Piling on the IHG Rewards Club points

As you might know, IHG Rewards Club has multiple ongoing promotions, many / most of which are stackable. There are many write ups and posts on IHG promotions, the notable ones being this one on Flyertalk, this one on Loyaltylobby, and this one on Travel.Bart.La. AJ of LiveFromALounge had also written about his experience a few months back, on earning a free stay out of an IHG stay.

With so much happening, I thought it would be quite nice to get a piece of the IHG pie for myself, which was why I agreed to staying at the Crowne Plaza, Gurgaon, a few days back (I've reviewed that hotel, and you can read that report here).

The total stay cost was around Rs 21k for 2 nights, inclusive of taxes, and here’s what I got for my trouble and expense:

However, to be fair, I had signed up for a whole load of promotions. Rather, IHG let me sign up for a whole load of promotions. Nonetheless, here are all the codes I signed up for, along with my registration status for each of those.

Even out of those that I could successfully register for, not all have posted. There are reasons for this, which are explained below. Here are some overall points when registering for IHG promotions:

• The general experience across travellers and bloggers is that many of the codes are just different codes for the same promotions. Therefore, not all will result in or post bonuses.
• There are also a few codes that are the same promotion but for different years (2013 and 2014, in my case). Therefore, and consistent with broader experience of others, not all the stays I registered for actually posted. 
• You may also find that you aren’t able to register for some / many of the offers. This is natural with IHG, in the sense that those offers have either expired (and they wouldn't inform you so)
• Alternatively, your membership status is not eligible for that promotion (eg, you’ll need to be Platinum or Gold with IHG, or you’ll need to have a registered address in a specific country for which the promotion is run). In truth, it is difficult to guess what it would take to successfully register for such promotions, and you should therefore leave safely try them once and ignore them if they fail.
• The general rule is that if points don’t post for a promotion, don’t ever contact IHG about it. Chances are, you weren't eligible for it in the first place, and your entire points balance is at risk of being wiped out by them, for unauthorized activity.

Back to my bonuses. In all, I earned 31,508 points. That included 28,169 bonus points, counting 1,669 bonus points from the 50% of base points for Platinum level - in effect, 26,500 bonus points. One night's stay at the Crowne Plaza Gurgaon is for about 30,000 points, whereas one night at the Holiday Inn Mumbai, where I stayed recently, goes for 20,000 points. Or on the points break awards that IHG offers for only 5,000 points a night, just over 5 nights!!!

In summary, you should try and obtain Platinum status with IHG - it isn't all that difficult to get status-matched, and then register for as many promotions as possible. Do note, that many / most promotions have a 30 / 60 / 90 day validity from the date you register, so be sure to register only when you're absolutely sure that you've got a stay coming up.