My Personal IHG Hotel Status Strategy

IHG One Rewards is the loyalty program of IHG Hotels & Resorts, which includes brands like Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Voco and Hotel Indigo.

While I am an active user of several hotel loyalty programs, IHG One Rewards is currently my personal favourite.

For the last few years I’ve stayed at least 70 nights per year at IHG hotels, earning Diamond Elite status that way. I’ve also enjoyed lounge access and lots of confirmed suite upgrades through Milestone Rewards.

Why I like IHG One Rewards Diamond status

IHG One Rewards has four main status tiers: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. You can earn status each calendar year based on the number of nights you stay at IHG hotels, or based on the number of elite qualifying points you’ve earned.

With IHG, reward night stays that you’ve booked using IHG points do count as qualifying nights towards earning status.

With each status tier, you receive more and more benefits. While the advantages of Silver or Gold status are frankly minimal, all IHG One Rewards members get benefits like late check-out (subject to availability). Once you get to Diamond status, you do get some particularly nice benefits like complimentary room upgrades, early check-in and free breakfast.

See our guide to IHG One Rewards status for full details about how the status tiers work.

IHG One Rewards doesn’t have quite as many status tier benefits as some competing loyalty programs. But since becoming a Diamond Elite member, I’ve fairly consistently received free upgrades at IHG hotels. I’ve almost always been given the late check-outs that I’ve requested and often receive welcome amenities in the room.

Overall I’ve found that IHG hotels have been pretty good at acknowledging my status and providing the associated benefits without me needing to ask. I appreciate this consistency, which I found lacking in the Marriott Bonvoy program.

This is a personal thing, but I also generally like IHG’s hotel brands. There is a good mix of both luxury and more affordable hotels, and IHG has a fairly solid footprint with hotels in many of the cities that I visit in Australia and around the world.

Milestone Rewards

The other thing you need to know about IHG status is that some of the best benefits don’t actually come with status. Instead, they are awarded through Milestone Rewards.

For example, after you stay at least 40 nights per year in IHG hotels, you can get an annual lounge access subscription and a confirmable suite night upgrade. You can also select these benefits (plus an extra suite upgrade) after staying 70 nights in a year.

The only way to earn Milestone Rewards is by staying actual nights in hotels. This makes these benefits harder to get – unless you actually stay regularly. So you can’t just get status from a credit card or an airline status match and then get into the lounge.

I’m sure the people who’ve earned IHG status through a US credit card would prefer if they had lounge access. But as a result of this policy, I find that the lounges at IHG hotels are typically less crowded and better quality than at some other chain hotels where lounge access is available to a much larger cohort. As someone who actually stays frequently at IHG hotels, I like this.

How I earn IHG Diamond Elite status each year

I personally have been earning my IHG status using nights. I travel quite a lot, so I’ve been able to stay the required 70 nights each year.

However, there is another quite legitimate strategy that gets you the full suite of benefits without needing to stay 70 annual nights at IHG hotels.

Earning status through elite qualifying points

If I wasn’t staying 70 nights per year, I’d consider aiming for 40 annual nights (in order to get the lounge access Milestone Reward) but trying to earn Diamond status through qualifying points.

When you book a flexible room rate, you can often purchase up to 5,000 bonus points per night during the booking process. These count as elite qualifying points, so it wouldn’t be that hard to reach Diamond status if you always choose this option.

Of course, those points also have value as you can redeem them towards future nights. However, their value is not fixed and IHG could devalue its points at any time (as it did in 2024).

Alternatively, if you purchase Intercontinental Ambassador membership, you can also get complimentary IHG Platinum status that way.

Earn status nights at cheaper hotels, enjoy the benefits at luxury properties

I particularly enjoy staying at some of IHG’s more up-market hotels as a Diamond Elite member, where I can really enjoy the benefits like lounge access, free breakfast, and perhaps also use one of my confirmable suite upgrades.

Confirmable suite upgrades are valid for stays of up to five nights. You can redeem them, as long as the hotel still has a junior suite available for sale, between one and 14 days prior to check-in.

When staying at a more luxurious hotel, the price difference between the cheapest base level room and a junior suite is often very high – so I can get a lot of value by redeeming an upgrade for a five-night stay.

But do I stay in luxury hotels for 70 nights a year? Not at all! Many of my stays are at cheaper hotels like Holiday Inn Express, or even reward nights. But those nights still count towards your status.

My 2025 IHG status strategy

As it happens, I stayed 97 nights at IHG hotels in 2024. IHG One Rewards has a handy benefit where they roll over additional nights that you’ve earned in surplus of what you needed to earn or renew your status level each year to the next year. This means I already have a head-start of 27 nights in 2025.

My plan for this year is to stay at least 43 nights in IHG hotels. That way, I’ll reach the magic 70 nights to earn Diamond status for 2026. But I’ll also earn enough “actual” nights this year to get another lounge subscription Milestone Reward, guaranteeing that I’ll still have access to lounges (at IHG hotels that have them) next year.

In practice, I’ll probably end up staying more than 43 nights this year anyway. But that’s the minimum I would need to continue enjoying the same benefits as I currently do into 2026.

So, that’s my personal IHG status strategy. If you use this program, I’d be interested to know how you make it work for you. You can share your comments on the AFF forum!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.