IHG Big Win and SPG Take Two promotions launch today

Two of the big hotel chains have launched their Q3 promotions today.

Intercontinental Hotel Group's Big Win

The biggest hotel promotion we've had this year belongs to IHG. Between 1st September – 31st December 2013, by completing a series of challenges, you can win a chunk of points at a time. Through whatever algorithm they use, every member has an offer tailored to them, in many case with 100 000+ points up for grabs.

My offer was 102 400, split into the following categories:

• “Try one and done” —stay at any IHG hotel.  1 000 points
• “Stay more and earn more” — stay a total of 4 nights within the promotion period. 6 400 points
• “Explore our brands” — stay at any 2 different IHG brands. 20 000 points
• “Book with us” — Book via IHG's mobile or normal web booking site. 4 000 points
• “Live the city life” — Stay at 2 of selected location. 12 000 points
• “Win in a weekend” — Stay any 2 Saturday nights. 8 000 points
• “Win big” — complete all the above. 51 000 points

I've heard of some people getting pretty pathetic offers in the region of 30 000 points, though mine seems average for what most people are being offered. This promotion is the clearest example of “YMMV” (your miles may vary.)

Now, I see this as a very good opportunity to boost your IHG points balance as it's possible to trigger all the bonuses with just 2 stays, both including a Saturday night. The selected locations in the “Live the city life” promotion are in typically expensive cities, but some of the hotels can be had for decent value. I'm likely to be staying at one of them already so the marginal cost of staying at another may well be justified by this promotion.

Starwood Preferred Guest Take Two

Between 1st September – 15th December 2013, Earn 100% bonus points on all eligible stays with no limit, and for every 5 Eligible Nights you stay you can earn 2 500 bonus points on top, with a maximum of 10 000.

Too bad this promotion's a little boring and lacks any hype, as the September-December period is typically when hotels need to drum up business the most. Though I don't suspect the average hotel-goer to know too much about loyalty programmes to be influenced by promotions!

As always, there's a pretty lengthy list of hotels opting out of the promotion, so do check before you book.