Buy IHG Points For Just Half a Cent Each (Matches Lowest Price Ever Offered)

by Gary Leff

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100% Bonus Purchasing 7000 or More IHG Rewards Club Points Through December 31

IHG Rewards Club – the loyalty program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and related brands — is offering a 100% bonus on purchased points through December 31. This applies to purchases of 7000 or more points.

At a 100% bonus purchases of 26,000 points or more cost just $0.005 apiece which is the lowest price I see them sell points for. I believe the points are worth this amount.

They do make you validate your IHG Rewards Club account information. I’ve checked a few accounts and they were offered a 100% bonus. There may be a targeted element to this, however. They have upped the maximum number of points you can purchase from 100,000 to 150,000 with this offer.

Here’s what pricing looks like maxing out the offer:

The points are processed by Points.com so this doesn’t count as hotel spend for credit card bonuses.


Club Lounge at the Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur

Personally I’d stll rather hold cash than points at this price and only buy points with a specific use in mind, especially since it’s long been possible to buy points at 7/10ths of a cent apiece whenever one wishes and sometimes less. The gain by acting right away is marginal. However you shouldn’t get hurt at this price. And it’s tied for the lowest price I’ve seen though they’ve offered it several times before.


Intercontinental Boston

100% Bonus Purchasing IHG Rewards Club Points Through December 31

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. hi
    i have big issue with the login to my account in IHG. am unable to use since yesterday. my membership number is 631476650

  3. Most people reading this blog who buy points will probably use them at IHGs more expensive hotels, where they’ll feel they’re “getting a bargain” by only paying $250/night with points for their room. Most of these folks, at least in the USA where we have better access to hotel deals, could do better elsewhere, often at a non-chain hotel. The best value is probably to use the points for busy (aka expensive) nights at their 15 and 20K properties — holidays, peak summer season, college town games/graduations, etc. If you’ve otherwise maxed out your ability to get more IHG credit cards from Chase, there’s value here for frequent travellers. I’d also note you’ll get a 10% rebate when you spend those points if you have the right Chase credit card (which you probably do for the free annual night).

  4. I think this post is spot on. By and large, .5 cents seems to be about break even for me especially if you take into account the fact that you don’t earn points on points stays. I rarely see a need to accumulate points at .5 cents for this reason. This is not to say there aren’t special cases where you can do much better than .5 cents per point on a redemption. I booked a room selling for 800 euros for 25,000 points earlier this year that is in close proximity to a major event. But the possibility of these redemptions still isn’t reason to accumulate points at .5 cents and hold them when you can always generate points for .7 cents when needed.

    I have a few stays coming up in Europe where IHG is a decent option but the points costs at .5 cents versus the cash cost is pretty much a wash.

  5. We use them at intercontinental hotels that want 300 a night . use 3 nights of points get 4th free. So it is more bang for the buck

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