Last month I stayed two nights in a Holiday Inn for $66 per night. My two night stay earned a free night at any IHG property worldwide from the stay two nights, earn a free night promotion that ran for about 14 weeks from May 4 to August 15.
Loyalty Traveler April 27 post – http://loyaltytraveler.boardingarea.com/2009/04/27/ic-hotels-group-promo-one-free-night-for-every-two-nights/
Loyalty Traveler July 16 post – http://loyaltytraveler.boardingarea.com/2009/07/16/priority-club-free-nights-or-double-points-until-aug-15/
There was a term in the free nights promotion stating members had the choice of Double Points, Double Miles, or Free Nights. The preference for free nights was capped at four free nights earned after 8 nights of qualifying hotel stays. A condition of earning free nights was forfeiting base and elite points for the hotel stay.
• Paragraph 9 (a): Members who have re-registered will not earn base and elite points or miles from date of re-registration until 15 August 2009.
I forfeited $132 in base points from my hotel stay, but I earned a free night for my two night paid stay.
I did not earn 1,320 Priority Club base points from this hotel stay.
I did earn 5,640 Priority Club bonus points from this hotel stay. The bonus points posted to my account within days of my stay.
Net result is my paid two night stay spending $132 for a decent Holiday Inn in Henderson, Nevada earned a free night at any IHG property worldwide (an InterContinental Hotel is calling me) and 5,640 points (PointBreaks free night is whispering to me).
Holiday Inn Henderson has the distinction of being the first hotel I recall reading all positive TripAdvisor hotel reviews. While this property would not normally be my recommendation for a Las Vegas hotel stay, the location was convenient for where I needed to be during my Las Vegas trip. And I appreciate a 24-hour pool.
Priority Club Insider and FlyerTalk as Priority Club Promotion Sources
FlyerTalk has a long thread with Priority Club promotion links and discussion. Radioman has consolidated information in the first post of this 150+page thread.
Priority Club Insider is a well-organized site for staying up-to-date with new Priority Club promotion offers. I keep this site on my RSS feed.
The week before my Holiday Inn stay I registered for several promotions through links posted on these two sites. Taking 30 minutes to read over promotions and register for offers earned the equivalent of $564 base spending in Priority Club points. I would have earned 0 points for this stay without the extra effort.
The 5,640 Priority Club bonus points came from just two offers.
One bonus offer I received was 3,000 bonus points toward elite status for an IHG brand stay within 90 days.
Another bonus offer I received was Triple Points. The application of this bonus is interesting. While I did not receive the 1,320 base points for my $132 Holiday Inn hotel stay, I did receive 2,640 bonus points for this stay. Basically I received 0 base points, yet I still earned double bonus points based on the 1,320 base points with the triple points promotion.
Combinable promotions allow a Priority Club member to pull in 5,000 to 10,000 points per hotel stay a good deal of the time. Priority Club counts all earned points towards elite status. Earning 60,000 points for Priority Club Platinum elite may seem like a formidable feat requiring somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 in annual hotel spending. The reality is the going is easy with combinable promotions, the ability to buy points with hotel stays, and the relatively new option of purchasing points for Cash& Points stays. Earning 60,000 Priority Club points and Platinum elite status can be accomplished by some members for under $1,500 a year.
Gotta love Priority Club as a loyalty traveler.
