IHG Accelerate Winter 2016: why you should consider it

IHG Rewards Club have just announced their IHG Accelerate Winter 2016 promotion, and it’s well worth considering.

What is IHG Accelerate?

IHG Accelerate is a very interesting concept, as it’s different for every IHG Rewards Club member. Their aim is to aim to incentivise add-on business based on your past usage of IHG Rewards Club.

For example, your past usage may have only been in one IHG brand (e.g. Holiday Inn) – so your Accelerate Challenge may be to try an alternative brand (e.g. Crowne Plaza). Alternatively, if your past usage showed you only stayed in IHG hotels but never dined, your challenge may include some dining-related incentives.

 

 

How lucrative is IHG Accelerate?

From my Accelerate challenge last year, I earned over 120,000 IHG Rewards Club points.

Given 30,000 IHG Rewards Club points are enough for an Intercontinental redemption night in most countries, you can get some pretty amazing value. For example, I booked one night in the Intercontinental Kiev – and amazing hotel and well recommended! – when the cash price was over 350 Euros!

So, in terms of value, let’s say I achieved over 1400 Euros. Whilst I never calculated the cost to accumulate those points and complete the challenge, it would not have been more than 2,000-2,500 AED (approx less than 500 Euros).

Why IHG Accelerate is particularly easy in Dubai

Dubai has many different IHG brands and numerous hotels, so the chance of achieving challenges can be relatively simple and cheap.

Here are the IHG brands in Dubai, some of which are bookable for less than 200 AED per night.

Holiday Inn Express

• Internet City
• Safa Park
• Jumeirah
• Dubai Airport

Holiday Inn

• Al Barsha
• Bur Dubai – Embassy District
• Downtown Dubai

Crown Plaza

• Festival City
• Deira

Intercontinental

• Dubai Marina (one of our Top 5 best Dubai hotels)
• Festival City
• Residence Suites DUbai Festival City

 

How IHG Accelerate works

 

When you sign up for the challenge (and you must do by clicking the link here) your challenges will be listed.

The challenges are incremental, such as the first few are generally low value and could be something as simple as updating your profile details, completing a survey or making a booking.

Where IHG Accelerate gets really interesting is the potential to ‘stack’ your challenges. For instance, you may have one challenge for a certain value that requires you to spend one night in a certain brand. Additionally, you may have another challenge to spend one weekend night in any brand for a different amount of points.

So, by booking one weekend night in that specific brand you can actually complete BOTH challenges at the same time!

Generally, the last part of the challenge is the most lucrative – and also the most challenging. I recall I almost doubled my entire amount of points by completing the bonus part, which was something like completing stays in a certain timeframe.

Hopefully this post has piqued your interest in IHG Accelerate, in which case, stay tuned as tomorrow I will be showing what my IHG Accelerate 2016 challenges are – and detailing my strategy and some tips for completion.

Have you completed IHG Accelerate before? Will you be undertaking the challenge this Winter?

Do let us know using the comments below – we’d love to hear from you!