IHG Rewards Club InterContinental Ambassador & Royal Ambassador Terms & Conditions Update

Yesterday, I wrote about the changes made to the Terms and conditions of the IHG Rewards Club (read more here) where IHG finally made the Royal Ambassador qualification requirements public.

IHG did, however, change some other T&C’s as well governing the Ambassador program.

You can access IHG Rewards Club Terms and conditions here.

Here are the changes:

1. Airline crew & extended stay rates excluded from RA qualification

IHG has clarified that only airline crew rates (not airline discount ones) and extended stays of 90-days or more are excluded from Royal Ambassador qualification. Note that Travel Industry discount rates were removed.

2. Ambassador benefit rate exclusions

Ambassador benefits do not apply if staying on employee rate (are there any employee Ambassador members?) or IHG Friends & Family rate. The latter is bit surprising because these F&F rates at IHG are usually higher than the Travel Industry Discount rate that is qualifying.

3. Daily mineral water is back

I wrote about couple of months ago that IHG doesn’t require hotels to replenish the mineral water daily (read more here). Now this has been added back to the benefits.

4. Ambassador & Royal Ambassador upgrade benefit

It is interesting that they have now defined that if you book through a 3^rd party tour operator some benefits do not apply. This would imply that they would in all other hotels including online travel agents.

They have now listed more exclusions for the Ambassador and Royal Ambassador upgrade benefits at number of InterContinental hotels.

Conclusion

Nothing drastic on these terms and conditions changes, but always good to be aware of the recent developments and I am glad that the daily mineral water is back.