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Hotel Strategies, Get Extra Benefits and Cheaper Rates Just by Signing Up for Hotel Loyalty Programs
In early 2018, the Kimpton Karma program is going away. Kimpton was purchased a few years ago by IHG. After the purchase, IHG continued to operate Kimpton Karma as a separate award program. But, they finally decided to integrate Kimpton into the IHG program.
The good news
Probably the best aspect of the new integration, is that Kimpton fans can use the Free Night Certificate from the IHG credit card to book a free night at qualifying Kimpton hotels. Get Free Hotel Nights with Credit Card Certificates
People who liked Kimpton, but didn’t stay very frequently under the old program, can now much more easily earn free nights with Kimpton (through IHG points and promotions), purchase points to book Kimpton hotels using the Cash & Points Trick, and get the equivalent of Kimpton Tier 3 status just by having a credit card.
Everyone gains from the elimination of award night blackout dates (at Kimpton), the ability to use the rewards from Kimpton stays in many more ways, and the elimination of a strict time limit for redeeming your awards.
The bad news
When the program switches over, your existing progress towards free nights at Kimpton is converted into IHG Points. The conversion rates that IHG is using are too low, so you’ll lose some value you earned from your existing stays. Any free nights you’ve already earned at Kimpton, become more valuable, because they will convert over directly, you can still use them at Kimpton, but you can also use them at other IHG hotels.
The Kimpton Journey Reward, which gave you bonus free night rewards, when staying at 10 different Kimpton hotels during the year, has been eliminated.
It is potentially harder to reach the Inner Circle level at Kimpton. It used to only require 14 stays (or 40 nights), but you now need to qualify for IHG’s Spire Elite status as well, which requires 75 nights, or 70,000 qualifying points (including those earned from Kimpton).
Entry level members no longer get the “Raid the Bar” benefit. But, if you get the IHG credit card, you’ll have Tier 3 / Platinum elite status, and still get the benefit.
Converting your progress towards a free night
Under the Kimpton program, staying 20 nights (or 7 stays) earned you a credit good for a free night. IHG is a points based program, so any progress towards a free night at Kimpton will be converted into IHG points.
The number of points you get from your Kimpton credits depends on your existing Tier level with Kimpton. If you are tier 1, you’ll get 1,000 points per night. If you are tier 2-4, you’ll get 2,000 points per night. So, if you currently have 4 stays and 8 nights towards a free night at Kimpton, and you were only a Tier 1, you’ll get 8,000 IHG points.
The conversion rates are too low, so you’ll be losing some value at the time of the conversion. Many people earned their free nights via 7 stays, rather than 20 nights. Let’s say you average 2 nights per stay, and were at least Tier 2, IHG will give you a pro-rated 28,000 points to represent your partial credit towards your next award night. This will now only get you half-way to a nice Kimpton room. If you average less than 2 nights per stay, it will be even worse, and if you are only Tier 1, you’ll only get half as many points in total.
This doesn’t affect the rate at which future stays will contribute to free nights. Only to the one-time conversion of points.
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