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InterContinental® Hotels Group Privacy Policy | | What Personal Information We Collect
We collect personal information that you choose to provide voluntarily when using our web sites. This information includes your Priority Club® Rewards account. You can use our site without creating an account, but you will need to create an account if you want to take advantage of certain features, such as "Favorite Destinations," "Room/Rate Preferences" and other time saving features. We may also ask for personal information when you contact our Customer Service department. This will allow us to protect your confidentiality by verifying your identity.
Following a stay in one of our hotels, your hotel stay information is collected and stored by our hotels locally, and subsequently transferred to a centralized database. This facilitates aggregated trend analysis used for hotel management purposes such as planning new hotel locations, evaluating hotel amenities, guest preferences, and advertisement planning. In addition, your business with us is valued and we may use the record of your stay to send you via postal mail, communications such as guest surveys or promotional offers and benefits. You may “opt-out” or choose to be excluded from these communications by noting this on your guest registration during your hotel stay or by contacting Customer Service. For Customers who do not reside in the United Staes, and who have not chosen to enroll in the Priority Club® Rewards program, we may contact you regarding your hotel stay but will not send you any promotianal communications or surveys unless you have consented to recieve such communications.
Our web sites do not intentionally solicit or collect personal information about children under the age of 13. If you are under 13 and would like to use our web site, please ask a parent or guardian for assistance.
Some of our promotional offers have a “Tell A Friend” feature that allows you to have the offer sent to a friend with your comment. If you choose to use this feature, we collect the email address of your friend(s) but do not store it for other uses.
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| | Where do we collect your personal information?
When you place a hotel reservation, we request your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, credit card number and expiration date. We use this information to process and fulfill your reservation.
When you register for a Priority Club® Rewards account, we ask for your name, mailing address, telephone number, email address and PIN. There is a membership fee for Ambassador that requires credit card information to process. Credit card information is optional for Priority Club® accounts and may be added after you have registered. Additional optional information in your profile is collected for specific services such as check-in conveniences, room preferences, or point transfers to airline or other partner programs. You may access and update your profile in Priority Club® Rewards or Ambassador online at any time, using your membership number and PIN. This data is stored in data bases protected from intrusion and unauthorized viewing by commercially available software products we purchase in good faith from third parties, and you do not have to re-enter it with each visit to our web site. It is also used to recognize you as a repeat customer so we can personalize your shopping experience. Once you become a Priority Club® Rewards member, you will have access to our special features, including "Favorite Destinations", which conveniently stores your most frequented hotels and cities. Priority Club® and Ambassador members receive newsletters and promotional offers from both InterContinental Hotels Group and its program partners, and points statements. Priority Club® and Ambassador member information is shared with program partners, listed in the membership welcome package and newsletters, unless you decline by requesting an “opt-out” of that portion of the program by contacting Priority Club® Rewards or Ambassador service centers. Contact information can be found on our Customer Service page.
When you join the InterContinental Hotels Group Email List, we request your email address in order to send you email on the latest offers, advanced notice of events, and more.
To deliver this information to you, we use a third-party email marketing service that helps us conduct targeted permission-based email campaigns. When registering for our email program, this service company may collect and store personal information you provide on our behalf and has agreed with us it will not share, rent, sell, trade or provide any of this information to parties other than InterContinental Hotels Group. If you are no longer interested in receiving InterContinental Hotels Group Email communications, instructions for removal from the list are included in every email we send you.
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| | How We Use Your Personal Information
Information we collect on our web sites may be used to enhance your experience in the following ways: | - Confirm your hotel reservations
- Register you as a member of Priority Club® Rewards
- Deliver merchandise you have redeemed online
- Bill your credit card for Advance Purchase Reservations and Advance Deposits
- Respond to your customer-service inquiries or requests
- Communicate special offers and featured items to you, if you choose to receive such notices
- Customize your experience on our web sites
| | Contests
From time-to-time, we may request information from you through contests. Participation in these contests is completely voluntary and you have a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code, age level). Contact information gathered from contests will be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Demographic information will be used for purposes of monitoring and improving your experience on this site.
We may co-sponsor some contests on our site with other companies. If you enter one of these contests, our co-sponsor may receive the information collected or may collect the information directly. In such cases, we will tell you who is collecting your information, how our co-sponsor may use the information and how you can contact our co-sponsor.
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| | When and With Whom We Share Your Personal Information
For members of Priority Club® Rewards, information is shared with our program partners for the purpose of transferring reward points and, with our prior approval, to extend special offers. We will share personal customer information with our hotels, representatives and trusted service providers and contractors for limited purposes, including fulfilling customer reservations; offering certain products and services in connection with our web site; communicating to customers; providing customer service; enhancing and improving customers' online experience; enabling access to our partners' sites; providing a personalized online experience; and completing credit card transactions.
Aside from the purposes described above, we do not share your personal information with any other third parties unless we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of hotel guests, employees, the public or InterContinental Hotels Group property. We may share aggregated demographic and statistical information in the course of our business with certain third parties. This sharing does not include any personal information that can identify any individual person.
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| | Links to Other Sites
Please note that our site links to other sites and that the privacy policies of these sites may differ from ours. We advise you to check the privacy policies of other Web sites before disclosing any personal information. In any event, please note that these sites do not share your personal information with us.
Occasionally when linking to another site, you may still see our site's logo or frame. This is to provide you with a seamless experience when visiting our Web site. In these cases you are no longer on our site and are now on a different Web site whose information collection practices may differ from ours. The privacy policy of the site you are on will govern how information collected from you is used. You can always know what site you are on by checking the location bar within your browser.
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| | How We Protect the Security of Your Personal Information
The security of your personal information is very important to us. In our efforts to protect your online transactions, we use a technology called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). If your browser is capable of SSL (and most are), your personal information will be automatically encrypted, or encoded, before it is sent over the Internet. .
We have also obtained a digital security certificate from Verisign, Inc., a leading provider of Internet trust services. This certificate guarantees that your personal information is being transmitted in secure () form to our Web servers, not to some unknown or unauthorized server. When you enter a secure portion of our site (which is any page containing any of your personal information), an image of a closed lock or a solid key should appear in your browser window.
Ultimately, your personal information is protected by the Personal Identification Number (PIN) you created when you joined the Priority Club® Rewards program. Please keep this PIN confidential. The confidentiality of your PIN is yours to protect. You may change it anytime by going to Your Account. Log in and then click "Personal Information" to enter a new PIN. If you contact one of our service centers by telephone, a Customer Service Associate may ask you for your PIN to verify your identity if you are requesting service.
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| | What is the credit card fraud policy?
In the unlikely event that you experience unauthorized use of your credit card on our web site or any web site, promptly report the fraudulent activity to your credit card company. Under applicable law, you may be only liable for the first $50 of the fraudulent charges. Please check with your credit card company to verify specific terms and conditions.
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| | Cookies and Other Computer Information
When you visit our web sites, you will be assigned a permanent "cookie" (a small text file) to be stored on your computer's hard drive. The purpose of the cookie is to identify you when you visit our site so we can enhance and customize your online experience.
You can choose to visit our web sites without cookies, but without these identifying files you will not be able to take advantage of certain desirable features of our site. These features include remembering your login (so you don't have to remember your number) and providing a more personalized online experience. To visit without cookies, you can configure your browser to reject all cookies or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.)
We also collect certain technical information from your computer each time you request a page during a visit to our web sites. This information may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your computer's operating system, browser type and the address of a referring Web site, if any. We collect this information to enhance the quality of your experience during your visit to our site and will not sell or rent this information to any third parties.
We use a piece of software called WebTrends, a web site analytics tool, to provide us with a data collection and reporting service regarding our customers' activities on our site. When you visit our site, we may use cookies to track and receive anonymous information about your browsing and buying activity on this Web site. We use the WebTrends tool to improve your online experience and to help us improve the usability of our web sites.
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| | How do I correct or update my information?
We only store personal information for Priority Club® Rewards Members and Six Continents Club members. Priority Club® Rewards members and Six Continents Club members can modify their personal information anytime. Simply go to Your Account, log in and edit whatever information you wish. If you wish to delete your account entirely, please contact the nearest Priority Club Rewards Service Center.
Non-Priority Club® members can alter their email preferences by visiting our Email Registration Site.
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| | How can I decide what communications I will receive?
We do not intentionally send you unsolicited email communications. If you choose to receive periodic communications from us, we may from time to time send you email messages describing new promotions, featured hotels and special offers. You can choose to stop receiving these emails at any time.
For Priority Club® Reward or Six Continents Club members, simply go to Your Account, sign in, click "Contact Preferences" and revise your contact preferences.
If you are not a member of Priority Club® Rewards or Six Continents Club, and you have an email account with us, you can alter your email preferences by visiting our Email Registration Site.
The only email messages you will receive from us when you elect not to receive informational emails will be to confirm any reservations you make on our site, respond to your Customer Service inquiries and to answer any other questions you may have about our site. We may also need to send operational emails to inform you of any changes to our site that might affect your personal information, or to notify you of problems with your reservation.
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| | More About Your Privacy
We realize that making reservations at our web sites requires trust on your part. We value your trust very highly, and pledge to you that we will work to protect the security and privacy of any personal information you provide to us and that your personal information will only be used as set forth in this Policy.
InterContinental Hotels Group is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to enable individuals and organizations to establish trusting relationships based on respect for personal identity and information by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the sites www.ichotelsgroup.com; www.intercontinental.com; www.crowneplaza.com; www.hotelindigo.com; www.holiday-inn.com; www.staybridge.com; www.hiexpress.com; www.priorityclub.com; and www.candlewoodsuites.com.
Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to our users’ privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If there are questions or concerns regarding this statement, we ask that you first contact:
InterContinental Hotels Group
Attn: Privacy Office
Three Ravinia Drive
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
Phone: 1-770-604-2150
Fax: 1-770-604-5275
Email: privacyoffice@ichotelsgroup.com
If satisfactory response or resolution is not received within a reasonable timeframe, TRUSTe is available as a contact. Please see additional information at TRUSTe Watchdog Dispute Resolution Process. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve user concerns.
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| | Changes to the InterContinental Hotels Group Privacy Policy
InterContinental Hotels Group reserves the right to change, modify or amend this policy at any time. However, if there are changes made to the use of users’ personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify you by posting a notice on our Web site for 30 days. This policy was posted on March 11, 2004.
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