Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada.
For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and
miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.
This story revolves around another hotel stay for our kids activities. This time for a dance competition we completed a stay at Holiday Inn Express & Suites.
The stay was at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Lethbridge
and was booked on
a group rate provided by our daughter’s dance studio. This stay was booked way back before Christmas as the studio only blocked off several rooms at the time and the hotel was the closest and primary one for the dance venue so many studios were booking it. When booked there were of course no promotions available yet for May but as time got closer IHG released the Winter Accelerate offer but that ended mid-April but then they released the Spring Bonus Offer for the one month period from April 16 to May 15:
Knowing that we had only this one stay booked I tried to register for the Stay 2-3K offer and I did successfully register for it and it did pay out for the stay.
This offer actually ended a few weeks ago but is a good example of taking advantage of IHG’s systemwide promotions. The Spring Bonus offer was a stop-gap promo IHG ran until they launched the next Accelerate promotion which is live right now and you can take advantage of it for stays over this entire summer:
IHG Rewards Club Accelerate: Earn 500 to 30,000 or more Bonus IHG
Rewards Club Points when you complete stays at IHG Hotels Worldwide.
Bonus varies by member Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required) Until Aug 31, 17
Screen shot of the IHG Rewards Club Points that posted with this stay:
At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 1,832 base IHG Rewards Club
Points plus 3,000 points from the Spring Bonus offer. Not a huge amount of points but still the bonus nearly tripled what we would have earned if there was no bonus. Not to mention we were awarded these points on a negotiated group rate that a lot of times do not earn points so I’ll take whatever we can get! The 4,832 points is almost enough points for one free night during the quarterly IHG Rewards Club PointBreaks offers that only cost 5,000 points per night.
Did you take advantage of IHG’s Spring Bonus or are you looking to push the limits with the current Accelerate offer? We’d love
to hear how you have maximized these offers! Leave us a
comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.
Tips for Hotel Stays
–
Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points – If there is a bonus
most of
my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus
points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like
AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying
for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this
post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list
of hotel bonus offers
see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
– Read the fine print – When a bonus offer is available be sure that
your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
–
If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn’t your primary
program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred
airline rather than earning the hotel points. You’ll still have to join
that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your
preferred airline.
Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we
want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or
miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to
hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada.
Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you
earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what
offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca