priority club turns into the IHG rewards club

everyone was given notice a few months ago that priority club, the loyalty program for the intercontinental hotel group (intercontinental, holiday inn, holiday inn express, crowne plaza etc), would be rebranded and relaunched on july 1, 2013.

today, they updated the website. most of the changes, it seems, affect the way one earns status. i am currently a gold member without having stayed at an IHG hotel last year. by checking in online last year on foursquare using the topguest program, i earned roughly 16,000 points. i earned an additional 4,000 points by answering surveys from e-rewards, for a grand total of 20,000 points. until they recently changed the program, points from any source counted towards status. 20,000 points = gold status.

qualifying for various levels is still based on the number of nights stayed or the number of elite qualifying points earned. elite qualifying points are earned from hotel stays (excluding the elite bonuses) and various partners. as far as i can tell, e-rewards counts as qualifying activity.

• 15-49 nights a year, or 20,000 elite qualifying points = gold elite
• 50+ nights a year, or 60,000 elite qualifying points = platinum elite

there are a few slight changes to the new program including:

• free internet for every IHG member (even base level)
• like the starwood group, reward nights now officially count towards status
• if you achieve more nights than needed for platinum status, those extra nights will rollover to your next year. no rollovers happen for gold.
• fast track to elite: by staying at 3 different property brands, you can earn gold status for only 10 nights. by staying at 4 different property brands, you can earn platinum status for only 40 nights.

of course, we should not forget that you can simply buy their top tier platinum elite status for just $120 a year by holding their capital one affiliated credit card. so when i put things like that, asides from the free internet benefit, the program hasn't really changed at all ...