Why you should try to stay one night in a Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza or InterContinental each year

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The question ‘Which is the best hotel loyalty programme?’ is a long and complex one. The answer is usually different for each person. However, it is generally fair to say that no-one will go wrong by trying to squeeze in one Priority Club stay per year.

Priority Club is the loyalty scheme for Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental and some other small brands. If I had to sum up Priority Club in one phrase, I would say “great for points earning, great for redemptions, rubbish for status recognition’.

There is one reason why you should try to move one hotel stay a year to a Priority Club brand. Priority Club has a lot of very generous promotional codes which they send out to members. These are usually targetted at lapsed members, offering 3000 points on your next stay, or 1000 points for every stay in the next 60 days, or 5000 points for a weekend stay.

The key, though, is that these codes can be used by anyone, whether or not that person was originally targetted.

There is a thread on Flyertalk which lists Priority Club promotional codes.

Each promotion has its own promo code. All you need to do is write down all of the currently active codes from Flyertalk or Priority Club Insider, and then visit www.priorityclub.com/register to activate them on your account. Note that some of these codes only work for 30, 60 or 90 days from registration, so don’t sign up if you have no stays planned.

New codes appear every few months, so if you push one stay a year towards Priority Club then you will hoover up a lot of points. If you travel with your partner, do a stay in your name and your next stay on an account in their name – this way you will get all of the ‘one off’ codes on each account.

Here is what I got for our cheapo stay at Crowne Plaza Marlow two weeks ago, our first stay in a few months. We had 2 rooms, one for us and one for our kids, and I put the 2nd room in my wifes name so we doubled up on the points:

BASE POINTS 3,118 pts.
PLATINUM BONUS 1,559 pts.
ELITE MEMBER NEXT STAY BONUS 3,000 pts.
WELCOME BACK BONUS 1,500 pts.
20,000 POINTS OR 4,000 MILES 1,000 pts.
ANNIVERSARY BONUS OFFER 1,000 pts.
1,000 BONUS POINTS FOR 60 DAYS 1,000 pts.
NEXT STAY BONUS 1,500 pts.
20,000 POINTS OR 4,000 MILES 1,000 pts.

That is over 15,000 points for each of us which is enough for a redemption at some Holiday Inn properties.

(Annoyingly, I later found another 1,500 point code I’d missed, but that will trigger on my next stay.)

Priority Club do not expire so you could also sit on them until you can pick up another slug of bonus points in a few months time when a new set of codes are out.

As I said above, Priority Club is certainly not the ideal long-term hotel loyalty programme for everyone. However, I would certainly try to put a very occasional stay with them to benefit from these bonuses.

IHG Rewards update – December 2021:

Get bonus points: You can earn up to triple IHG Rewards base points with IHG’s new Autumn promotion. It runs from 1st October to 31st December. You can register here and our full article on the offer is here.

New to IHG Rewards? Read our overview of IHG Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG Rewards points, you can buy them here.

You will get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG Rewards points by 4th January 2022. Click here to buy or learn more.

Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

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IHG Rewards

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Terence says:

13 Aug13 August 07:22

Thanks for the article. I’ve registered for these promotions in June and stayed at Intercontinental last Fri (check out 10 Aug). wanted your advice on how soon the points are posted ? As i will be staying at Holiday Inn this wednesday till friday and was hoping to register for some of these promotions again as some of these codes are for one time next stay offers
- Raffles says:
  
  13 Aug13 August 10:39
  
  Normally 5 days from chek out. You can still register for promos after check out if the stay has not yet posted.
- Gibraltar Airport Flyer says:
  
  13 Aug13 August 14:52
  
  Terence, not sure if I am understanding you correctly, but do note that some of the ‘one time’ codes are strictly ‘one time’ per account – you might get lucky in a years time on the same account, or certainly lucky with furture different codes, but you can’t keep doing the same ‘next stay’ codes for stay after stay on the same account. [Hope that makes sense, and sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying.]
  
  [Other codes such as the Stay X nights, earn Y are quarterly, and you can only use 1 of them per quarter, per account.]
ups says:

17 Aug17 August 09:25

Oh, by the way – thanks for confirming my guess 🙂
Raffles says:

17 Aug17 August 10:02

Even if you got a twin room, which we got in Marlow in one room, it will be 2 king beds instead of 1 king bed. It won’t be 2 single beds, almost certainly. And in reality, unless the hotel is totally full, you will get the bed preference you want. Priority Club lets you specify bed preference in your profile I think.

The bigger risk with ‘room allocated on check-in’ is that these rates often don’t specify smoking preference. I think hotels often use this sort of description to get rid of their smoking rooms.
ups says:

17 Aug17 August 13:17

Thanks for the info – will look into it then.

Another question – the codes have to be applied to the account before booking or anytime before the stay occurs?
- Raffles says:
  
  17 Aug17 August 18:34
  
  You can usually apply them before the stay posts but after check-out (five day gap usually) but for safety you might as well do them just before you check-in. Don’t do it too early because some are 60 / 90 days ones from sign-up and pay on every stay in that period.
ups says:

17 Aug17 August 18:37

Ah thanks, not an issue with doing it later (will probably do it before check-in). In this case I can book the hotel first and then research into the codes.
ups says:

18 Aug18 August 16:18

I’ve made a booking at Holiday Inn using your 2-4-1 link (after quite a bit of calculations comparing various offers/websites). Think I’ve done well, thanks to your post(s) 🙂

During the booking and in the confirmation, the “eligible points to be earned” were shown – does this not mean that you earn points definitely on this rate?

I’ve taken screenshots nonetheless, and would hope they post automatically otherwise will try to claim.

Next will be researching the codes, closer to the date of stay!
- Roger says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 09:54
  
  Perhaps, or perhaps not.
  
  We had 3 stays at UK Holiday Inns in March, all showing the points to be earned. In the end, 1 posted with points, the other 2 not.
  
  Since the rates we not qualifying, I couldn’t complain, especially as the promotion was £60 a night for B&B and dinner. 🙂
- Raffles says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 13:06
  
  The 241 rates DEFINITELY qualify for points. The way PC treats them is that you pay full price for 1 night and nothing for the next night. You are therefore due points for the paid night, although technically you should only get 1 qualifying night and not 2.
  
  My last 2 Marlow stays posted OK and came with 2 qualifying nights, not 1. If your 2-4-1 posts as a non-qualifying stay, then a quick email to Priority Club will see it rectified. You will definitely get the points in the end. And retro-claiming via PC has no impact at all on getting the bonus points, they still post fine.
  - Roger says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 13:26
    
    Quite right. My rate was not 2-4-1. (Must remember to read comments thoroughly …)
- ups says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 15:22
  
  Thanks guys!