IHG Hotel Group Grabs My Attention & My Business

Up until a few weeks ago, I had little awareness of the InterContinental Hotels Group. Known by the acronym IHG, they operate brands like Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza which are part of the Priority Club Rewards loyalty program.

The main reason IHG hasn’t been on my radar is simple: for most of the past decade, the majority of my stays were business-related and on the company dime. So to build up maximum loyalty points for personal use, I had narrowed my hotel universe to the Fairmont Hotel group (President’s Club), as well as hotels aligned with the Hilton Hhonors program.

Over the past few weeks though, IHG has come to my attention not once, but twice.

Reason #1. IHG made a brilliant marketing move. When Hilton Hotels decided to raise the number of loyalty points required for a free hotel stay earlier this year, IHG pounced. They launched a campaign for their Priority Club rewards program that called out the changes to the Hhonors frequent guest program via a contest called the “Luckiest Loser”.

The consumer who was the “luckiest loser”—the one with the most points invested in the HHonors program—won 2 million Priority Club points. Additionally, 20,000 “lucky losers” got up to 20% of their current HHonors balance in Priority Club points. Everyone else got 1,000 points just for entering.

It was a smart move —and a great use of the IHG database. It seems they had a 50 to 60% overlap between Priority Club members and those enrolled in HHonors, making it easy to target disgruntled Hhonors members. After all, these folks had seen their stake in the Hilton program shrink by 20-25% overnight.

Reason #2. IHG saved me a few bucks. Funny how when I went solo and hotel charges began appearing on my personal card, as opposed to a corporate credit card, I began looking at hotels that were, how can I phrase this, cheap. So when I was searching for an inexpensive place to stay in New York City a few weeks back, I checked the IHG corporate site—and came up with a mid-town Manhattan Holiday Inn with an eye-popping rate of under $100 bucks a night.

So what was a $100 room in New York City like? Okay, it won’t be confused with The Plaza. But while this particular Holiday Inn was a little worn around the edges, the room was clean, the bed was more than comfy and the staff was friendly. I even got a pretty good cup of coffee in the morning.

So now I’m a member of a new hotel loyalty program, IHG’s Priority Club Rewards. I’ve already received a “thank you for my stay” e-mail which was nice. And while I dearly miss the Fairmont, until the economy picks up, I’ll be pulling out my Priority Club Rewards card a little more often.

This article was originally published on March 17, 2010, on the Loyalty Truth blog and is by Tom Rapsas, a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Lovely hotel. Tough loyalty program.

From November 2008 through early January of this year, I spent several weeks working in LA and was fortunate enough to be put up at the Fairmont hotel in Santa Monica. All in all, a really fine place to stay, with friendly attentive service, a pleasant lobby bar and comfy rooms with a view of the Malibu coast.

I of course joined the Fairmont’s loyalty program, the President’s Club, and for starters earned free Internet access throughout my visit, saving $10 bucks a day. A nice perk. But like most of us, I had my eye on the big prize—a free night’s stay.

I reviewed the program requirements and while they seemed a bit steep at 30 nights for eligibility, I racked up 25 nights in November and December 2008 and 5 nights in January ’09. By the end of the project, I had nailed the stay threshold for a free night on the nose. Yes!

There was just one issue.

Upon checking my President’s Club account in late-January, I discovered I only had a balance of 5 nights in the “bank”. My 25 nights from 2008 had been wiped off the slate. The reason: it seems the program resets at January 1 of each year, wiping out all nights accrued over the previous calendar year.

Now we can all understand accrued nights expiring at some point—but nights I had earned as late as December 20th had been wiped off my earnings statement, giving them a shelf life of a little more than 10 days. About the same as a container of milk.

I fired off an e-mail to a program representative and within 48 hours had a response. A nice one, indeed. I had been granted entrée into the top level Platinum Club, and with it received my free night’s stay—which I’ll soon be enjoying with my family at a very fine Fairmont hotel in New York City.

In the end, my faith was restored in the Fairmont and its loyalty program. My membership had been bumped to top tier status, I had received the reward I felt was rightly mine, and I will again stay at the hotel the next time business calls (as well as spread some WOM love, my brother just finished a stay there).

But as a loyalty enthusiast, I have a nagging concern in the back of my head: What of other program members in similar situations who may choose to protest their lost nights by switching to another hotel? Seems to me the Fairmont may want to do a little tinkering with the finer points of their program.