IHG Rewards Club has just announced that, as of January 1, 2017, members will need to book directly thorugh IHG channels in order to take advantage of IHG Rewards Club benefits. The announcement came in the form of a brief email sent out to members over the weekend.
Here’s the email:
We’ve made a change. Effective 1 January 2017, members must book directly through IHG® (IHG.com, IHG® App, IHG® brand sites, corporate travel sites, Central Reservations, or Hotel direct) and not through other travel booking sites in order to take full advantage of the benefits that come with an IHG® Rewards Club membership. Why? We want to give you the best travel experience—from start to finish—every time. And we can only do that when you book with us directly.
Encouraging Direct Bookings
There has been a trend over recent years encouraging members to book through the direct channels. This appears to be largely to counter the commissions that are payable to online agents such as Hotels.com
This is just the latest inititaive in encouraging members to book directly through IHG Channels. IHG Rewards has previously introduced terms excluding third party bookings from earning points. However, benefits, such as upgrades etc, were often still available.
More recently, IHG Rewards has introduced members only rates, only available through IHG Channels. This rate was only available to IHG Rewards members, and only bookable through IHG Channels. As it was restricted to members, it was not regarded as a ‘publically available’ rate. The effect of this, is that the rate could not be used to obtain a price match through many agents.