I’ve written before about how you can renew IHG Diamond status by buying InterContinental Ambassador status. Well, it would appear that this is no longer possible.
Continue reading: No More IHG Diamond With Ambassador Renewal?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I also feel like before they revamped the program last year, there wasn’t that much to Diamond anyway that was going to cost the loyalty program or the individual properties. Upgrades were always discretionary. Now that Diamonds actually get a tangible benefit (breakfast), there’s a cost associated with that.
Not surprised. Most “loyalty “ programs are abandoning their loyal customers. Sad. Wasn’t going to renew my Ambassador membership anyway due to lack of use so this makes it easier.
I m shocked, simply shocked that the same year every blog wrote about this, it disappears.
Shocked I tell ya.
Interesting..I guess I just slipped in under the wire. I renewed my Ambassador status on 1 September and was immediately awarded with an extension of my Diamond status
Renewing ambassador was a great way to get free breakfast, free hotel night, free drinks etc. It was a no brainer if you stayed at Intercontinentals even a handful of times per year, almost to the extent of whether or not you used the free night
This is too bad, but a good chunk of the hotels where you'd really want Diamond benefits (breakfast) are Intercontinentals, so not disastrous -- if you have a sizeable Intercontinental stay in a given year, this could still be worth it.
So the only difference for an AMB not having diamond is breakfast and reduced points earning, correct?
It's funny, I haven't stayed at IC's recently, but I have 2 trips coming up in 2024 where I was thinking of staying at IC's and I have 600k IHG points, so was going to sign up for AMB, get the Diamond status, free weekend certificate, etc. I guess the $200 still covers the 1 weekend night, but I was really looking forward to free breakfast which I guess as AMB/IHG Platinum (not Diamond) is no longer possible.
I was on the AMB sign up page ~3-4 days ago but I wanted to wait til Oct for timing purposes of my two trips in 2024 though that was likely over thinking it.
To be fair, I didn't notice if the language changed yet on the site when I was there a few days ago, so I may have been too late anyways but the text on the AMB Sign up page says IHG Platinum Status, which I already have with the Chase card.
We just did 4 nights each at IC's in Athens, Bucharest, Istanbul and Lisbon over the past 2 months- I did sigh up for Ambassador over a year ago and gave up 40k IHG points for it and the Diamond benefit for the free breakfast at Holiday Inns. Nothing like having Salmon for breakfast as par of BK - but did see just now on my account at signing up for 2024 and they are only offering Platinum - So does that mean no free Breakfast at the Intercontinental or Holiday Inn as well? Only free breakfast at HI Express?
IHG diamond on paper is a great status but the reality is IHG's properties in the US are mostly low-end Holiday Inn Express and Holiday Inns, where diamond or ambassador status really doesn't matter.
Nothing much to lose.
Free Breakfast is the only reason for diamond.
Upgrades for diamond ambassador are pretty terrible at flagship intercontinentals anyway (1-2 level mostly, most of the time I get 1)
Pretty sure that all the blogs going on about this finally made it worth IHG's while to fix this IT bug!
Platinum comes with the credit card - it's basically the "free" status tier for those of us in the points/miles community. It's not unreasonable that Ambassador would enable renewing of a higher level. Unfortunate that this opportunity has gone away.
I just renewed my Ambassador status, and my Diamond status was automatically extended to the end of 2024.
So maybe they are continuing the unpublished extension?
Did you renew today? Normal online renewal? That would be in contradiction with what anyone else is experiencing
I just renewed now after seeing Ramos's post, I got my 15K IHG points but my Diamond status is still showing expired on Dec 31st 2023 so clearly it still doesn't work 🙁
It usually takes a few days to update the expiration though.
Could you verify if your expiration is extended 12/31/2024?
I received Ambassador renewal offer. "Ambassador membership and enjoy 15,000 bonus points when you renew for USD200".
Chatted with IHG to renew, chat confirmed that Diamond would be extended. Chatt had to do something extra to extend Diamond. My account update to Diamond 12/31/25.