What’s Up With These Extra IHG Priceless Surprises E-Mails

IHG Priceless Surprises

I’ve written many times in recent months about the IHG Priceless Surprises promo.

In the promo you can earn entries by completing hotel stays or by mailing in your entries. The mail-in option has proved to be quite popular and many people are earning IHG points cheaply.

Each entry costs around .50¢ (around $47 total) if you add up the cost of a stamp, envelope and index card. The minimum prize you can win is 500 points with some rather large points prizes, gift cards and trips also being given away.

Find out how to enter IHG Priceless Surprises from Deals We Like here.

Check out some posts about the promo:

To date, I’ve won 46,500 IHG points and if I end up winning the lowest prize for the remainder of my entries I’d finish with 53,500 points! Not bad at all!

The maximum amount of entries you can send in is 94. To date I’ve mailed in 80 entries and the remaining 14 are ready to be dropped in the mail.

I recently started noticing something really odd related to the IHG Priceless Surprises promo.

On the morning of January 19 I received 8 Priceless Surprises prize e-mails. This meant that all 80 of my entries were accounted for with prize e-mails. That evening I received one more which did not make sense.

If the entry counted it meant that I was sent more entries than I had submitted. I played the entry winning 500 points but I assumed it was just a mistake.

Well what do you know… I received one more Priceless Surprises e-mail on January 21, 22, 23 & 24. On January 26 I received two more entries, at 5:56AM and 10:26PM.

All of these entries have earned 500 points but now I am wondering a couple of things.

  1. Will points won from these extra entries count?
  2. Was I credited for sending in all 94 entries even though I only sent in 80 to date?
  3. Should I bother sending in the remaining 14 entries I filled out?

I haven’t noticed any additional points posting to my IHG account, so I figured it won’t hurt to drop my remaining entries in the mail.

Have any of you received more prize e-mails than you’ve sent in for IHG Priceless Surprises? This is just strange and surprising…

13 thoughts on “What’s Up With These Extra IHG Priceless Surprises E-Mails

  1. DaninMCI- Good points! The deval definitely makes these cheap points less valuable…

    PSL- It definitely is odd.

    Travel Griz- It doesn’t make much sense!

    cnm- I’d still send them all in just to be safe.

    Carl P- It seems like random entries being sent but I can’t imagine what the pattern would be. Not sure HelloWorld does either!

  2. I haven’t exceeded entries, but there is a strange pattern of emails. I mailed batches of 35, 40, and 19. I received 35 emails one day, 18 emails one day, and then 7 days of getting one or two entry emails a day (spread throughout the last week)

  3. I have received these as well on one of the two accounts we mailed entries in for. The other account has not had any extra emails post. At first I was afraid that they mixed up the accounts because we mailed all the entries for one account and only a few (so far) for the second account but now it does not look like that is what happened. Now I’m not sure how many we want to send in on the second account.

  4. For me I have sent out 77 entries but have only received about 40 emails back. I started this back in Nov/Dec after people received there first batch back. On the other hand my fiancee has only sent in about 60 entries all in late Dec and Jan but she has received 80 emails back. So weird.

  5. Sent in 35 entries in December, heard nothing until I got 71 replies a week ago, totaling 40,000 points which just posted. Its obviously a glitch, but I’ll take it.

  6. I’ve also gotten random “surprises” so that’s odd but it’s better than not getting all of the ones I’m due.
    Also as far as the contest costs, I assume Mastercard is fronting the points on this one as they are the sponsor. In addition the devaluation today is another reason they can afford it.

  7. Jonathan- That can definitely be, I honestly have no clue! My first thought was a mistake but not for this many. Maybe HelloWorld got tired of counting and added in extra!

    Shaun- I think it was around a few weeks. In the beginning there were delays.

    Chris- I can only imagine how many entered!

    Kerry- Right. I have the final 14 of mine in my car. just need to drop them in the mail. My guess is that the extras will be deducted from my final batch.

    Ed- Great point! The amount of points being awarded is pretty substantial. I did read that a devaluation was coming…

    Mark- Doubt they are giving extra entries to be nice! I wonder if the devaluation was decided on by IHG before the promo started.

  8. I haven’t kept track of mine closely, but recently I was thinking that I’ve actually gotten more emails than I mailed in entries. Hmmm… Maybe they’re just trying to make up for the likely devaluation coming tomorrow.

  9. Did anyone stop to think what all of this is costing? Just 20 people playing is already about a million points given out at minimum! But it’s thousands more than just 20. Plus factor in the big prizes going to lucky winners. This promotion could be the costliest but least effective (at generating sales) promotion I’ve ever seen. Somebody’s head at IHG or Helloworld will definitely be on the chopping block. But that’s assuming the corporate guillotine has not already done its work.

  10. I’ve also received additional entries than what I mailed in or earned through stays. Most have been 500, a couple have been 1,000. The first set of points showed up on the following Friday, so I expect my account will have the points won when I check tomorrow. I mailed my last batch of envelopes this week, so will need to see how many of those generate emails.

  11. Have received a trickle of email entries after accounting for my initial batch of mailed submissions, maybe a dozen in all. One was probably generated by actual hotel stays but the rest, who knows. I’m already all-in with the 94 mailings, having sent the balance of my set in recent days. Will be interesting to see the total number of prize winners when it wraps up.

  12. How long did it take from the time u played the game to the times points started posting? I started getting emails last week but have yet to see points post. Thx

  13. I’ve received more emails (somewhere nearing 70) than entries I’ve mailed in (60) as well. All of them have also been 500 points, but then again I’ve already maxed out my Category B prizes. The only thing I can possibly think of is that my IHG dashboard now shows some Elite Rollover Nights that I swear weren’t there before. Maybe when those nights applied they generated the stay trigger for Priceless Surprises? Just speculation on my part, but the most logical thing I can think of.

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