Airline frequent flyer programs were much simpler for me to understand than hotel loyalty programs when I started collecting miles and points over 20 years ago. The problem with figuring hotel loyalty programs for a leisure traveler is the lack of experience when you have no necessity to spend 50 to 100 nights a year in hotels. The past 20 years using hotel loyalty programs has given me experience with a lot of hotels in dozens and dozens of hotel brands learning about hotel loyalty promotions and elite status benefits with all the major hotel loyalty programs.
IHG Rewards Club ‘Free Nights Faster’ is the current promotion through April 30, 2019 for members to earn at least 40,000 bonus points by completing your individually targeted member-tasks. And excuse me if I slip up and write ‘Faster Free Nights’ since that was one of the most lucrative hotel promotions for a decade with Hyatt Gold Passport.
My IHG Free Nights Faster offer has 6 tasks to earn 52,550 bonus points. One component of the Free Nights Faster promotion is an ‘Achievement Bonus’ earned with the completion of a set number of given tasks. Some members have to complete all their tasks to earn the Achievement Bonus and some members were given the option of skipping one or two tasks and still earning the ‘Achievement Bonus’.
My Free Nights Faster offer Achievement Bonus required completion for 5 of the 6 tasks. The 5th task earned 1,845 bonus points and posted to my account two days ago, along with the 16,850 Achievement Bonus points.
My IHG work is done for this promotion season with 42 days still counting in Free Nights Faster. All my hotel needs for the next two months are currently fulfilled with other hotel chain stays.
My final tally is IHG Rewards Club Free Nights Faster promotion earned 60,757 points for 3 hotel nights in Warsaw at 3 different hotels over the course of 7 nights.
- Holiday Inn Warsaw City Centre ($68.04) earned 5,302 points.
- InterContinental Warsaw ($128.50) earned 12,997 points.
- Holiday Inn Express Warsaw Airport ($92.75) earned 25,608 points.
- IHG Free Nights Faster Achievement Bonus 16,850 points.
60,757 total points earned from 3 hotel nights for $291 with IHG Rewards Club Free Nights Faster bonus points.
I redeemed 20,000 of those 60,757 points last week for a 2 night stay in Dallas where the room rate is $352.93 after tax for 2 nights. That gives my IHG points earned a redemption value equal to $17.64 per 1,000 points.
My 3 nights in Warsaw covered my lodging needs and was also like buying 60,000 points at $5.00 per 1,000 points.
Which, by the way, $5.00 per 1,000 points is the same price IHG Rewards Club flash sale through March 22, 2019 is selling points when you buy 7,000 to 100,000 points at $10 per 1,000 points and they tack on 100% bonus points to your purchased points. You can buy 200,000 IHG Rewards Club points for $1,000 with this offer.
The benefit for me of my recent trip to Europe is I needed lodging in Warsaw and $291 earned 60,757 bonus points. A related post of mine from last week IHG Free Nights Faster – $291 earned 60,000 points with 3 nights in Warsaw (March 9, 2019) offers a detailed account of how each of the three hotel stays fulfilled tasks with an accounting of how many points were earned. There are also hotel review links.
The past two IHG Rewards Club promotions pulled in 100,000 points on $550 in spend by me for 6 hotel nights with IHG. I picked up 44,000 IHG points during a trip to Disneyland in November 2018 and my trip to Warsaw this month earned 60,000 IHG points.
I redeemed 60,000 IHG points in the past 4 months on 4 reward nights for rooms costing more than $600. Amsterdam for 2 nights in January and an upcoming stay of 2 nights at a Candlewood Suites in Dallas.
Looking forward to the next IHG promotion and hope it is something I can take advantage of during June travel in Europe.
Or, perhaps there will be a good set of IHG Rewards Club Pointbreaks for June-July travel to spend more of these points I earned.
