Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

REGISTER NOW: IHG Rewards Club launches a mini-Accelerate hotel promotion

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

UPDATE – APRIL 2025:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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.

Keep up to date with new hotel offers by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

IHG Rewards Club, the scheme covering InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza etc, has launched its new Autumn promotion.

It is fundamentally a slimmed-down version of the long-running Accelerate offer, although it is being described as a ‘double points’ promotion with extra targets.  Perhaps they thought the original Accelerate format was too complicated?

You can find out your targets, and register, on the IHG website here.

It is valid for stays between 16th September and 16th December.

Everyone gets this target:

Earn double base points on every stay, starting from your 2nd stay, to a maximum of 15,000 bonus points

I got the following extra targets:

11,200 bonus points for staying at two different IHG brands

6,800 bonus points for making four bookings using the corporate code of the firm I haven’t worked for since 2010!

12,000 bonus points for making two stays of 4+ nights

15,000 bonus points for completing three of my four targets

This is fairly useless to me, frankly.  To hit 15,000 base points would require spending $1,500, before VAT, on IHG stays over the next three months (plus the spending on the first stay, which won’t be doubled) and that isn’t happening.

The 11,200 points bonus for staying at two different brands is an easy one, howeverIf I value an IHG point at 0.4p, as I do, then I’m getting £45 of points back from those two stays – plus double base points on the 2nd stay – which is a good deal.

My wife got the following extra targets:

11,200 bonus points for staying at two different IHG brands

3,200 bonus points for booking two stays on the IHG app

8,400 bonus points for staying two weekends (a Saturday night and another night)

Again, this is not hugely exciting.  However, 11,200 points for two brands is straightforward enough, as is the app bonus.

Conclusion

The new IHG Rewards Club promotion is very similar to Hilton’s new offerYou can read about the Hilton offer here.

Both companies are offering double base points and both are offering a ‘twist’.  With Hilton, the twist is triple base points at luxury and resort hotels as well as 2,500 Lufthansa miles for stays until 31st October.  With IHG, it is personalised extra targets which may or may be achievable.

We don’t yet know what Marriott / SPG is planning for its first promotion since the merger, but I’m sure we will find out soon.

I strongly recommend signing up now, partly because you might forget otherwise, and partly because you won’t know – until you’ve seen your targets – whether it is worth moving stays to IHG brands.

You can register for the new IHG promotion here.


IHG One Rewards news

IHG One Rewards update – April 2025:

Get bonus points: IHG is not currently running a global promotion.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

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.

Comments (143)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Stevie G says:

    I’ve been waiting on accelerate as I need to make some work bookings. I now know these bookings will not be with IHG. 5500 for 2 stays at IHG properties including Holiday Inn Resorts and HI Vacations?! Acceleration with the brakes on.

  • Graham Walsh says:

    So 44,700 for 3 stays plus the double points on each stay, so say another 6-7k on top of the standard 6-7k points, so 56k appox in total I guess. Shame I’m doing Hilton Diamond challenge, just need 2 mattress runs and I’ll complete it, as booked 6 genuine stays already.

    Earn 71,700 total bonus points
    15,000 Double Your Stay – Earn double points on every stay, starting with your second stay, up to 15,000 bonus
    19,200 Discover Our Brands – Stay at 3 brands and get 19,200 bonus points
    12,000 Saturday Stays Bonus – Stay 2 weekend(s), including a Saturday night and another night
    6,600 Earn More, Faster – Earn 6,600 bonus points when you book 2 Bonus Points Package stay(s) and get to your next reward faster.
    18,900 Your Achievement Bonus – Complete 3 of the 4 offers

  • Joe Lipski says:

    Do existing bookings for dates during the Accellerate period have to be re-booked or will these count towards targets?

    Earn 67,800 total bonus points.
    15,000 Double Your Stay – Earn double points on every stay, starting with your second stay, up to 15,000 bonus points. Terms
    11,200 Discover Our Brands – Stay at 2 brands and get 11,200 bonus points.
    3,200 Travel with the IHG® App – Book 2 stay(s) with the IHG® App and earn 3,200 bonus points.
    12,000 Saturday Stays Bonus – Stay 2 weekend(s), including a Saturday night and another night, and earn 12,000 bonus points.
    26,400 Your Achievement Bonus – Complete 4 of the 4 offers and earn (an additional) 26,400 bonus points.

    • Graham Walsh says:

      From reading other comments, they will do apart from App bookings. Check the individual T&Cs

  • Alan U says:

    Pretty rubbish for me.

    54k points on offer including the 15k double points.

    That leaves 39 k points, out of which 25k are awarded for staying in 5 ( five !) different brands.

    Agree with the poster above, not worth any special effort

  • Mark says:

    On your point around Hilton Status match. Unfortunately Hilton is the only top tier status I have left and I’m about to lose that in March. I’m down to gold in everything else. Is there any hotel that would let me status match from Hilton to top tier then I could do a night with them and get Hilton to give me a status match challenge so I could keep my diamond to 2020? Or would Hilton give me me challenge to keep me ?

    • Pangolin says:

      You can’t do a status challenge for Diamond while you’re still Diamond so you’ll have to wait until your status expires in March.

      In the meantime you can match your Diamond status on Best Western (who match absolutely anyone) and check on statusmatcher to see if Hilton will give Diamond for BW Diamond. If not, you can get Platinum on IHG with the premium credit card – Hilton will match that to Diamond for a challenge with no issues. Forget trying to get shortcuts to status with the new (and much worse) MR/SPG programme.

      Once you complete the challenge (after March) you will have Diamond status extended until March 2021.

    • Rob says:

      Look at statusmatcher.com

  • Tony McCann says:

    Mine in total was 78000 – but interesting enough and not sure how it will work! If you go to “Print” your offers page, first 2 pages show all your offers, keep going and on mine I have 8 other offers varying from

    2000 – 8000 points per 1 or 2 stays! Think this been mentioned before on here or loyalty lobby about this quirk.

  • Alex W says:

    Do we definitely have to get all 15,000 base points for it to count towards ‘complete X of y’ achievement bonus?

    • marcw says:

      I would guess as long as you have two stays it is OK – it should tick the “double points task”. The amount is just the max amount you cuold potentially receive

      • Alex W says:

        That’s how I read it. Hopefully someone can report back by around the end of Sept whether that works or not.

    • Rob says:

      That is how I read it.

  • S**mo says:

    What exactly is a qualifying stay?

    Bonus points are not issued for Non-Qualifying Room Rates or Non-Qualifying Stays. “Non-Qualifying Room Rates” or “Non-Qualifying Stay” include the following: net wholesale individual and group rate, certain package rates, employee discount rate, friends and family rate, crew rate, special discounted contract rates, seasonal worker/crew rate, 50% travel club discount rate, travel industry discount rate, distressed passenger rate, IHG® Rewards Club Reward Nights/Airline Hotel Reward rate, rates booked through third-party web sites, complimentary hotel Stays and any other rates not defined as a Qualifying Room Rate at IHG®’s sole discretion.

    The rate i’m looking at is

    ENDLESS SUMMER SALE
    Non Refundable
    Must book 3 days in advance
    Deposit Required

    Description
    For a limited time get away for less with the endless summer sale rate for stays 2 nights or longer. Reservation requires full prepayment for the entire stay at the time of booking and is non refundable.

    • Rob says:

      Should be fine. Sale rates sometimes even say in the rules that the rates are qualifying.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.