IHG has severely limited free points transfers for Diamond Elite and Business Rewards members. Loyalty Lobby discovered a change in terms indicating that Diamond Elite members are now limited to transferring only 100K points per year with no fee, and Business Rewards members can only get access to free transfers “with a qualifying event.”
Previously, the yearly limit for both Diamond and Business Rewards was 500,000 points, making this a significant adverse change.
The News
- IHG has changed the terms addressing free points transfers for Diamond Elite and Business Rewards members:
- IHG Diamond members’ free points transfers are now limited to 100K per calendar year (down from 500K).
- IHG Business Rewards members can now transfer for free only if they have a “qualifying event” (the previous limit was 500K).
Diamond Elite members and IHG® Business Rewards members with a qualifying event can transfer up to 100,000 points per calendar year free of charge.
Quick Thoughts
After IHG “reimagined” its rewards program in 2023, it started allowing Diamond Elite and Business Rewards members to transfer their points to other members for free, with the caveat that you could only transfer a total of 500,000 points per year. All other members can transfer points to another member without limit, but at a $5 per 1,000 points fee, which is a horrible deal since IHG frequently sells points for the same price.
However, IHG has now almost eliminated free transfers for Business Rewards members and limited Diamond Elites to a relatively paltry 100K points per year. Both stink, given that IHG award nights often cost more than 50K points per night, making the ability to easily pool points between family members very useful.
As far as I know, IHG didn’t provide any advance notice or communication regarding this change.
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“qualifying event” meaning you need to book a room block for your event or “qualifying event” as in something else?
Thanks for reporting this Tim.
They also are slowing down transfers, compromising the ability of their customers to consolidate their points in time to lock in a booking.
We discovered this on Dec 10th when we tried to move 200k points over and were limited to 100k. So we did that. But over 48 hours later, that transfer has yet to post.