IHG food and beverage reward redemptions are coming soon: Here's a sneak peek at how they'll work - The Points Guy

IHG Hotels and Resorts launched a new loyalty program named IHG One Rewards in mid-2022. One appealing aspect of this program is Milestone Rewards, which you can start earning after just 20 nights at IHG properties in a calendar year.

IHG loyalists have likely noticed that you can select food and beverage rewards as Milestone Rewards. But, although you can select food and beverage rewards, you still can't redeem these rewards.

However, an IHG spokesperson told TPG that members will soon be able to redeem food and beverage rewards at select brands in the U.S. and Canada. And I recently got a sneak peek at how redemptions will work. So, here's what you need to know about IHG's food and beverage rewards.

What are food and beverage rewards?

The InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta. KATIE GENTER/THE POINTS GUY

IHG One Rewards food and beverage rewards are credits you'll soon be able to apply against food and beverage purchases charged to your room at luxury, lifestyle and premium hotels in the U.S. and Canada. In particular, you'll be able to use food and beverage rewards for the following purchases charged to your guest room at eligible hotels:

Dining at hotel restaurants.
In-room dining.
Minibar food and beverage items.
Associated tax and gratuity charges.

However, purchases at vending machines, third-party outside food deliveries, restaurants that don't allow charges to a guest room bill, gift shops, markets, pantries and taxes associated with minibar charges won't be eligible for food and beverage rewards.

How to earn food and beverage rewards

Stay at IHG hotels and resorts to earn food and beverage rewards as Milestone Rewards. KATIE GENTER/THE POINTS GUY

You can earn food and beverage rewards through the new IHG One Rewards program's Milestone Rewards. You earn Milestone Rewards every 10 elite qualifying nights each calendar year, beginning at 20 nights and continuing through 100 nights.

The Milestone Rewards choices vary as follows:

20 nights: 5,000 bonus points, two $20 food and beverage rewards or one confirmable suite upgrade.
30 nights: 5,000 bonus points or two $20 food and beverage rewards.
40 nights (choose two): 10,000 bonus points, five $20 food and beverage rewards, one confirmable suite upgrade (limit one) or one annual lounge membership (limit one).
50 nights: 10,000 bonus points or five $20 food and beverage rewards.
60 nights: 10,000 bonus points or five $20 food and beverage rewards.
70 nights (choose two): 10,000 bonus points, five $20 food and beverage rewards, two confirmable suite upgrades (limit one) or one annual lounge membership (limit one).
80 nights: 10,000 bonus points or five $20 food and beverage rewards.
90 nights:10,000 bonus points or five $20 food and beverage rewards.
100 nights: 10,000 bonus points or five $20 food and beverage rewards.

As you can see, you could choose food and beverage rewards at each milestone. Food and beverage rewards typically expire 12 months from when selected as a Milestone Reward, although IHG extended all food and beverage rewards selected in 2022 through the end of 2023.

IHG issues food and beverage rewards in six currencies, based on your country of residence. United States residents get $20, but IHG also issues food and beverage rewards in euros, pounds sterling, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and Saudi riyals. If your country doesn't use one of these currencies, IHG will issue your food and beverage rewards in U.S. dollars.

TPG's valuations peg the value of IHG points at 0.5 cents each. So, if you agree with TPG's valuation of IHG points, you should get more value from food and beverage rewards than bonus points at each milestone. However, you may want to select a confirmable suite upgrade or an annual lounge membership at select milestones if you believe these would provide more value.

How to use food and beverage rewards

The Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia. KATIE GENTER/THE POINTS GUY

Now that you know how to earn food and beverage rewards, here's how you will be able to use them.

IHG has been working on getting these rewards ready to use and will soon let members redeem food and beverage rewards at the following brands in the U.S. and Canada:

InterContinental Hotels and Resorts.
Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants.
Hotel Indigo.
Voco Hotels.
Even Hotels.
Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts.

If you redeem food and beverage rewards at a property that uses a different currency than what IHG issued your rewards in, your reward amount will be converted to the hotel's local currency when you redeem.

Sneak peek at redeeming food and beverage rewards

My husband and I got a preview of how to redeem food and beverage rewards from the IHG team during a recent stay at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia. IHG's head of loyalty, Kristin Klebanov, walked us through redeeming one of her food and beverage rewards over coffee. She also had the IHG team gift us a food and beverage reward certificate (and enable the feature for our stay) so we could try redeeming it on our own.

So, we charged a few drinks to our room that night to test the food and beverage rewards. Our bar tab came to $20.16 (perfect for using a $20 food and beverage reward) with gratuity.

Drinks at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia. KATIE GENTER/THE POINTS GUY

The next morning, we redeemed a food and beverage reward through the IHG One Rewards app. It was a very straightforward experience, though it might differ slightly from what you'll see when the functionality rolls out to all IHG One Rewards accounts. Here's how it works.

We started by opening the IHG app and clicking "Account" on the navigation bar at the bottom of the app. From here, we scrolled down to click on "Rewards Wallet."

Then, we could see the food and beverage rewards IHG gave us under the "Rewards to enhance your stay" section. We tapped "Redeem" on one of these food and beverage rewards to start the redemption process.

The next screen showed a warning message that IHG is "currently testing Food & Beverage Rewards so it's not available for use at hotels quite yet." But under this message is presumably the text you'll see once this benefit is live for all members.

Our stay at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia in Room 501 showed up on the list. We selected it and tapped "Continue to redeem."

The next page allowed us to review our food and beverage reward credit, applicable charges and remaining charges after the credit. We tapped, "Yes, apply this credit to my bill."

Next, we saw a page reminding us that we'd only be able to use each food and beverage reward once. The page also linked to the food and beverage rewards terms and conditions. We tapped "Yes, redeem this credit" to use our food and beverage rewards.

On the next page, we saw confirmation that IHG had applied our food and beverage rewards to our bill.

At checkout, we had just a $0.16 balance on our room since we'd redeemed IHG points for our stay and didn't have any room charges besides our bar tab. Just note that you'll need to redeem food and beverage rewards before checking out if you want to use any for your stay.

Bottom line

It's great that IHG One Rewards will soon let its members redeem food and beverage rewards at select brands in the U.S. and Canada. Of course, we'll update this story once all members can use this benefit.

I found the redemption process straightforward, although we had to confirm that we wanted to redeem food and beverage credits multiple times. However, I'd rather IHG have extra confirmation steps (especially while food and beverage rewards are new to guests) than have guests accidentally redeem their rewards.

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