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IHG Accelerate Summer 2017 is now live
IHG runs promotions for its members throughout the year that they call IHG Accelerate. Each member receives a targeted offer for certain incentivized activity. If you participate in a certain number of the incentivized activities you will earn a bonus and your point accumulation “Accelerates.” The great thing is that you can usually get a healthy bonus of points for just a few nights in IHG hotels. Let’s take a look at that now live, IHG Accelerate 2017.
You need to sign up for the promotion, which you can do here
My offer:
- Stay once and get 2500 points
- Stay 5 times and get 10k points
- Stay at 3 or more brands and get 19,200 points
- Stay in Europe, Great China, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and get 8k points
- Book and Pay with IHG rewards Credit Cards
I receive an Achievement bonus of 16,000 points if I do 4 out of the 5 offers. If you look closely, I’d earn 50,200 bonus points.
This means that I would stay at 3 different brands, once in Europe, and once by then end of June. This would earn me the following bonuses:
- Stay once and get 2500 points
- Stay at 3 or more brands and get 19,200 points
- Stay in Europe, Great China, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and get 8k points
- Book and Pay with IHG rewards Credit Cards 1500 points
- Stay by June 30th and get 3000 bonus points.
Pretty great deal and easy to accomplish.
It runs from May 15th until August 31st. You could use the bonus points to stay at the Intercontinental Carlton in Cannes, France. I just completed a stay at the landmark hotel. It’ll set you back 60k points, or 50k + $70. Get out your finger for a French BYAH!!!!!!
There are promotions throughout the year whereby you can buy IHG points for roughly $0.005 per point. Assuming that valuation, this offer is giving me a bit over $250 of bonus value.
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.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
80k offer in branch currently – I think this should be online soon
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Super solid welcome offer.
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.
- 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 Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/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
There is currently an 80k offer after $4k spend in 3 months available in branch, and up to 90k after $6k spend in 6 months. I suspect some version of this will be online soon if you don’t want the hassle of going into a branch.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 60k is a very, very good offer. 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.
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