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.
In this post:
InterContinental Ambassador no longer triggers IHG Diamond
IHG takes a rather unconventional approach to its loyalty program:
- There’s IHG One Rewards, which is IHG’s loyalty program valid across all brands, with status tiers including IHG Diamond and IHG Platinum
- There’s the InterContinental Ambassador program, which is a paid program offering extra perks when staying at InterContinental and Kimpton properties; this costs $200 per year
InterContinental Ambassador status automatically comes with IHG Platinum status. However, up until recently, a trick existed whereby you could extend IHG Diamond status by signing up for or renewing InterContinental Ambassador. Specifically, if you were already an IHG Diamond member and paid for InterContinental Ambassador status, your IHG Diamond status would automatically be extended by an additional year.
For existing IHG Diamond members, this has basically been a way to maintain the status for just $200 per year. Unfortunately that no longer seems to be the case — as flagged by YHBU and reported on FlyerTalk, anecdotally it would appear that paying for Ambassador status is no longer automatically extending Diamond status. At least that’s what all the reports I’ve seen in the past couple of weeks suggest.
Don’t expect that we’ll get an official announcement about this, since the Diamond extension from Ambassador status was always an unofficial policy.
This was bound to happen sooner or later
This IHG status renewal trick with InterContinental Ambassador has worked for years, and I imagine this wasn’t a mistake, and IHG knew exactly what was going on. If anything, I’m sure it was intended as a way to increase sign-ups for the InterContinental Ambassador program, while making guests loyaler to IHG’s overall portfolio.
However, as you’d expect, at some point every trick reaches a critical mass where a loyalty program decides to reverse course. Or perhaps incentives just changed internally at IHG, where a particular manager is no longer incentivized in the same way to get X result, leading to this change.
Bottom line
Historically, IHG Diamond members who signed up for or renewed their (paid) InterContinental Ambassador status automatically had their Diamond status extended by a year. Anecdotally it would appear that this is no longer the case as of the past couple of weeks.
I can’t blame IHG for this change. I figure it’s worth reporting back on this, in case the Diamond extension was a motivating factor for someone in renewing Ambassador status.
What do you make of IHG ending Diamond renewals with Ambassador status?
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?
Has your membership been extended as Diamond member ?
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.
Pretty sure that all the blogs going on about this finally made it worth IHG's while to fix this IT bug!
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)
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.
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...
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?
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...
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.
So the only difference for an AMB not having diamond is breakfast and reduced points earning, correct?
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.
Ambassador does not give free breakfast
Mainland Chinese iC gives 1 free breakfast for Amb
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
I m shocked, simply shocked that the same year every blog wrote about this, it disappears.
Shocked I tell ya.
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 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.
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