No More IHG Diamond With Ambassador Renewal?

No More IHG Diamond With Ambassador Renewal?

21

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.

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.

Ambassador is IHG’s loyalty program for InterContinental

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.

Don’t expect easy Diamond renewals anymore

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?

Conversations (21)
The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.
Type your response here.

If you'd like to participate in the discussion, please adhere to our commenting guidelines. Anyone can comment, and your email address will not be published. Register to save your unique username and earn special OMAAT reputation perks!

  1. michaelv Guest

    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.

  2. Ramos Guest

    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?

    1. Mike G Guest

      Did you renew today? Normal online renewal? That would be in contradiction with what anyone else is experiencing

    2. Will Guest

      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 :(

    3. Tony Guest

      It usually takes a few days to update the expiration though.
      Could you verify if your expiration is extended 12/31/2024?

    4. Danny Guest

      Has your membership been extended as Diamond member ?

  3. Pennster Guest

    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.

  4. Alan Guest

    Pretty sure that all the blogs going on about this finally made it worth IHG's while to fix this IT bug!

  5. Yxb Guest

    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)

  6. FNT Delta Diamond Guest

    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.

  7. Robert Guest

    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?

  8. EricZ Guest

    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.

  9. MildJuan Member

    So the only difference for an AMB not having diamond is breakfast and reduced points earning, correct?

  10. DiogenesTheCynic Member

    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.

    1. JHH Guest

      Ambassador does not give free breakfast

    2. Leo Liang Guest

      Mainland Chinese iC gives 1 free breakfast for Amb

  11. Rylan Guest

    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

  12. Bob Guest

    I m shocked, simply shocked that the same year every blog wrote about this, it disappears.
    Shocked I tell ya.

  13. Globalist Guru Guest

    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.

  14. DWT Guest

    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.

    1. Khatl Diamond

      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

Featured Comments Most helpful comments ( as chosen by the OMAAT community ).

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Alan Guest

Pretty sure that all the blogs going on about this finally made it worth IHG's while to fix this IT bug!

1
JHH Guest

Ambassador does not give free breakfast

1
michaelv Guest

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.

0
Meet Ben Schlappig, OMAAT Founder
5,163,247 Miles Traveled

32,614,600 Words Written

35,045 Posts Published

Keep Exploring OMAAT