a close-up of a logo

Should you Mattress Run to Complete IHG Accelerate Promo?

Share this post

Updated at 6:30am PT on 8/22: The new IHG Accelerate promo is announced and will run from September 1 through December 31.


Good afternoon everyone.  The current IHG Accelerate promo ends on August 31, 2019 so there are only 9 days left to complete the requirements to earn your bonus IHG Points.  Everyone’s requirements and bonus will be different, but my Accelerate offer was for up to 34,200 IHG Points.  Let’s look closer at the requirements and see how close I am to earning the full bonus.

a screenshot of a website

The Stay More, Earn More requirement is for 16,000 IHG Points and I have completed 7 nights out of the required 8 nights.  The Stay at Holiday Inn requirement is for 5,600 IHG Points and I have completed 1 night out of the required 2 nights.  I wrote about the Cash and Points bonus offer and used my Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card to pay for all of my stays, so those 2 bonuses are already completed.

a screenshot of a website

Considering I am 1 Holiday Inn night away from completing both of those requirements, let’s see if it is worth a mattress run (pay for a hotel stay that you do not need just to complete a bonus).  16,000 + 5,600 = 21,600 IHG Points.  I value IHG Points at 0.5 cents per point (CPP), that means those 21,600 IHG Points are worth $108.  I don’t have any upcoming trips before August 31, so I would need to do a mattress run to complete the requirement.  I looked at Holiday Inn hotels near me and all of them are $100+.  I then checked around the country and the cheapest one I could find, with the AAA rate and taxes came to around $70.

Assuming I paid $70 for the mattress run, I would basically be buying 21,600 IHG Points for $70, or 0.32 CPP.  That is cheaper than the 0.5 CPP value, but I have so many IHG Points in my account right now.  I do not have any upcoming trips that require IHG Points, so I am going to sit this out and pass on the mattress run.

If you are in a similar situation, do the math and see if it makes sense for you to do a mattress run.  I have no doubt that after this Accelerate promo ends, IHG will have another promo coming out soon.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!

P.S. The Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card is currently offering a sign up bonus of 125,000 IHG Rewards Points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.


Share this post

4 thoughts on “Should you Mattress Run to Complete IHG Accelerate Promo?

  1. Fahad

    HI grant,

    Read ur post. I have now 2 offers from ihg. THE accelerate and the new members bonus mattress. If say both require a Saturday plus a weekend night and if I do this once do I get both the bonuses?

    Regards
    Fahad

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Yes, there are often times when 1 night stay can work toward multiple requirements. A Saturday night stay would count as a weekend night.

      Reply
  2. calwatch

    The same here. Two nights, one at a Candlewood and one at a Holiday Inn (to meet the brand and multi night requirements), but I already have hundreds of thousands of points and it’s so easy to get more with the cancel trick. I don’t mind the change in scenery but it’s not really worth it.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to GrantCancel reply