IHG Rewards has now implemented its own version of Milestone Bonuses (the idea was stolen from Hilton Honors of course). Oddly, they haven’t really told anybody about it, and have simply buried it in your IHG Rewards account.
The basic principle is that you earn 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights spent.
There is no registration required, but if you want to check it out for yourself, you should look for the “Messages” button on your account, and then click on the Book Now button underneath the “10k Bonus Points Every 10 Nights”.
You might be able to jump directly there by clicking on this link.
When you reach the 40-night milestone, you will earn 30,000 bonus points (instead of 10,000).
One MAJOR Issue
A Qualifying night is defined as a minimum 1-night stay booked under a Qualifying Rate, with total spend exceeding $30 per night.
It is worth remembering that award nights count for elite status qualification with IHG Rewards. (and with every other major hotel chain) However they will NOT qualify you for these Milestone Bonuses. (like they would at Hilton)
Essentially, therefore, this is just another chain-wide promotion offering 1,000 points per night, but only if you stay exactly 10, 20, 30, etc. paid nights. It will stack with every other promotion that IHG runs during 2021, so that’s good. But if you only manage 9 nights during a tough 2021 travel year, you will earn ZERO…
But since IHG hasn’t provided a tracker (yet?) and has excluded award nights (silly) and rollover nights (understandable), you will have a tough time keeping track of how close you are to 10, 20, etc. qualifying nights since your elite status tracker will include those items.
The Bottom Line
I value an IHG point at no more than 0.5 cents each, if only because you can buy them occasionally for that price. Picking up $50 in value for every 10 paid nights is not something that tempts me much. IHG will have to come up with a much better promotion later on in 2021, when hopefully we won’t have forgotten all about these “Milestone Bonuses”.
