IHG One Rewards

Hallo Diamond Elite Mitgleid is my IHG German lesson today

a beach with palm trees and blue water

Like many travel blog readers around the world, I woke up yesterday morning to the news that IHG had a special offer for instant Diamond elite status, which normally requires 70 nights or 120,000 elite points. Diamond elite through 2023 after 10 hotel nights by December 31, 2022 made this offer even more enticing for me since I already have 18 nights at IHG hotels booked before the end of year as an IHG Platinum member via the Chase IHG Premier Mastercard. 

I generally check TweetDeck each morning where I follow BoardingArea and quickly scroll through the past day’s posts by BoardingArea bloggers. View from the Wing was not the first blogger to write about the Instant IHG Diamond Elite offer, but Gary’s article happened to be the most recent blog to post about the offer when I checked my Tweetdeck feed, so it was the link I used yesterday morning to register. 

The registration link in the first line of his post took me to this page:

a screenshot of a website
IHG One Reards Instant Diamond elite promotion registration with no promotion code required.

NOTE: The registration page for this IHG offer has been pulled after promotion links were shared around the world over the past 48 hours.

After entering my IHG member number and clicking “Register Now” button I landed on this page:

a screenshot of a computer
IHG Diamond Elite registration confirmation 10-13-22

An email I received from IHG also stated I was successfully registered for the promotion.

a beach with palm trees and a house
IHG Straight to Diamond promotion email confirmation.

At this point in time I still had not found any links to the promotion terms and conditions.

All looked good – until I went back to IHG.com to find my page showing the flag of Germany and all the text on the IHG website in German.

screens screenshot of a screenshot of a website
My IHG account now displays in German.

IHG Straight to Diamond

Today I found the actual IHG Straight to Diamond promotion link with terms and conditions through a link in the comment by Guy on the UK blog HeadsforPoints.com.

a beach with palm trees and blue water
IHG Straight to Diamond actual promotion page.

IHG Straight to Diamond Terms and Conditions

2022 IHG One Rewards Straight to Diamond Terms and Conditions

*(Bold font sections are mine to highlight some of the terms and conditions.)

To be eligible for the IHG One Rewards “Straight to Diamond†promotion (“Promotionâ€), an individual must be a full-time employee of a company that has been expressly invited by IHG to partake in the Promotion. To participate in the Promotion, the individual must register for the Promotion and must be eligible at the time of registration. To register, the eligible individual must have an IHG One Rewards member account and must register under their member number. If the individual is not already an IHG One Rewards member at the time they seek to register for the Promotion, they can enroll in the IHG One Rewards program prior to registering, at no cost. The Promotion registration period begins on 3 October 2022 and ends on 31 December 2022 (“Promotion Registration Periodâ€). Once a member registers for the Promotion, the member will automatically be upgraded to IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite status and can start enjoying the associated benefits. This Promotion is not available to members who reside in Greater China, nor will any hotel stays within the Greater China region be considered a Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay for purposes of this Promotion.

A member’s upgrade to Diamond Elite status through this Promotion will remain in effect for the 90-day period immediately following their registration for the Promotion. A member, however, can keep their IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite status through the end of December 2023 by having a certain number of qualifying night stays during their 90-day post-registration period (the “Stay Periodâ€). Specifically, a member with ten (10) qualifying nights during their Stay Period will keep their IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite status through the end of December 2023. Because this 90-day “Stay Period†follows a member’s registration for the Promotion, each member who registers will have their own Stay Period. By way of example, a member who registers on 1 November 2022 will have a 90-day Stay Period beginning on the date of registration (1 November 2022) and ending 90 days later, on 29 January 2023, to complete their ten (10) qualifying nights and keep Diamond Elite status through the end of December 2023.

To be a qualifying night under this Promotion, the room night must be part of a Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay, and the room night must fall within the member’s Stay Period. Room nights prior to registration for the Promotion or outside of the member’s Stay Period are not included. A “Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay†is a minimum one (1)-night stay booked under a Qualifying Rate, with a room rate exceeding US $30 (or local currency equivalent) for each night. Bookings made through on-line travel agencies or other reservation sites such as booking.com or expedia.com do not qualify under this Promotion. If more than one member checks into the same room, only one member is eligible to count the room nights towards the Promotion (for those nights that qualify). If a member books more than one room on the same night, the member will only receive credit for qualifying nights for one room.

Diamond Elite status awarded under this Promotion will be reflected in the member’s IHG One Rewards account following registration for the Promotion and, if applicable, will be extended through December 2023 following completion of the number of qualifying nights required to achieve an extension of their Diamond Elite status through this Promotion. The standard requirements for achieving various levels of Elite status under the IHG One Rewards programme, which would apply once any Diamond Elite status awarded or earned in connection with this special Promotion expires, are included in the IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions, which can be found here.

IHG may immediately terminate the Promotion if it determines, in its sole discretion, that ineligible individuals are registering or attempting to register for the Promotion. IHG may also retract Diamond Elite status granted under this Promotion, and withdraw any points associated with such upgraded status from the member’s account, if such status was awarded in error or if the member was not eligible to participate.

A member’s participation in the IHG One Rewards programme and this Promotion are subject to the IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions, which can be found here or by visiting www.ihg.com/onerewards. IHG expressly reserves the right to remove a member’s points, downgrade their status, or cancel their account if fraudulent use of the Promotion is detected, and any fraudulent other prohibited activity relating to a member’s account, a member’s participation in this Promotion, or restricted rate offerings is subject to the IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions, including any of the identified actions that may be taken in response to such activity. To the extent permitted by applicable law, IHG reserves the right of interpretation of the Promotion, as well as the right to cancel, terminate, suspend and/or modify the Promotion. This promotional offer is valid only for the original eligible individuals who received the offer to participate in the Promotion and cannot be transferred or conveyed. Members must make any enquiries regarding this Promotion by 2 March 2023.

*****

Bekomme ich ein kostenloses Frühstück?

Google translate shows me that is how to translate “Will I receive free breakfast?” in German.

I’ll let you know my IHG status for my trip by tweeting “kostenloses Frühstück” (free breakfast) photos during my 18 mornings at IHG hotels if I still have IHG Diamond elite status for my European vacation. 

A couple of days ago I wrote about why I switched 10 reward nights at IHG hotels to 10 paid nights for an upcoming trip to Europe due to calculating the net difference between redeeming 113,000 points compared to spending $1,080 for 10 IHG hotel nights was only $9.00 more per room night. I can conserve 113,000 IHG points cancelling 10 reward nights and earn at least 85,000 points as a Platinum member for 10 paid nights, and probably 90,000 points as a Diamond member, if that status remains in my account. My hope is to redeem my Milestone Reward confirmable suite upgrade selected after staying 20 IHG nights in 2022 on one of my two 5-night paid stays. 

While I will not reach IHG Diamond elite with 70 nights in 2022, my objective is to finish 2022 with 40 IHG nights to earn two more IHG Milestone Rewards in 2022 and qualify for IHG Platinum elite the hard way with 40 nights.

And if anyone has suggestions on how I can restore my US flag and English as default language for IHG’s website, I would appreciate the advice. Currently I have to change language to English each time I go to IHG.com.

In the meantime I will “Deutsch lesen lernen.”

 

4 Comments

  • Wasted5Minutes October 15, 2022

    What’s the point of this post, exactly?

  • Ric Garrido October 16, 2022

    Most bloggers posted the IHG instant Diamond link the day before this post with no specific details about the source of the actual promotion or any details to back up the claim that staying 10 nights extends Diamond elite through 2023. This post shows the full promotion details and my experience when clicking the link on View from the Wing.

    When I log into IHG now my page shows Germany as place of residence and language defaults to German.

    I am sharing some of the risks involved with signing up for targeted promotions spread around blogs.

    I have read on other blogs that some Club level members who signed up for this offer had their Diamond elite status removed, while Platinum members retain their instant Diamond.

    My account still shows Diamond. I will be appreciative of finding this link on View from the Wing if my status holds through the end of 2022. That will be worth more than $500 in hotel breakfast value as an IHG Diamond elite for my upcoming 18 nights.

    The point of this post is to explain who the promotion was originally meant for and provide a personal data point how my account was impacted by registering for this offer. Annoying for me to change IHG website language to English each time I login on my primary computer, the device I used to register. My IHG mobile app was not affected.

  • ChickB October 17, 2022

    I don’t recall which article I read, but I signed up and nearly instantly received the upgraded to Diamond email on, Sat I think. Account still shows Diamond. I had just purchased Ambassador the day before and so was a Platinum, so there’s another DP on that detail.

    My page loads in English. I presume you’ve checked for any regional language setting on IHGs website?

  • Ric Garrido October 20, 2022

    Finally fixed my Oberdorla, Germany browser location after days of being denied access to numerous websites, like Boarding Area and Choice Hotels. It became imperative to solve the problem yesterday when I could not access Choice Hotels to make a reservation. Also blocked from using the AAdvantage shopping portal.

    No longer seeing all my Google ads in German.

    Still IHG Diamond. Thinking about giving a Diamond elite benefits test run next week at a Holiday Inn.

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