IHG Rewards (formerly Priority Club) ran a promotion called “The Big Win” which started in September.

They’re bringing back The Big Win promotion for the first quarter of 2014. The website for the offer will go live over the weekend.

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is kicking off 2014 in a big way by offering loyal IHG® Rewards Club members more opportunities to earn free travel through the next installment of its hotel rewards promotion, “The Big Win.” This is a first of its kind promotion, which provides each loyal guest with an individually tailored set of offers.

“We have found that introducing tailored offers through “The Big Win” has been beneficial for both our guests and our hotels,” said Jim Sprigg, director, Database Marketing & CRM Solutions, IHG. “So, this January, we are launching a new and improved version of ”The Big Win” promotion based on guest feedback, with offers that are even more relevant and appealing to diverse types of guests who are loyal to the IHG family of hotel brands, including select offers with a greater focus on our individual hotel brands.”

With the past round, members received customized offers based on their stay histories. I was offered just over 70,000 points which could be earned in a minimum of 7 nights. Some people were offered more than double that amount with varying requirements.

And of course these points are stackable with other bonuses that the program may be running.

The promotion operated as a game, with points for different activities like:

• Points for a single stay
  
• Points for a target number of nights
  
• Points for staying at more than one brand that’s part of IHG Rewards
  
• Points for online or mobile booking
  
• Points for taking a survey
  
• Points for staying at multiple hotels in a specific list of cities
  
• Points for Saturday night stays
  
• Points for doing all of the above

As many points as this offer sounded like, IHG Rewards points can be effectively purchased at 7/10ths of a cent per point so it isn’t quite as valuable as it seems, you don’t want to spend more than the cost to buy the points to earn the bonus.

That means that for most members and with most offers it isn’t worth mattress running from scratch to earn the points. But it could make sense to (1) make an incremental stay to earn the final bonus and bonus for doing all of the included activities, or (2) shifting some incremental business over to an IHG Rewards hotel if it’s going to help you earn a big bonus.

Clearly the promotion seemed to work for them, since they plan to repeat it. As the industry as a whole moves away from gamification, IHG Rewards seems to be finding that it can work to their benefit (and certainly during the portion of the year when hotel occupancy drops).

In the next few days you’ll be able to register and see what customized offer you’ve received, and be able to calculate whether it’s worth a focus on IHG in the first quarter.

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