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IHG quietly changed the rules for its lounge membership option as part of its Milestone Rewards program for 2025. The change effectively closes a loophole that let you get a lounge membership for up to 24 months by timing when you earned and chose the reward.
How The IHG Lounge Membership Loophole Worked
The IHG lounge membership used to work as follows:
- Once earned, you have 90 days to select your Milestone Reward — which includes a lounge membership at the 40- and 70-night thresholds
- This lounge membership was valid for the year it was selected, plus an entire calendar year.
By carefully utilizing these rules, you could get a lounge membership for up to 24 months by timing when you earned and selected your 40 or 70-night milestone reward.
For example, say you reached the 40- or 70-night threshold on November 1, 2023. You then had 90 days to select your Milestone Reward.
By waiting until January 1, 2024 to select your lounge membership, the lounge membership would then be valid for the whole of 2024 plus all of 2025 — giving you 24 months of lounge membership!
That's precisely the process that AwardWallet Editor-In-Chief JT Genter took in early 2024 to get almost 24 months of IHG lounge membership:
How The IHG Lounge Membership Will Work From 2025
The big change is that from 2025, the lounge membership will only be valid from the date it was earned plus 1 year. This eliminates the ability to get a lounge membership for 24 months. For instance, take the above example under the new rules.
Earning the milestone on November 1, 2023, would have only given you membership if selected for the remainder of 2023 and 2024.
Clearly, this is how IHG intended the system to work. The previous rule set incentivized members to stay away from their milestone earnings. However, the new rule set incentivizes members to stay as early as possible and to earn the milestone. Now, the earlier you earn and select your milestone reward, the longer you can enjoy the lounge membership.
Our Take
On one hand, this change from IHG is frustrating and reduces a benefit for those that carefully followed the rules. However, you can’t blame IHG for making this change. It makes no sense for a loyalty program to offer a benefit that actually incentivizes members to stay away from their hotels.
Imagine an airline program putting a rule in place where you earned no miles from January to June and double miles from June to December. Members would avoid flying in the first half of the year!
So, while frustrating to those of us who strategically planned to optimize this loophole, the new rules make sense for the program. And IHG regulars should still be able to take advantage of the lounge membership for at least a year and some.
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