Earn rewards points while talking on mobile phones overseas

IHG's Priority Club Rewards Members Can Redeem Points for Rewards

Singapore, 10 July 2008 - Priority Club Rewards, the world's leading hotel guest loyalty programme, announced today the launch of a new innovative benefit that allows members to earn points for mobile phone calls made during visits to a number of countries. In Asia, countries include Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. 

Priority Club members can earn between two and 10 points per minute of talking time for outgoing calls, depending on which country they are in.  In Hong Kong and India, members can also earn points for incoming calls. Points earned from mobile phone calls can be used to redeem items in the Priority Club redemption catalogue, which features rewards ranging from hotel stays and airline tickets to dining and shopping certificates.  For the hotel stays, the points can be redeemed at any of IHG's nearly 4,000 hotels worldwide, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

The new programme is made possible through IHG's partnership with Travelling Connect, one of the leading global providers of Client Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to the airline and telecommunication industries.  There are another seven countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East where Travelling Connect have agreements with mobile operators that award points to Priority Club members who use their roaming services when visiting those countries.

Gary Rosen, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Asia Pacific said:  "Priority Club Rewards has become the world's largest hotel guest loyalty programme as a result of continuous innovation in ways that are meaningful, relevant and provide significant value to our members.  With this new earn-points-as-you-talk service, what was previously seen as a cost will now be translated into real time value and benefits.  The potential is just incredible.  As at end 2007, the number of mobile users globally reached 2.6 billion and this is forecasted to almost double to 4.1 billion by 2014.¹"

Registering to earn points for mobile calls is easy. Priority Club members just need to log on to the Travelling Connect website at www.travellingconnect.com/priorityclub to register their membership numbers and mobile numbers.  Each member can register up to three mobile numbers.  When travelling to countries where the roaming service is available, members have to manually select the corresponding mobile network in order to earn points.

Contacts: 

Birte Sebastian
IHG Asia Pacific (Singapore)
+65 6395 6177
[email protected]

Kelly Leahy
Ruder Finn Asia 
+65 6336 2351
[email protected]

Notes to Editors:

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is one of the world’s largest hotel groups by number of rooms. IHG owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, almost 4,000 hotels and more than 590,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. The Group owns a portfolio of well recognised and respected hotel brands including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites® and Hotel Indigo®, and also manages the world’s largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club® Rewards with over 37 million members worldwide.

IHG pioneered the travel industry’s first collaborative response to environmental issues as founder of the International Hotels and Environment Initiative (IHEI). The environment and local communities remain at the heart of IHG’s global corporate responsibility focus. IHG is the first major hotel group to have measured the environmental and carbon footprints of hotels that operate under our brands globally and is in the process of setting reduction targets.

With more than 1,600 hotels in its development pipeline, IHG needs to recruit around 150,000 people over the next few years to meet its global expansion plans.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Group’s holding company and is incorporated in Great Britain and registered in England and Wales.

IHG offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ihg.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards programme at www.priorityclub.com. For the latest news from IHG, visit our online Press Office at www.ihg.com/media

About Priority Club Rewards

Priority Club Rewards, which is owned and operated by IHG, is the world's first, largest and fastest-growing hotel loyalty programme with over 37 million members worldwide and three million members in Asia Pacific .  Priority Club Rewards received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20^th Annual Freddie Awards for the programme's  25^th Anniversary and was named Best Hotel Loyalty Programme at the 2007 China Starlight Awards. Members of Priority Club Rewards have more redemption options than those of any other hotel loyalty programme with members able to redeem points for free hotel nights, airline miles, retail certificates, auto rentals and scores of products available in the Rewards Catalogue. Priority Club Rewards offers more sought after benefits and the greatest ease of use amongst hotel loyalty programmes.  This includes no points expiration date and no black out nights for free hotel nights.

¹http://www.researchandmarkets.com/, February 2008 

Travelling Connect:

Travelling Connect is the leading global provider of loyalty management services to the telecommunication industry. The services of Travelling Connect help mobile operators to improve the bottom-line of their international-roaming business. Travelling Connect achieves end-user loyalty to the networks of its clients by closing partnerships with (international) customer loyalty programs enabling Travelling Connect to designate frequent-traveller miles or points to an ever increasing audience of international travellers world-wide.