As a road warrior, hotel status is very important to my travel experience and day-to-day business operations. Some programs like Intercontinental Hotels Group Rewards Club (IHG) allow guests who have over-qualified for their status to rollover excess nights to the following year to make re-qualifying easier. That incentivizes guests like me, until things don’t go as planned.
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Last Year
IHG is a unique program in that they allow rollover nights once you have qualified for status. This makes a lot of sense to help pick up incremental revenue. If you have already qualified with a program for the year and have another 10 nights to book you have two choices, book with your recently qualified elite status program to maximize point accrual, or top up another program and get to a mid-tier level. While it’s always good to have a backup program (IHG was my third backup) if you predominantly stay with one brand then adding incremental stays may be of interest to both parties.
In 2017 I logged 120 nights in IHG properties, mostly in smaller markets close to meetings. None of those nights were rolled over because I carried some over the previous year. However, since Spire Elite requires 75 nights, I rolled over 45 nights into 2018.
This year
With just 30 nights left to re-qualify for Spire Elite (I won’t spend more than that unless it’s at a Kimpton) I am anxious to see them post. Last year, before becoming aware of the program rule precluding guests from rolling nights over two years in a row, I expected to roll some nights in. That creates some trust issues with the program as I previously asked customer support and was assured my excess nights would roll. Clearly, it didn’t matter as I would later find out, but this year I aim to re-qualify for top tier status with SPG/Marriott, Hilton, IHG and probably Hyatt. I am going to have to spread my nights out a little bit better than I did last year so ensuring that my nights rolled over correctly this year is important.
Why Does It Take So Long?
More than 10% into the new qualification year, the rollover night still haven’t posted. While all of the other programs updated a week or two into the new year, IHG hasn’t carried over a single night some 42 nights later.
I called them and was told that all of my nights would rollover, though they didn’t disclose how many I had, it seemed like more of a general statement. I reached out to the IHG Rewards Club team on Facebook as well to find out when I should expect them to post.
The first week of March? That’s crazy! Why does it take so long for IHG to post rollover nights? All of the other programs are well into the swing of things, in fact, first quarter promotions are nearly finished by the time IHG gets around to displaying how many nights their elite guests have carried into the new year.
I have said it about other elite benefits before, if you have to fight to for them or they are unusable, they aren’t really a benefit. The “benefit” makes me dislike the brand more due to poor execution. What’s most disappointing is the pure idiocy of the procedure unnecessarily put in place. Phone support staff can see the nights and calculate the rollover number, why can’t they just process it? Perhaps this is just another way that shows IHG doesn’t treat their elites very well.
Have your IHG rollover nights posted? Are there any other programs that take nine weeks to post?
Mine have “already” posted, though I can’t recall when.
I wish I was in the same boat Paul, I just checked again to see if there had been progress and I needed to update the post. It remains unchanged.
I had 132 IHG nights in 2017, of which 57 should roll over to this year. However, it is now April and the rollover nights have yet to appear, despite 4 calls to their service desk. Promises. Promises. Promises. But no results.
Mine finally did, but it’s an absurdly long wait for something that should be really very simple. It’s about effort. As I result I averaged a night in one of their properties once every three days last year, to-date I haven’t stayed a single night in an IHG property.