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Frequent Miler author Stephen Pepper received an email today about what looks like a targeted promotion from IHG: get 20% off on Points & Cash bookings (presumably on the cash portion). This makes it possible to buy IHG points from 0.48c each. The terms indicate it is available for IHG credit card holders on bookings made by September 20th, 2018 and consumed by November 4, 2018. The public landing pages specify that it is for IHG Rewards Club Premier or IHG Rewards Club Traveler cardholders — I only have the IHG Rewards Club Select card and was not targeted. If you are targeted, this could be a good opportunity to score a nice discount on IHG points.
The Deal
- IHG has a targeted offer to get 20% off on Points & Cash bookings
- Direct link to this promo (Premier card)
- Direct link to this promo (Traveler card)
Key Terms
- Must book by September 20, 2018 and consume by November 4, 2018
- Cash portion is nonrefundable. If your award stay is canceled in accordance with the hotel’s cancellation policy, points will be redposited into your account
- See promotion page for more terms
Quick Thoughts
This looks like it could be a good deal if you’e targeted. Some properties have a “regular” price of $120 for 20K points (0.6 cents each). Saving 20% on the cash portion would bring the cost of points down to 0.48 cents each, which would be a solid deal for IHG points. See an example here:
IHG Premier and IHG Traveler (which was apparently pulled without notice at some point and is not available for new applicants at this time) cardholders could then later leverage those cheap points further with a 4th night free on award stays and/or those with the IHG Select card (old $49 version no longer available) can stack a 10% rebate when using points. That could all amount to some cheap stays on the lower end of IHG Rewards.
Keep in mind that Points & Cash bookings are excluded for most of the activities targeted in the Fall IHG promotion, so you won’t be able to stack this with those achievements. However, if you’re looking for cheap points for an award stay, this might do the trick.
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So the idea would be to book and then cancel, correct? I assume the discounted points would be refunded to your account?
Correct. It spells that out during the checkout process — you are buying points and if you cancel, your refund is in points rather than cash.
Is there a limit to how many times you can do this or how many points you can get? I’ve already maxed out buying 100k+100k points from the $0.50/point deals this year.
Also on another note, I am correct in thinking that if you have both the $49 and $89 annual fee cards to double dip the buy 3 get 1 free and 10% points rebate, then you’d be looking at 33% off:
Double Dip = 1 * 0.75 * 0.9 = 0.675% of original point total after staying.
For example, book 4 nights at 30k each for 90k. Then you get 9k rebate which ends up being 81k. Thus, 81k divided by 120k you basically got 33% off.
My conclusion here is that even though frequent miler values IHG points at $0.05, if you take into account having both cards, the valuation essentially goes up to $0.074 ($0.05/0.675) and actually makes buying points for $0.05 or less actually a reasonable deal if you know you’ll have planned stays where IHG is an option.
No limit. Yes, you can double dip and it is a reasonable deal (provided you’re being careful to use the points at good value).
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I got the email and twice tried making a reservation but both times got an error. I do have the legacy card (forget the exact name, but the one with the $49 fee and annual unlimited free night award for one more year). From your post I’m wondering if I got the email in error and that’s why I can’t book. Indeed, buying points less than .5c/point and then receiving the 10% rebate that comes with the credit card is an excellent deal.
Edit – the email I got referenced 15% savings (not 20%) and was not linked to a credit card (it just says “save 15% on your next trip,” clearly for generic IHG Rewards Club members) However, the calculations presented to me when I tried to make a booking were the same as in your screenshot above (i.e. 20,000 points for $96). Perhaps that’s why things kept erroring out for me? Will try again tonight.
Doesn’t make sense the points have to be consumed by a specific date if you book and then cancel you just get points redeposited and they are good for how long?
I should have made that clearer. The booking has to be “consumed” by November 4th. In other words you have to book a stay scheduled for checkout by November 4th. If you cancel your stay, the points just go back into your account. I think IHG assumes that you’re actually planning to stay rather than just buy cheap points. I assume the other way around.
In other words, you only see the discount on stays scheduled to check out by November 4th. If you look up a stay next March, you won’t see the discount.
But will the points be deposited back into your account and then stay there? Or will they get clawed back if you don’t use them by November?
Yes, the points stay there. They do not expire / get clawed back. This isn’t new — it has been going on for years. Here are a few other sales from the last ~year alone where we’ve written about this same kind of thing:
https://frequentmiler.com/2018/06/20/ihg-points-cash-offer-10-off-cash-portion-buy-points-for-0-56-cpp/
https://frequentmiler.com/2018/04/27/buy-ihg-points-from-0-46-cents-each-w-targeted-promo/
https://frequentmiler.com/2017/10/25/buy-ihg-points-43125-cents-targeted/
https://frequentmiler.com/2017/08/23/can-buy-ihg-points-0-46-cents-per-point/