IHG Rewards Club InterContinental Royal Ambassador Qualification Terms & Conditions Update

IHG Rewards Club has again tweaked the InterContinental Royal Ambassador qualification/requalificaton criteria that was first time officially publicized back in August (access here).

The official criteria was known to be roughly 60 qualifying nights of which at least 20 must be at minimum 3 different InterContinental hotels.

You can access IHG Rewards Club terms and conditions here.

Here’s the updated Royal Ambassador criteria:

Royal Ambassador Criteria: Royal Ambassador status is by invitation only. To qualify for invitation to Royal Ambassador status, an Ambassador member must: During their membership year, stay at least 60 qualifying nights in any IHG® properties including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, HUALUXE™, EVEN™ Hotels, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. At least 20 of these qualifying nights must be at InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts properties. The member must also stay at 3 or more different InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts properties. SCH reserves the right to change these criteria at any time and without prior notification. Existing Royal Ambassador members must meet the criteria listed within the last 365 days from the expiry date of the status. Rewards Nights do not qualify towards Royal Ambassador status.

In a nutshell the updated requirements are:

– 60 qualifying nights

– 20 nights at InterContinental hotels

– 3 different InterContinental hotels

– Award stays do not count

Conclusion

There was bit of a discussion, whether rewards nights are qualifying or not, when I wrote (access here) about my Royal Ambassador requalification issues this year. I would not have qualified had they not been counted too. Some readers were saying that they most definitely do not count that was contradictory to my personal experience.

It is clear, however, after this T&C update that from now on all the nights must be paid ones.