Yesterday I was surprised to get an email from Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) welcoming me to their new Spire Elite membership rewards level. I had only heard about Spire Elite status last week from a fellow traveler and didn’t really think twice about it.
After receiving the news that I’ve earned Spire Elite status, I decided to check out the benefits a bit more. The most significant benefit is the ability to choose either 25,000 bonus points or gift platinum status to an existing club or gold member. Easy choice for me, 25,000 bonus points will come in handy at some point.
Other benefits include:
I wasn’t expecting anything additional from IHG, but I’m happy to have the extra points. I do stay at the Even Hotels by IHG in an area where there are no Starwood hotels nearby and there are some nice redemption options with IHG like using points at non-IHG hotels
I searched for 1 night, October 24, 2015, during the Formula F1 race in Austin, Texas and found this: 
Using Kayak I found some other hotels with rooms available that night:
All Starwood hotels are sold out:
And looking on the Hyatt website, there’s only 1 hotel with any availability using points or paying cash
So, it maybe worth it to me to spend the 103,000 IHG points on 1 night at the Hyatt Place since paying cash isn’t an option and no other good awards are available. I’ll have to figure out how badly I want to be there!
In summary, I’m happy to have gotten Spire Elite status, but it’s yet to be seen if there’s any real perks or reason to move more nights to IHG hotels. What do you think of Spire Elite?