InterContinental Hotels Group (InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites & Candlewood Suites) tends to have the highest cashback rates of all the hotel chains. I recently wrote about getting cashback for your hotels stays and you can access the article here.
Now, they have even higher cashback rate that appears to be valid until November 30, 2012, although there is no guaranteed that it wouldn’t end up earlier. You don’t have to have your stays by that date, but rather make your reservations.
Getting cashback doesn’t affect the eligibility of the stay for Priority Club points and stay credits. Rates that are eligible are still even when you make the booking through a link from one of these web sites. They only take you to the InterContinental Hotels Group branded website to make the reservation. Make sure that you have also signed up for all the current Priority Club point promotions. I have listed them all here and here.
You can make InterContinental reservation on Holiday Inn branded site and vice versa, and still be eligible for the cashback bonus. I have done it several times as the InterContinental-branded booking site is horrendous.
Here are the cashback percentage rates for some of the sites at the present (Friday 2, 2012). The ShopAtHome site indicates that this offer would be valid until November 30, 2012.
ShopAtHome seems to have the highest payout ratio at the moment. Thing to note is that you need a minimum of $20 for them to send you a CHECK. Yes. Not possible to withdraw using PayPal. Only works for those with US address and bank account
I have an Upromise account and used to use it a lot. You can actually get a check out of them, but you may have to request it by sending a letter. My withdrawal was about $2K few years ago (all from shopping bonuses) and I had to get my bank to verify my signature. This is only available for US addresses.
They have a both UK and US sites. They pay out using PayPal so you can use them regardless where you are located.
I have used Mr.Rebates a lot lately. They dispose the cashback by PayPal.
Ebates is rarely competitive nowadays, but I have used them a lot in the past. They pay by PayPal.
This is another site that I used a lot years ago. Nowadays, their cashback rates are rarely competitive.
They have the highest regular cashback rates and I use them when there are no other offers available. Quidco is based in the UK. Maybe the higher offer is only available through the US sites?
Conclusion
Although ShopAtHome offers the highest cashback rate at the moment, I will most likely continue using either Mr.Rebates or TopCashback. I am not huge fan of high payout requirements and mailing out physical checks.
Note that if you sign up for above mentioned programs using the link, LoyaltyLobby may receive a referral credit.
I signed up with MRRebates and yesterday I made two hotel bookings for this week and for next week.
However, there is nothing showing up under Pending rebates “No purchases were found within the system for your user account.”
Should I just cancel and rebook or is this a case of where the rebate would have been so big that they decided not to honor it? (google mr rebates and you will find many stories like that).
Thanks
Your rebates will show up at MrRebates only after your stay. It usually takes about 5 days after your stay for the cashback to show up.
Very interesting. I just made 4 reservations last week though. I suppose it’s not possible to do this afterwards, when you’ve already made the reservations via the IHG-website?
You need to do the reservation by clicking through to the IHG’s website first. If you have booked a flexible rate, you can always cancel and then rebook.
John, have you ever encountered situation where the individual hotel claims (at check-in or before check-in) that since the booking made by clicking through a cashback site contains an IATA number, that it is considered a “travel agency” booking, and therefore refuses to award qualifying stay & points? I’ve heard of people reporting this happening, although rare.
Individual hotel has no saying about whether Priority Club awards points or not. Clicking through a cashback link won’t invalidate the stay for point earning purposes. Of course, you have to make sure that you book a qualifying rate.
Theoretically you are correct. But in practice individual hotel can manually code your stay as non-qualifying, because eventually after your stay, it is the hotel not corporate that decides (by entering in the system) whether your stay was qualifying or not. I’m not saying what they are doing is right, but I’ve heard of people reporting this – there are hotels that do that, and they intimidate you upon check-in.
Yes. They can code the stay but the hotel program can see the rate that you booked and adjust it anyway.
True that.