If you are friends or relatives of an IHG employee, Loyalty Lobby points out that you can sometimes save a lot and/or get a flexible rate that is close to the discounted non-refundable rate, which can be a great option in some circumstances. As the old saying goes, keep your friends close and your IHG agents even closer.

The deal

• IHG’s Friends & Family rate sometimes offers decent savings over other publicly available rates and is accessible to anyone with the Friends & Family link (no special coupon code required).
• Direct link to this deal

Key terms

• The Friends & Family Rate is available only to friends and family members of all full-time and part-time employees of all IHG companies, IHG hotel owners or managers and IHG franchisees who are at least 18 years old and the age of majority in their country of residence (“Participants”).
• The Friends & Family rate is only available for room bookings and not for packages or other components at participating IHG hotels, but qualifies for IHG One Rewards points.
• Maximum of seven (7) nights and five (5) rooms per stay.
• The rate requires a deposit for the first night, which will be refunded in case of cancellation according to the hotel’s cancellation policy.
• For full terms and conditions, please visit the tariff landing page.

Short thoughts

Loyalty Lobby points out that the terms and conditions for this rate are quite broad. Anyone can access the link on the IHG website and the rate qualifies for points and elite night credits, but does not count toward promotions.

The Friends & Family Rate is available to friends and family members of all full-time and part-time employees of all IHG companies, IHG hotel owners or managers and IHG franchisees who are at least 18 years of age and of legal age in their place of residence (“Participants”). The Friends & Family Rate is available for room bookings only and not for packages or other components at participating IHG hotels, but is eligible to earn IHG One Rewards points. Reservations must be booked through a Participant’s URL on the Friends & Family promotion reservation website. The Friends & Family Rate is subject to availability and is subject to change without notice; it cannot be booked by travel agents and is not commission-eligible. All room reservations are subject to the applicable hotel’s standard room reservation and cancellation policies and procedures. Maximum of seven (7) nights and five (5) rooms per stay. The Rate requires a first night deposit, which will be refunded in the event of cancellation in accordance with the hotel’s cancellation policy. For California hotels only, deposits will be refunded if cancellation is made within 24 hours of reservation confirmation and reservations are made 72 hours or more prior to check-in time. All Friends & Family Rate bookings are subject to applicable taxes, fees and other standard service charges. The Friends & Family Rate for each hotel is set independently by each hotel and varies based on hotel location/occupancy and blackout dates. The Friends & Family Rate program may be terminated at any time without notice.

While the terms seem to indicate that the fare is only available through a “member URL,” the actual URL for the fare code (https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/corporate/friendsfamily) does not appear to be associated with a specific member.

The price can be a pretty good deal in some cases. For example, I was looking for a room at the Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan for tomorrow night and the Friends & Family rate was cheaper than the non-refundable member discount.

However, it’s not always the best price. Take this example of a hotel stay in Tokyo that starts in a week: The Friends and Family rate for the Hotel Indigo Shibuya isn’t quite as good as some of the early bird rates.

However, the Friends & Family rate isn’t quite as good as some of the other prepaid rates. The difference is that the other prepaid rates shown above are non-refundable, while the Friends & Family rate is refundable until 6pm hotel time the day before arrival. And while the Friends & Family rate has a “prepaid” bullet point, I believe the Friends & Family rate only requires 1 night’s prepayment (at least that’s the case in this example and others I looked up).

In its article, Loyalty Lobby cites numerous other examples where the Friends & Family rate is among the best rates at various hotels.

Your mileage may vary, but this is a good rate plan to keep in mind, especially if you consider the agents at your favorite IHG hotels as friends.If

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