Holiday Inn / Crowne Plaza '2-4-1 special rates' disappearing?

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Last September I wrote this long piece on the special discount codes which allowed you to save money at Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, Indigo, InterContinental etc hotels.

The discounts discussed in that post had been around for a number of years. Unfortunately, with the improving economic situation, it seems that IHG is clamping down on special offers.

Two of the most popular offers – the 2-4-1 rate and the 3-4-2 rate – seem to have disappeared entirely. I cannot get them to appear even for hotels where they were normally certain to pop up, such as the Holiday Inn Ariel at Heathrow.

The ‘Exclusive Prepaid Rate A’ rate, which gave a 35% discount, has also gone as far as I can tell.

What IS still working is the IHG ‘Friends & Family’ rate, which you can access via this link. However, you can 100% certain that you will NOT earn IHG Rewards Club points on this rate. With so many bonus codes around at the moment, you would probably be worse off using ‘Friends & Family’.

A new replacement deal?

I wrote last week about the new ‘10% off weekend stays’ offer for all IHG Rewards Club members. This deal is simple to understand, as it shows automatically when you log in. It also applies to all hotels. However, this deal is due to end on 28th February.

There is one new offer about. Via IHG’s ‘Green Room’ discount site, there is a ‘30% off Partnership Rate’. This is offered to members of a wide range of associations and groups, but you don’t necessarily need a voucher – all Leeds United fans qualify, for example.

There are still deals out there for IHG Family properties, but they are certainly less generous than they were.

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.

David says:

31 Jan31 January 07:32

Re 241: what is certainly happening is that advance purchase restrictions are being enforced now.
Also being offered less, but the enforced requirement to book further in advance is the big change.
Waribai says:

31 Jan31 January 07:42

Yes, even Green room seems to have gone rather pear shaped this year. Often difficult to find qualifying hotels in London e.g. next weekend. Unless I’m using the wrong link?
CV says:

31 Jan31 January 08:23

Haven’t seen the 10% off for rooms in Asia, so might be region/hotel dependent, but was offered a points package – 5000 points for 50HK$, about £4, only available on best flexible rate though.
- John says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 11:33
  
  10% discount is for Europe only
Jonny says:

31 Jan31 January 09:27

Timely post Raffles as I was just yesterday looking to book something up and couldn’t use these codes – even the friends and family discount seemed to be more like 20-25% than the previous c.35%. Can’t say I’m totally surprised but is rather disappointing if they’re gone for good.
gnarlyoldgoatdude says:

31 Jan31 January 11:43

You say that the Friends and Family code doesn’t earn points, but does it count as a stay. Is it worth doing to get cheaper deals on those final few Big Win stays?

Love the Ariel btw. Some of those rooms on the inside of the circle almost feel like those in a pod hotel, they taper to such a narrow point.
- Rob says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 18:46
  
  No, unfortunately not
Mark says:

31 Jan31 January 12:40

If that is all coming through soon, I guess it will make IHG a poor-value group rather than the good-value group it has been (if you know and use the offers).
Time to leave? Cash in the points before they devalue them again, sign up for all quarterly offers and use them on on night for 20-30,000 more, then just use the F&F (until they want the friend to sign you in!) where it gives best value. Still, it has been good while it lasted…..
FlyingChris47 says:

31 Jan31 January 13:30

Does anyone know if these Green Room 30% rates are eligible for IHG Reward Club Points (& Big Win credits?)

The booking page suggests they are, but not worth losing out on points/bonuses/Big Win credit if going to be a pain retrospectively claiming for a few £?
- Mark says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 15:54
  
  Greenroom bookings normally were eligible, and I hope still ought to be, though obviously things are changing….
  You can tell on your booking page, where it tells you how many points you will earn. Recently it has given me zero for 2-4-1 and F&F bookings but points for all others I have tried. I ASSUME that if you get points, you are always eligible for Big Win (but maybe someone knows different?)
Brian says:

31 Jan31 January 20:49

I stayed at a Holiday Inn recently and used the 10% discount offer, since it was a weekend. The stay posted as non-qualifying, so I contacted their customer services and asked about this. The man told me that the stay was indeed non-qualifying, because the 10% discount added to the Advance Saver rate made the overall ‘discount’ more than 30%, therefore I stood to get no points and status. As a gesture, he said he would add the points for this stay only, but if the same thing happened again, I would not get any points.

Now, I have a couple more such stays coming up and I obviously want them to post properly for the Big Win. The points I get for that would outweigh the small saving with the 10%. I asked him if he could change the rates and he said no, I’d have to speak to the hotels when checking.

BUT, I’ve had a look at the terms and conditions for the 10% discount and there is NO mention of the rate not being eligible for points (the 35% rate, for example, did make this clear), so I think IHG cannot legally withhold points. But as usual, there seems to be no consistency with them.
- Rob says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 21:08
  
  It would be totally ludicrous if a special offer AVAILABLE ONLY TO IHG MEMBERS was non-qualifying. But this is IHG ….!
  - Alan says:
    
    1 Feb1 February 00:38
    
    Indeed, but I’ve seen a few similar reports on FT saying this. Particularly galling as there are also some reports of them relying on this when taking into account IHG rates for BMG purposes! (which seems bonkers given membership rates on non-IHG sites are excluded!)
  - Brian says:
    
    1 Feb1 February 08:36
    
    I think you just have to stick to your guns, if they do try to say you’re not entitled to points. If you look at the offer page on the website, it clearly states that you continue to enjoy benefits including points that never expire. It’s obviously another case of nobody at IHG really knowing what’s going on, so each time is different, since there is no coherent policy.