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Renew Intercontinental Ambassador for 19,000 points or $80
While Intercontinental is part of IHG, and you can use IHG points to book Intercontinental hotels, and you earn IHG points while staying at Intercontinental, IHG won’t give you any guaranteed benefits while staying at an Intercontinental. To receive extra bennies, you need to join the Intercontinental Ambassador program. The first year it costs $200 and gives some great benefits right off the bat: guaranteed upgrade, free weekend night, late check out ( these are all with restrictions, but my experience has been they are almost always honored). After that first year, you can elect to pay $150 to renew, or you can use points. I manage several accounts for friends and family, and came across a general trend: You can renew Intercontinental Ambassador for 19,000 points or $80.
Here’s an overview of Intercontinental Ambassador
The video is from the Intercontinental London Park Lane. I reviewed this as part of my trip report in September: NFL in London, Scotland, and Dublin
And here’s some benefits per the website:
Here was the offer to renew Ambassador for 19,000 points or $80 net.
As you can see I was given a tiered offer:
- $150 and get 10,000 bonus points
- $200 and get 15,000 bonus points plus 10% back on reward nights ( which if you have an IHG credit card you already get 10%, this would be an additional 10% or 20% off! H/T to reader Neil for mentioning this)
- Use 24k points but get 5000 bonus points
You can always buy IHG points for $0.007 by booking a cash and points reservation so let’s just assume that value. The first offer gives you $70 back in points so nets out at $80. The second is $200 and gives $105 back netting $95. The third nets out at 19,000 which is worth $133. Clearly the first option is the lowest “price.” However, value is relative, and this particular Ambassador has A LOT of points and it was worth using points vs spending the cash. I have another Ambassador that is going to do the $200 option because they are going redeem a lot of points next year. That 20% discount is going to be amazeballs. It’s great they allow a few different ways of renewing so people can choose what’s best for them.
I think the Intercontinental Ambassador program is DEFINITELY worth the price IF you stay, or are planning to stay with them much.
Both of my parents have separate accounts and we have made them both Ambassadors. This wouldn’t be necessary, but we often use different accounts to book reservations, and value the benefits a lot. If you use the weekend night voucher, the cost of the program is immediately absorbed and they have received great upgrades around the world.
Here’s some of the Intercontinentals I’ve had the pleasure of staying at, some with Ambassador privileges, some not.
- Intercontinental Sandton Towers Johannesburg
- Intercontinental Johannesberg Airport
- Intercontinental Dublin
- Intercontinental London Park Lane
- Intercontinental Austin Texas
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 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℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
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.