An almost Free After Rebate stay at IHG

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If you’re thinking of staying somewhere other than a Club Carlson hotel this summer (see “When 138000 points is not enough”), you might want to take a look at IHG.  IHG is the chain that comprises Holiday Inn, Hotel Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, and more.  IHG’s rewards program is Priority Club.

Several current promotions can stack together to add up to nice savings:

18% Cash Back

a cash back site named BeFrugal is currently offering 18% cash back for IHG bookings.

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Note that unlike TopCashBack (which currently has IHG at 16% back), BeFrugal does not pay out until you’ve reached $25 on your account.  However, please see the BeFrugal sign-up conga-line in the comments section of this post for an easy way to get started with $15 $5 towards your account.

1000 points per night

Priority Club is running a special in which you can earn 1000 bonus points per night.  Please see Loyalty Traveler’s post for details.

$75 rebate for a weekend stay

If you stay two consecutive weekend nights in an IHG hotel between May 14th and September 3rd, you can get a $75 prepaid card.  You do have to jump through some hoops, though.  Register first, stay at a hotel with a qualifying rate (see the terms & conditions), print and mail a rebate form.  Details here.  Personally, I hate mail-in rebate forms.  I’d almost prefer they didn’t offer anything than this because with a deal like this I’ll just feel bad when I forget to fill out and send the form!

Many more savings and points

Frequent Flyer Bonuses lists a whole slew of Priority Club promotions here.  Enroll in as many as you can in order to get the most from your stay.

The usual stuff

If you have a Priority Club Select Visa you’ll earn 5 points per dollar spent at IHG hotels.  Or, better yet, if you have a Chase Ink card you can try my Prepaid Amex trick to get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Free Weekend?

You could theoretically turn these discounts into an almost Free after Rebate weekend.  For example, suppose you find an after tax rate of $65 per night (hey, anything is possible).  After a two night stay, you would pay $130, but you would get back all of the following:

  • $75 in the form of a prepaid card
  • $23.40 from BeFrugal
  • 2000 points (due to the 1000 points per night special)
  • 1950 points for the stay (if you have Platinum status, otherwise 1300 points).
  • 650 points from your credit card (if you use the Priority Club Select Visa)
  • Total points: 4600 (and that’s without any additional Priority Club promotions added in).  At the Fair Trading Price of .56 cents per point, that amounts to a rebate of just over $25.
  • Grand Total Rebate: $75 + $23.40 + $25 = $123.40.  Pretty close to the $130 total expense!

Analysis

I wouldn’t go out of my way to stay at an IHG hotel for these promotions (whereas I would go out of my way for the Club Carlson promotions!).  However, if I were planning to stay at an IHG hotel anyway, it would be crazy not to take advantage of as many of these deals as possible. 

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