Ever since I earned 75k points last year through strategically combining my IHG Accelerate promotion along with book direct, I have been overly enthusiastic about what offer I get in this year’s first Accelerate promotion. For those of you who are new to hotel promotions, in the past few years hotel chains, especially IHG,  have taken a more targeted and gaming approach towards their promotions. Rather than giving away extra points on regular stays the idea is to engage customers to spend more money through unique offers.

For the past couple of years, IHG Rewards Club has been running its customized promotion called Accelerate. Under the Accelerate promotion various IHG Rewards Club members get different versions of the offer. Offers usually have a game like approach and a certain number of points are earned after crossing each hurdle. Accelerate almost reminds me of the board game The Game of Life. The game simulates a person’s travel through his or her life with various tasks and rewards along the way.

The current Accelerate promotion started January 1, 2017 and is running through April 15, 2017 and you must register to participate in your offer.

In this year’s first Accelerate offer I have 5 different tasks to complete with an opportunity to earn a total of  41,000 IHG Rewards Club points.

1. Stay Once & Get 2,000 points – This is quite simple as I still have 90 days left to stay at an IHG hotel.
2. Stay 6 nights and earn 9,000 points – This is the tricky part for me. Essentially 6 nights would mean either a week long holiday or three weekend getaways. 
3. Stay Once on Points+Cash & Get 3,000 points – Again I could combine this with 1 & 2.
4. Spend USD 40 and earn 500 points – This is easy and straight forward
5. Complete 3 of 4 and get 25,500 points : Bingo! No costs involved here.
6. Stay once in January and get 1,000 points : I can club this with either 1. 2. or 3. Again no costs involved here.

I have been looking at other people’s offers where they need to stay at three IHG brands or complete a stay in certain geographic locations outside their home country.Considering I can complete the entire challenge by staying at just any one IHG hotels in India, my offer looks reasonably good.

The easiest way I can think of maximizing is by booking two, three night stays each at 2 different IHG properties and that way I can straight away earn 39,500 points. After all there are quite a few long weekends between now and April 15,2017.

While I am still crunching the numbers to decide whether I want to complete my Accelerate challenge, share with us your Accelerate offer and your strategy to complete the challenge.