Hotels

Targeted: Join Ambassador get 10k bonus IHG points

Intercontinental Carlton Cannes France

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


Targeted: Join Ambassador get 10k bonus IHG points

I’ve written about Intercontinental’s Ambassador program quite a bit in the past. It’s completely separate from IHG and the benefits are only good at Intercontinental hotels. What’s even more distinct…you pay to join! Yes, $200 is the typical price to join the first year, and then every subsequent year, it’s $150 to keep the membership. However, it’s been my experience that members are frequently offered some sort of bonus or offer in addition to the discounted $150 membership price in order to keep it. I, personally, am not an Ambassador, although I take a family trip at least once a  year and both my parents are Ambassadors. Yes, it has been lucrative enough for them to both keep the membership ( although you are given an option to use points to pay the fee ). I recently received an email targeting me with an offer that I’m considering doing: Join Ambassador, get 10k bonus IHG points.

Here is the targeted email I received, you can click it to see if you’ve been targeted too.

a building with a tower and a body of water

The terms say that the email cannot be forwarded, etc.

a white background with black text

And then here are the two options I was given for joining

a screenshot of a computer

The 32k point option is particularly interesting.

  • 32k – 10k bonus = 22k
    • Majored in Miles suggests that you’d receive 10% of this back if you maintain the Chase IHG credit card as well.
    • You can buy IHG points with a dummy booking for $0.006 per pointa screenshot of a computer
    • This means you’re effectively paying $132, or $119 after taking the 10% IHG credit card refund into account.

Check your Accelerate promos to see if you are targeted to get more bonus points by joining Ambassador. Majored in Miles was targeted for 5k bonus points.

Here are a few of the perks that are associated with Ambassador. You can read more about why my family values these benefits quite a bit. A Big one is a free weekend night.

  • Guaranteed room upgrade – this has turned into Club access and Suites in the past for me and my family
  • There is always fresh fruit and water in the room ( whatever that’s worth to you )
  • There hasn’t been a time where we weren’t given 4pm late check-out
  • Free pay-per-view movie ( used it a few times)
  • COMPLIMENTARY WEEKEND NIGHT
    • This is a big one. You must pay for the 1st night, but the 2nd night is free. You can even book this online.

a woman sitting in a chair

 

As an example of perks we’ve received…We were upgraded to a suite in Cleveland, given club access in Boston, and the free weekend night certificate has saved a couple hundred bucks per use.

My mom giving the thumbs up to the club level in Boston…where we started her $125k Surprise Trip Around the World.

If you’re looking to stay with Intercontinental more than a few nights this coming year, I’d recommend Ambassador. If not…you may not get the value out of the added status.

Interested? You can Join here 🙂

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.