a room with a bed and a tv

When hotels compete, we win.

In the aftermath of Marriott Bonvoy, Hyatt acquiring boutique properties and Hilton being Hilton, IHG — home of Intercontinental — is shaking up the elite status quo with an opportunity for any (disgruntled) guests of other chains to match their status, and then complete a challenge to keep it for an extended period.

Here’s everything you need to know to elevate your elite status with a new chain and keep it for a year!

The Details

Intercontinental Mauritius
Image courtesy of Intercontinental Mauritius

To take part in the promotion, you must have an account in the USA or the UK and register between June 17 and June 30. Once you have been approved for the status challenge, you’ll have 90 days to complete stay requirements to maintain your new status. Here are the stay requirements you’ll need to complete during the 90 days for each status tier:

  • Gold Elite – 2 nights
  • Platinum Elite – 5 nights
  • Spire Elite – 10 nights

Keep in mind that only 2,500 people will be provided a Spire Elite challenge. Unfortunately, the terms aren’t very clear as to who is eligible for each challenge level. One would think it would correspond to what level of status you have with another program, but we’d love to hear what happens when you match to confirm.

If you stay the required nights, your new status will be good until the end of 2020 so you’ll have over a year to play with your new IHG elite status.

What Hotel Status Will Be Matched?

IHG Status Match Request Form

Unlike some status match or challenge promos, IHG is allowing you to match elite status from a bunch of competing hotel chains. If you have elite status with any of the following hotel loyalty programs, you’ll be eligible for the match/challenge:

  • Accor
  • Best Western
  • Caesars Entertainment
  • Choice
  • Hilton
  • Hyatt
  • Marriott
  • NH Hotel Group
  • Radisson
  • Wyndham

What Does IHG Elite Status Get You?

IHG Status Challenge

The short answer: Not much. While IHG has a rather large footprint with hotels across the world, the perks of elite status don’t really match what you’d get with Hilton, Hyatt or Marriott. With these three programs, you can guarantee yourself breakfast and lounge benefits. IHG doesn’t even provide top tier Spire Elite members with lounge access or complimentary breakfast.

However, if you find yourself booking lots of nights at IHG properties, a quick path to elite status can help you earn more points on each stay which will help you earn enough points for award stays a bit faster.

IHG Accelerate 2019 Q2

If you’ve been thinking about taking advantage of your IHG Accelerate offers, you might find yourself earning a ton of bonus IHG points AND bumping up your elite status along the way.

Final Thoughts

Personally, I’m not going to be changing my plans to stay at IHG properties just for this. I already have Platinum Elite status which comes with the IHG Premier Card, anyway. Again, though, this really just comes down to what travel plans you have.

If IHG properties offer you what you want at the rate you want, you might as well get a status bump out of it and earn some more points. Just make sure you register for the Accelerate promo to get the most out of it.

H/T: One Mile At A Time

Spencer Howard

Spencer Howard is a credit card rewards and award travel expert. He’s living proof that points and miles can unlock many of the greatest travel experiences and uses his skills to tick off new bucket...

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1 Comment

  1. Nice article Spencer. You’ve made the comparative choices clear about IHG status and whether its worth it. You also mentioned that a different method could still be a better way for someone to get IHG status if anyone still wants IHG status.

    Let’s face it the benefits offered by the IHG program are simply not competitive. When the Accelerate program offered reasonably achievable challenges that would successfully move bookings from other hotels to IHG hotels, the program was just about worth staying in. Right now IHG seems to have poor benefits in their program and not really good earning possibilities. So hard to get interest in this program, I guess. Perhaps it does suit some other people very well, though.

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