InterContinental Offers Partner Bonuses

There’s been no letup in the unprecedented two-year-long promotional push by hotels to keep room occupancies up in a down market for travel. And the special offers appear set to continue at least through the spring.

It’s not only bonus points for free stays. In just the last week, we’ve looked at cash or cash-like incentives from Marriott and Westin, and an elite-match offer from Best Western.

Here’s a new one from InterContinental’s Priority Club Rewards program: up to 6,000 bonus points for transactions with any of the program’s partners, including the Priority Club Visa card, Hertz, points-for-dining, Netflix, Chase Checking, Points.com, and the Priority Club mileage mall. (Not eligible: Priority Club Gift Points, Transfer Points, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Chase Home Equity, My Coke Rewards, and airline partners.)

Program members earn 1,000 bonus points for doing business with one Priority Club partner, another 2,000 points after completing a transaction with a second partner, and 3,000 more points after a transaction with a third partner. So three transactions with three partners are worth 6,000 bonus points. The offer is in effect through March 31.

Such promotions are an import from the airline arena, where it’s long been common practice to periodically use bonuses to highlight the partner networks of the larger programs, in the process heightening consumer engagement and generating extra revenue for the program operators from the sale of frequent flyer miles to their partners.

While this isn’t the first partner promotion from Priority Club, or the most lucrative, it’s a worthwhile offer, especially if you would have made the qualifying purchases in any case.

Earning 6,000 extra points moves you more than halfway toward a free night at a Holiday Inn Express, and the bonus alone is more than enough for a 5,000-point PointBreaks free-night award (heavily discounted award nights at low-demand hotels).

The headline on the hotel’s webpage reads, “Get what you want simply by getting what you need.” That about sums it up.