The agent satisfied the task of explaining IHG by synthesizing web search results, but could not access ihg.com directly (403 blocks), forcing reliance on third-party sources and search snippets to reconstruct the company's positioning, pricing, and loyalty mechanics. The site itself was not navigable; discovery was entirely search-driven.

• ›The target domain (ihg.com and www.ihg.com) returned HTTP 403 for both homepage attempts, blocking direct site inspection. All substantive content came from web search results and third-party travel/finance publications, not official IHG pages.
• ›Search results provided rich context on IHG's brand portfolio (21 brands, 7,000+ properties), loyalty program mechanics (points, redemption, no-fee enrollment), and competitive positioning vs. Marriott/Hilton, but agent had to assemble these fragments into a coherent narrative.
• ›The agent explicitly acknowledged gaps it could not fill: exact room pricing (requires live search on site), regional/international differences, and corporate vs. leisure focus — honest admission of what the blocked site prevented it from discovering.
• ›Third-party sources (The Points Guy, NerdWallet, WalletHub) and search snippets were treated as authoritative; no official IHG page was fetched to verify or expand claims about Best Price Guarantee, membership tiers, or brand strategy.
• ›The agent grounded its differentiation claims (80% franchised, midscale focus, standalone loyalty) in search results, but these assertions could not be verified against ihg.com's own positioning or brand documentation.