This is one of the chains that I have had a love hate relationship over the years. I didn’t have stays for couple of years (had lot of stays from 2006 to 2010) and then started to stay again late last year and had probably around 100 nights this year. I have already booked one Point Breaks hotel for a month starting early January.
Overall, the program is VERY rewarding IF you can work the promos of earning points and using them for Point Breaks hotels at 5K Priority Club points per night. If you are Royal Ambassador and have one night stays at InterContinental Hotels, the program is very good on both earning points and status recognition.
My main gripes are the lower end hotels like Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inns that are very inconsistent especially in North America. You never know if the Holiday Inn is a three or four and a half star one before staying at.
Pros
Point Earnings – Points, Points & More Points
Easy Status
Number of Properties
Working Website
Worldwide Coverage
InterContinental Brand
Award Availability
Points Breaks
Type of Awards
Any Hotel Any Time
Cashback
Number of Discount Programs
Friends & Family
Consistent Lower Brands
Stay/Point Postings
Best Price Guarantee
Points never expire
Cons
Social Media Representation
Customer Service – Philippines
Priority Club VS Ambassador
Elite Treatment at Properties
Promotions (can register but doesn’t work)
Elite Benefits on Award Stays
Points Earnings are not Uniform
Holiday Inn/Crowne Plaza Hotels in North America
No hip brand
Best Price Guarantee
No list of properties moving up/down
No stay/night credit for award stays
Positives of Priority Club
Point Earnings – Points, Points & More Points
Priority Club is the easiest program to rack up points and really fast by signing up for numerous overlapping promos that I have written about there on LoyaltyLobby.
Easy Status
Up until the end of this year, all the points earned have counted towards meeting the Gold or Platinum status requirements. Next year, this will change, however.
Number of Properties
InterContinental Hotels Group has more than 4500 properties under its brand as of November 2012.
Working Website
The website and mobile websites are quite functional. The InterContinental.com, however, is not the easiest one to use to make bookings.
Worldwide Coverage
The group has a good presence around the world.
InterContinental Brand
For some reason, I really like the InterContinental brand. It was found by Pan Am and first hotel opened in 1946 in Belem Brazil.
Award Availability
I have never really had award availability problems with Priority Club.
Points Breaks
This is absolutely the best deal when it comes to hotel rewards. Every two to three months Priority Club releases number of Point Breaks hotels for bookings in the following couple of months. Best properties tend to go fast. These are only 5K points per night regardless of the usual number of points required for night.
Type of Awards
In addition to Point Breaks, Priority Club has last minute awards, regular awards, you can use points for gift cards, flights etc.
Any Hotel Any Time
You can use Priority Club points to redeem for Any Hotel Any Time Amex branded stored value cards. You can use these to pay for any hotel that is classified as lodging on Amex’s systems. These can be very lucrative if Priority Club has a promotion for discounted Any Hotel Any Time cards like they did ew years ago.
Cashback
You can normally get anywhere from 9% to 20% back of your booked hotel value form as cashback by using number of online cashback sites. The cashback is deposited to your cashback account and typically paid out by PayPal or check couple of months after completed stay.
Number of Discount Programs
Priority Club has number of 2-4-1 for Europe and other regional discount programs.
Friends & Family
InterContinental Hotels Group has a public Friends & Family program that is open to anyone. Note that these rates do not qualify for points or stay credit. Status related benefits may be extended depending of the hotel in question.
Consistent Lower Brands
IHG’s most consistent brands are limited service Holiday Inn Express and Candlewood Suites.
Stay/ Point Postings
Priority Club stays seems to post without follow up requirement consistently.
Best Price Guarantee
Although the terms and conditions of this guarantee have changed several times during the past year, they are still offering a completely free night IF you can find a lower comparable rate in the same currency. The first night is completely free and there is no requirement to book more than one night.
Points never expire
Points never expire. At least they do not for now.
Negatives of Priority Club
Social Media Representation
Priority Club totally lacks social media participation. Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Starwood all have representatives replying to concerns about program and properties. They typically help program members to fix problems as well.
Customer Service – Philippines
The Priority Club Service Center is located in Philippines and the associates replying to emails, if you ever get a reply, or manning the lines, have probably never have stayed at IHG property.
The first reply is normally a blurb of text that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the question on hand. On a rare case that I have needed to solve a problem, it has usually been fixed after couple of rounds of emails.
Priority Club VS Ambassador
This is the part that is quite difficult to understand because it is unique for IHG. InterContinental Hotels have a different program for status recognition than other IHG hotels. You need to buy an Ambassador membership that costs $200 or get it through a promo. Ambassador status gets you instant Gold with Priority Club. You will earn Priority Club points at InterContinental hotels but the status benefits are per Ambassador T&C’s
Elite Treatment Inconsistency at Properties
There are very few hard benefits beyond some extra points based on the Priority Club Gold or Platinum status. Internet access, breakfast, club lounge access or early/late check in/out are not Priority Club Gold or Platinum benefits. Priority Club announced a set of Gold/Platinum benefits that are confirmed but they are only applicable for Priority Club properties in Greater China.
This doesn’t mean that the properties won’t extend any benefits as many do. There is just not consistency.
Promotions (can register but doesn’t work)
Priority Club allows you to register for many promotions that you are not eligible for. Quite a few this will post but not all. You really don’t know before you have done the stays what works for your account and what doesn’t.
If you weren’t originally targeted for the promotion but registered successfully, there is no recourse for points not to post.
Elite Benefits on Award Stays
Officially, most of the (nonexistent) elite benefits do NOT apply on award stays. Most of the properties do extend them but they don’t have to.
Points Earnings are not uniform
You earn 2000 base points regardless of the spend at all InterContinental Hotel properties outside of the Americas. In the Americas, you will earn 10 points per dollar spend at InterContinental Hotels, but only 2000 at the InterContinental Alliance properties.
Holiday Inn/Crowne Plaza Hotels in North America
Although IHG has spent considerable amount of money trying to bring these two brands to brand standards, there are still great number of Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels that have seen their better stays and should be either fixed up or reflagged.
No hip brand
IHG doesn’t have a hip brand like W or Hyatt’s Andaz. The only brand that I can be proud to stay at is InterContinental.
Best Price Guarantee
This is both the positive and the negative at the same time. The premise of getting a complimentary night if you find a lower price elsewhere is a good one. The hoops that you need to go through to take IHG on their promise, is not.
No list of properties moving up/down
All other programs provide a list of properties moving up and down on the award chart. Earlier this year, IHG didn’t release a list for competitive reasons. This was absolutely ridiculous. For the minimum, they should have provided this as all the other chains do.
No stay/night credit for award stays
Priority Club doesn’t give you stay/night credit for award stays like SPG and Hilton do.
Conclusion
If you can live with not very well defined elite benefits and ambiguity, Priority Club can be very rewarding program. I take advantage of all the promotions and point earning opportunities. You can easily earn around 7K points per one night stay if you prorate the promotions per stay.
I try to only stay and redeem at InterContinental Hotels. There are nice Holiday Inns and Crowne Plaza hotels, but they are so inconsistent property and elite treatment wise.
Hi John- Timely post. How would you handle a housekeeper being caught going thru a bag? Happened today at the CP in Key West.
I would pick up the phone, ask the manager on duty to come up to the room and ask the housekeeper wait. Then you could deal with the issue on the spot. If you saw someone going through the contents of your bag, you could probably file a police report for the incident.
Any tips on the public Friends & Family program? The link I had previously no longer seems to work.
You seem to omit that Platinum Elite is gained from the Chase card even before a single stay. In addition, you get a night stay even in their most expensive hotels (Paris or Bora Bora, anyone?) for only the $49 renewal fee each year………and, of course, two nights when spouses also have the card. So, never cancel those cards. We got 80,000 bonus points each and with annual fee waived the first year. Also, Hyatt will match the Priority Club status. (I doubt that many of us would care about a hotel in the Philippines.) The downtown Burbank, CA highrise Holiday Inn is superior to most upgrade hotels and gives free parking, drink chits, bigger rooms with a view, and other bennies for Platinum status and treats you like royalty. My first use of PC points.
I am not currently covering credit cards but might start doing that sometime in 2013. The problem is that they are mostly available for US residents only and LoyaltyLobby is geared towards global audience.
Isn’t Indigo a “HIP” brand?
IMHO Indigo is closer to Aloft than W/Andaz.
Not quite sure about your research for IHG’s Social Media for Priority Club. There is an active Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/priorityclub) as well as Twitter account (http://twitter.com/priorityclub). Additionally, I see quite a bit of activity on travel sites from Priority Club.
Compared to i.e. Starwood or Hyatt?
The inconsistency among brands is a real problem across the chains. We had a trip to new Orleans where the crown plaza was great, but the double tree (where we stayed for the second part of the trip) was disappointing.
BTW DoubleTree is part of Hilton HHonors.
I know, I guess I didn’t make my point very clearly. It’s that I’ve been at Double Trees other places that were very nice, and this one was just not good. (loud HVAC, poor soundproofing to hall and neighboring rooms, small rooms)
Whereas I’ve also been to some pretty mediocre Crowne Plazas, but the Astor CP in New Orleans was really great. (spacious room, nice furnishings, friendly helpful staff, good location)
They were back to back several day stays, but it also was several years ago now, so my memory is getting hazier.
Yep. Misread your comment. The brands are sometimes very inconsistent.
I’m staying at Intercons outside of the Americas and the rewards are terrible. I can stay for a full week and only get 2000 points. The SPG hotels give you points per night regardless of the part of the world you’re travelling in. Plus SPG platinum gives you real rewards at no charge.
Remember that you do get the Ambassador accelerator that is 20K for 15 nights.
I was just convinced by the Sales Rep in signing my Priority Club membership for the third year. The guy called Alvin promised me if I signed then I would be getting a $150 dinner voucher for free and two free nights stay at Intercontinental for nothing and I could pick any free night without combining with a pay night. However, when I got my renewed card with the coupons, the dinner voucher is only $100 (AUS) and the free night only applicalbe if stay two nights for the price of one, but to enable for this deaol, the price on the first night will be on the premium rate and the second night will be free so it is not really that attractive afterall. They said, once bitten twice shy but for me it was twice bitten and no shy. Silly me.
You are likely referring to Priority Privilege-program?
hi Patrick the same thing has just happened to me priority privledge absolute lie by state manager sales
Keep in mind that IHG frequently fools guests by false advertising. It happened to one of my friends last year and this time it is happening to me. They sent me some ‘big win’ promotion for 120,100 points if I complete all the 7 offers. I completed all the 7 offers 2 months back and received only 60,100 points. Since 2 months, I have been begging to get the remainder 60,000 points but all I hear from them is “We will look into it and get back to you”. No action is ever taken. If any one else has also been cheated by them, please let me know and we should bring a class action lawsuit against such rogues.
You should open a complaint with the attorney general of the state that you live in or IHG’s that is Georgia. You should be able to file the complaint online.
IHG rewards club is a ripoff. I’ve tried several times to sign up for the rewards club, and they cancelled it twice – no notice, no call, no email. Oh, and they cancel it only after staying at one of their hotels and they don’t want to credit the points. Really bad experience and customer service. When you call them, you get a person in a foreign country who only speaks boken English. Polite but never any help. They claim I signed up for a promotion for which I’m not allowed, even though the promotion is offered on their web site when you click on offers available for you, and I also received an email with the same offer. These people just don’t get customer service. But what’s worse, they actually rip you off by getting you to stay at their hotel but not awarding points. I predict they will go under in a few years. Their hotels are no longer above most other budget hotels, but are priced higher. Save your money and do business with another hotel chain that will appreciate your business. Maybe they are just descriminating againt minorities?
PLEASE READ THIS!!! ABOUT THE PRIORITY CLUB AMBASSADOR MEMBERSHIP!!The $200 fee and what you get is nothing, A $200
fee for what Marriott, and hilton honors are free with platinum status. They
say the room upgrade ,the fresh fruit,water and gift only apply when you stay
at a intercontinental hotel. I have stayed at intercontinental hotel and did
not receive anything and the room upgrade was the same room on a higher floor.
My wife is currently staying at the intercontinental and they did the exact
same thing and were both members.When you call the ambassador hotline its a 3rd
party overseas call center that is designed to make you kindly go away.I am
canceling my priority club credit card , and going somewhere else. I
would also like to add if your using the reward night besure to bring the
certificate that they send with the welcome kit or you will not get your free
night. I had to send it fed ex out because i didnt read the fine print. The
ambassador club couldnt send an certificate by email like marriott or hilton
honors. This is nothing more than a corporate scam.
Wow, I cannot believe the negative comments. I was once a Hilton loyal customer, but once I stayed at intercontinental hotels, I switched and could not be more pleased. I became an ambassador and my experiences at IC hotels have been outstanding. I always get upgraded to a suite or club room, always get the welcome gift, always get fresh fruit, always get daily free water, always get the free movie etc. I have stayed in the IC hotels and every time I get treated like a VIP. I have stayed enough that I am now a Royal Ambassador. I do feel sorry for those who have not received the same from the Ambassador program, but I give it 5 stars, especially in Asia.
With respect to the free night, you should read the fine print. I have used it every year and have never had a problem. Granted, I use the free weekend night at a foreign IC where the average nightly rate is $300 and up. As a matter of fact, I recently used it and the hotel charged me the night that was the lesser of the 2 nights so yes, I got the more expensive night free. In addition, I arrived in the morning thinking i would have to wait 3 or 4 hours for the room. No, when I asked about the room, the agent said no problem, your suite is ready. So i go upstairs and have breakfast at the club room because it did not close for 30 minutes.
Because i stay alot at IC, the staff at the hotels know me very well and I give IC the highest praise for their loyalty program. Finally, I have no affiliation with IHG or IC other than being a member of their rewards club. Trust me, if I did not get quality service, I would bail in a heartbeat.
I forgot to add, the problem with getting points, I have received all my points from hotel stays, bonuses promotions without a problem. Even 1 time when a HI did not give me 500 welcome points, I called the hotel directly and they not only gave me 500 points over the phone, they gave 5000 more and sure enough, they were deposited 2 days later.