Get 10,000 IHG Rewards Club points for joining InterContinental Ambassador – worth it?

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UPDATE – DECEMBER 2021: This article is now out of date, but don’t worry. We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.

You can earn up to triple IHG Rewards base points with IHG’s new Autumn promotion. It runs from 1st October to 31st December 2021. You can register here and our full article on the offer is here.

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

Yesterday I wrote about the current IHG Rewards Club ‘Your World Sale’. There is also a special offer on for joining the InterContinental Ambassador loyalty scheme.

There is a link at the bottom of this IHG ‘Your World Sale’ page to this offer. When I click the link it does not divert properly, but it is meant to divert to the Ambassador home page here. Annoyingly the offer is not mentioned there.

A lot of people instantly reject the idea of joining Ambassador because of the $200 membership fee. Given that IHG will sweeten the deal with 10,000 IHG Rewards Club points (not status qualifying, I think) worth $60-$70, I thought it was worth explaining why I DO think it makes sense for many people.

I have, after all, been a member myself for many years now and only last month paid for my 2018 renewal. My wife is also currently a member as it was worth signing her up purely to get benefits on one stay in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Putting InterContinental Ambassador in context

InterContinental, the luxury hotel brand inside IHG Rewards Club (which also covers Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and others) is a little odd when it comes to loyalty schemes:

As part of the Holiday Inn / Crowne Plaza group, it participates in IHG Rewards Club

InterContinental does not officially recognise your IHG Rewards Club status. In reality, they often do, but it is not guaranteed.

InterContinental also has its own loyalty scheme – Ambassador – which costs $200 to join

And yet, despite the $200 fee ($150 to renew), I consider Ambassador a good deal. This article summarises why it works for me.

The key thing about Ambassador is that, once you are a member, the benefits are GUARANTEED on paid stays. They are NOT guaranteed on reward stays, but most properties do let you have them. These benefits are:

A certificate for a free weekend night when you join and each year when you renew. In one swoop, you can save your entire membership fee with this benefit. To use the voucher, you need to book a 2-night weekend stay and pay the Best Flexible Rate for the other night. The letter of the rules says that only standard rooms can be booked. However, most hotels let you book club rooms or suites – this is an important benefit, especially if you have children and want larger rooms.

(As Best Flexible Rate is more expensive than a non-refundable Advance Purchase rate, your free night is not totally free if you would otherwise have booked a pre-paid rate as you have paid a few Euros or $ more. It is totally free if you would otherwise have booked at Best Flexible Rate though.)

GUARANTEED one-level room upgrade – this is usually processed before you arrive and is visible online

4pm check-out – this is a GUARANTEED benefit and comes in very handy on a weekend break with an evening flight back home

A free pay-TV movie per stay, every stay

Free fruit and mineral water in your room

A welcome gift – varies from chocolates or wine to weird local souvenirs!

Double occupancy for single occupancy rate – useful in Germany, one of the few countries where they still charge a ‘second person’ supplement

Obviously InterContinental Ambassador is not for everyone. You can earn back the cost of membership in just one weekend stay, though. It may even be worth it even if you had just one long stay booked and wanted to guarantee your upgrade. Ambassador members also receive Gold status in IHG Rewards Club, although that doesn’t get you far.

The Ambassador ‘free weekend night’ voucher can be better than using points to book a free room. I used my 2017 free night at InterContinental Hong Kong over Easter. The only reason to stay at this hotel is the astounding views over the harbour from the harbourside rooms. IHG Rewards Club redemption nights, however, only book into the street side – and if you get upgraded, you only ever get a bigger room on the street side. Using a ‘free weekend night’ voucher let me stay on the water side whilst also making a big saving.

Renewal is even cheaper, at just $150, and you receive another ‘free weekend night’ certificate and a bonus of 5,000 IHG Rewards Club points. More interestingly, on renewal you are offered a second option:

Renew for $200 instead of the standard $150

Receive 15,000 points instead of 5,000 points

Receive a 10% points rebate on all of your redemption bookings – across all brands – for the following year. I do this, and find that this really adds up which makes the $200 renewal option the best choice for me.

You can learn more about InterContinental Ambassador here if it sounds interesting. However, I recommend clicking through from the link on the sale website here if it is working properly.

There is an option to use 32,000 IHG Rewards Club points instead of paying $200 in cash. With the fall in the value of the £, this payment route is looking more attractive than it was. I am assuming – although it isn’t written anywhere – that you also get the 10,000 bonus points for joining Ambassador if you pay with points.

The offer for 10,000 bonus IHG Rewards Club points runs until 29th November.

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.

Category

IHG Rewards

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

Talay says:

23 Nov23 November 09:13

How are people getting to Spire Elite ? Really staying 75 nights or whatever the number is ?
- Craig Strickland says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 09:21
  
  I’d rather not spend 75+ nights in a HI near Bradford (Currently at 78 since Feb!), but when that’s where your employer sends you that’s where you go.
- Genghis says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:17
  
  For me, primarily credit card spend.
  - Rob says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 10:24
    
    My wife and I were both about 35k short (as we did the same stays, pretty much, as we tended to take 2 rooms with 1 kid in each). I put £18,000 of VAT and PAYE through her IHG Premium credit card to fill her gap and I moved over some Virgin miles to fill my gap. Very worthwhile, partly for the status and partly for the 25k bonus points.
- Pangolin says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 14:04
  
  Another way is to buy the Bonus Points packages during stays – they count as EQ points rather than just rewards points.
New Card says:

23 Nov23 November 09:15

Rob – my only planned IC stay is a few redemption nights at the IC Abu Dhabi. Am I right in remembering that you think AMB had next to no value in this case? I recall you had a stay there once and didn’t get much benefit…
- Rob says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:27
  
  Yes, they are one of the properties who game the system. Upgraded to a Club Room – which is identical to a standard room, perhaps with the addition of a coffee machine and a robe – but refused lounge access.
  
  I am guessing you will be on a day flight back so 4pm check-out isn’t worth much either.
  - New Card says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 14:36
    
    Thank you, that’s v helpful! I don’t suppose you got anywhere complaining to IHG about the hotel gaming the system?
    - Rob says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 15:19
      
      No, because IHG seems happy with this.
Alan says:

23 Nov23 November 09:25

Sadly the exclusion of reward stays from most benefits makes this unappealing for me. I normally only stay once or twice a year at IC properties, almost always on redemption. Despite having lots of IHG points I’ve got no particular desire to increase this given lack of benefits – by comparison could have a Conrad stay and have better treatment.
- Rob says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:26
  
  Really, I have never been hit with this on reward nights. Perhaps I have just been lucky in the hotels I have used but I have never had to fight for benefits.
  - Alan says:
    
    25 Nov25 November 16:54
    
    That’s reassuring to here. Going to drop from Hilton Diamond in March so might look a bit more at ICs. Will see what Singapore one is like, previous ones I’ve tried (Wellington & San Francisco were fine, but nothing special).
  - Alan says:
    
    25 Nov25 November 16:57
    
    The 10% back on reward bookings could be quite nice though as you say.
David says:

23 Nov23 November 09:58

Any experience on treatment of Ambassadors on third-party bookings? I have a BA Holidays booking at the IC Bucharest next May – wondering if AMB might be worth a punt… Currently IHG Spire Elite but probably dropping to Gold next year, so the unofficial Spire extension might be handy.
- Lewis Watson says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:00
  
  Are there no soft landings in IHG? Won’t you drop to platinum
  - David says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 11:31
    
    Apparently not, but I can’t speak from experience – happy to be corrected though!
    - LB says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 11:47
      
      This year I dropped from Spire to Platinum despite only staying at IHG a couple of times in 2016.
- tallwills says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 17:14
  
  So, if i pay for IC Ambassador now, with it extend my Spire Elite level for another year?
  - Rob says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 18:28
    
    That seems to work for most people. Cannot be more precise!
Mark e says:

23 Nov23 November 10:08

Just seen something here that would be handy for me, did I read this right?

If I get Ambassador and then spend 20,000 to have a rewards night in a Holiday Inn Express, I will automatically get 2,000 rewards points back.
- Genghis says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:13
  
  The 10% rebate is for renewals only.
  - Mark e says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 21:48
    
    Thanks, now that I have read the previous comments, I can see that this had been explained twice before, oops.
Harvey says:

23 Nov23 November 10:29

I still have a weekend certificate to use. Expiry is 02/18. Does that mean it expires at the end of February or at the start?
- Rob says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:38
  
  End.
TripRep says:

23 Nov23 November 10:40

Never been attracted to this deal.

Is there a consensus of how this aligns with Hilton Gold or Diamond, esp with the free wknd night for £750 spend on the Platinum Visa.?
- Rob says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 10:45
  
  It is a pure cost / benefit calculation on your stays. If you are in the US a fair bit, the 4pm check-out is great when you have a 10pm flight home. If you do a lot of luxury weekend breaks, the 241 voucher means you can’t fail to save money.
  
  The 4pm thing also works well for weekend breaks and can make a big difference to your trip, especially on a one night stay somewhere. It means you can sightsee all day on Day 2 before checking out at 4pm and heading off for an early evening flight home.
  - TripRep says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 11:02
    
    But how much more expensive is the fully flex rate than a sale price?
    
    Think if I stayed at hotels very often I’d consider it, I guess Hilton seems to have good coverage in most places I currently tend to want to stay as a leisure traveller. I also have Club Carlson Gold as a backup to Hilton.
    
    The guaranteed 4pm check out is definitely attractive, Hilton Miami Airport kindly gave me this & a corner suite before our evening VS UC flight back to the UK.
  - Nick says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 11:57
    
    Am I unusual not to have an issue with checking out at, say, 11 and leaving my bag with the hotel for the day? Before a shorthaul flight anyway, if leaving the US then a shower is nice, but I don’t care in Europe.
    - TripRep says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 12:32
      
      My 2pm check out at Hilton Birmingham Metropole was definitely useful for a pm flight and recovering from a v late night the eve before..
    - Rob says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 13:20
      
      Obviously you can do that but it isn’t as convenient. If there is a lounge you can also pop in for an afternoon snack before leaving too!
AndyR says:

23 Nov23 November 10:59

OT There has been some discussion recently about a change to the Amex referral T&C’s allowing you to refer any card (apart from Basic).

Well my partner referred me from an Amex SPG card and I applied for the Amex Gold and I can confirm she received the 5000 SPG referral points! Excellent!

So it looks like you do not have to apply for the same card currency anymore.
- AndyR says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 11:01
  
  Sorry for posting on this one by the way I thought I was on the ‘Bits’ article.
  - Genghis says:
    
    23 Nov23 November 11:49
    
    Yep. You prompted me to run some numbers. It doesn’t work out me keeping the Plat and referring from that for 18k each time. Now for the BAPP and SPG analysis. I think my spreadsheet needs to grow significantly in size…
    - Lawro says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 12:59
      
      No, it doesn’t and that’s partially because you’re still capped at 90k MR per year. But getting 18k MR for an SPG card referral, for example, is a very good return. Can be 9k SPG if converted rather than the usual 5k SPG for referrals.
    - Jonathan says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 15:11
      
      @genghis, as Platinum is the most lucrative referral card at 18k points – why do you say that’s not benifital to you anymore? Have I missed something?
    - Genghis says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 15:43
      
      I’ve built my model now for all cards. Gave some interesting results. Essentially the cost of keeping the card longer = more in fees but offset by the additional referrals. You then lose the bonus points from the Plat that you’re holding. Doing this, the less you spend per month, the better the value of keeping the Plat.
      
      I then modelled some short term referrals and they come up trumps.
      
      If this all works out, I expect HfP to see a significant decline in referrals as people bring them more “in house”.
    - xcalx says:
      
      23 Nov23 November 17:17
      
      “No, it doesn’t and that’s partially because you’re still capped at 90k MR per year. But getting 18k MR for an SPG card referral, for example, is a very good return. Can be 9k SPG if converted rather than the usual 5k SPG for referrals.”
      
      Is there any data point for this. I am ready to refer a couple of SPGs and would prefer to get the 18,000 MR from the Plat card than 5000 from SPG.
      
      Thanks.
- Lawro says:
  
  23 Nov23 November 21:00
  
  @xcalx 17:17
  
  I was just basing my analysis on the reports today (@AndyR 10:59) that suggest referring a card from a different ‘card family’ is possible (again).