nights at the Crowne Plaza Petra during my round the world trip at Petra in Jordan and was upgraded to a suite as well!

In the interests of getting you through this quickly, I will give you the quizzes and the answers right beside it.

For Quiz 1, Quiz 2, and Quiz 3

Question 1: Choose the 4th choice, Question 2: Choose the 1st choice, Question 3: Choose the 3rd choice.

For Quiz 4, Quiz 5, Quiz 6

Question 1: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 2: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 3: Choose the 2nd choice.

For Quiz 7, Quiz 8, Quiz 9

Question 1: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 2: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 3: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 4: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 5: Choose the 3rd Choice.

Quiz 10

Question 1: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 2: Choose the first choice, Question 3: Choose the 3rd choice.

Quiz 11

Question 1: Choose the 3rd Choice, Question 2: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 3: Choose the 2nd choice.

Quiz 12

Question 1: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 2: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 3: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 4: Choose the 4th Choice, Question 5: Choose the 3rd Choice.

There you have it!  2,000 easy points.  Enjoy! Hat tips to The Points Guy and Mommy Points, two of my favorite blogs!