IHG has again returned with a sale that’s giving an 80% bonus when buying their points. That means you can buy IHG Rewards points for 0.56 cents per point (cpp). Note that, although the 80% bonus begins at 5,000 IHG points, pricing doesn’t actually reach 0.56cpp until you buy at least 26,000. This is because IHG charges more that 1 cent per point below that threshold, so the bonus takes it down to slightly above 0.56 cents each.
This offer appears to be targeted as my account isn’t currently showing it, but my wife’s is. It’s also officially labeled as a “mystery” bonus. In the past, that’s usually meant that most, it not all, folks have the 80% bonus, but there could be some who have a lesser discount.
The Deal
- Buy IHG Rewards points for as little as 0.56 cents per point when buying points with this 80% bonus.
- Direct link to offer (our affiliate link)
Key Terms
- This Offer is available for qualifying purchases of IHG One Rewards points made between 12:00 AM ET on April 25th, 2024 and 11:59 PM ET on June 8th, 2024 (“Offer Period”).
- Members will receive a bonus of 80% of the points purchased when they meet a minimum points purchase threshold on a per transaction basis.
- The percentage bonus amount will show for eligible members when they log into their IHG One Rewards account. (Please click through to access the landing page for the Offer.)
- The number of points a member may purchase, gift, or receive as a gift during the Offer Period is subject to annual limits under the IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions, which are available on www.ihg.com.
- Members may purchase a maximum of 250,000 points during the promotional period only. Members may gift a maximum of 250,000 points or receive as a gift from another member a combined maximum of 250,000 points during the promotional period only. Points that have been already purchased, gifted or received as a gift in 2024 are included in the 250,000 points limit. Purchased points, as well as any bonus points awarded under this Offer, do not count towards IHG One Rewards Elite status
- Please allow up to 72 hours for points to post and appear in the recipient’s account. All other IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions apply.
Best uses of IHG points
- 4th night free. Use points to book 4 nights for the price of 3. This benefit is valid on longer stays, so if staying 8 nights you’ll get both the 4th and 8th nights free. This benefit is available only to cardholders of the IHG Premier, Traveler and Business credit cards. Rather than reducing the total cost of the stay by 25%, the points required for every 4th night are deducted. Seeing as IHG uses dynamic pricing, that can be great if the 4th night is the most expensive, but not as good if that night is the cheapest. See this post for more about the possibilities.
- 10% points rebate. If you have the IHG Select credit card (no longer available for new applications), you’ll get a 10% points rebate when booking award stays. The points are credited back a few weeks after your stay, so you need to have the full number of points required for an award stay in your account. The 10% points rebate stacks with the 4th night free benefit if you have both an IHG Premier, Traveler or Business credit card and an IHG Select card, with the 4th night free being calculated first.
- Sweet spots with dynamic pricing. Although IHG uses dynamic pricing for award stays, award pricing isn’t always as high as the corresponding cash cost. For example, Stephen booked a stay at the Staybridge Suites Temecula-Wine Country in California. The average nightly cost was $258.81 with taxes and fees, but the points cost ranged from 19,000-23,000 points per night. Buying points at 0.5cpp would therefore enable you to stay for only $95-$115 per night at that award pricing – less than half the cost of a regular paid stay. Stacking the 4th night free and 10% points rebate reduced the cost of a 9 night stay there to only 14,500 points per night, or $72.50 per night when buying points at 0.5cpp. That was less than a third of the cost of a paid stay.
Things to know about IHG points
- When you book nights with points, you will not earn points for the stay unless IHG is running a promotion that awards bonus points per night/stay which includes award nights.
- Most hotel taxes are not charged on award stays, so this can make the value of buying points even better. Arguably, this factor and the one above roughly cancel each other out.
- IHG Rewards points purchases are made via Points.com. You can click through from a shopping portal to earn a little cashback on the purchase, thereby reducing your net cost for the points – you can find the current rates here.
- Points.com purchases don’t code as travel, so it’s best to pay with a card that earns at a higher rate for everyday spend or on a card where you’re working on a minimum spend requirement.
Past IHG points sales
- 80% bonus (Buy points for 0.56 cents each). Valid February 13th – March 7, 2024.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.05 cents each). Valid January 26-February 2, 2024
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.05 cents each). Valid November 16-December 30, 2023
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.05 cents each). Valid October 2-9, 2023
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.05 cents each). Valid July 21-28, 2023
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid June 19-26, 2023.
- 80% bonus (Buy points for 0.56 cents each). Valid April 24 – June 7, 2023.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through March 21, 2023.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through December 29, 2022.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through October 21, 2022.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through August 7, 2022.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through July 15, 2022.
- 80% bonus (Buy points for 0.6 cents each). Valid through June 10, 2022.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through April 14, 2022.
- 80%-100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5-0.6 cents each). Valid through March 18, 2022.
- 80% bonus (Buy points for 0.6 cents each). Valid through January 4, 2022.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through November 8, 2021.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through October 8, 2021.
- 100% bonus (Buy points for 0.5 cents each). Valid through September 9, 2021.
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Note that IHG’s pattern recently has been to offer a 100% bonus for a few weeks, then immediately after cut the offer to 80%. And either discount counts against the same 150K purchase limit (sometimes stretched to 250K at year’s end).
Thus, unless one has an urgent need for points, it makes sense to hold off for the next 100% bonus offer (which lately has been at least 3x per year.)
You can only get the 4th night free when paying with points if you have the credit card too?
Yes. I think even the no a/f card offers 4th night free.
@Billy Bob is correct. the no a/f card, personal Premier, and current Business card all enable 4th night free.
Well, I tried buying few minutes before the offer expired, but the website wouldn’t let me log on. About an hour later, I logged on again (technically after the offer expired), but the 100% bonus offer is gone and replaced with a lesser offer.
Not cool of IHG to disallow members from logging on before the offer expires. Oh well.
The last three sales say that IHG points were .05 cents. This means you could buy 150,000 IHG points for $75.
Stephen, this time the sale has the usual annual cap of 150/300K points purchased, not the 250/500K cited in your piece.
It’s generally only with end of year promos that the cap is raised beyond 150K.
Thanks Dave, fixed.
Oddly, mine allows up to 180K (doubled to 360K) in points.
Does points.com code as “travel”?
Unfortunately not
I only got targeted for 80% in my Offers. Is there a workaround to get the 100% bonus?
Are there any points plus cash hotels where the effective cost is less than .5 cents to book and cancel? I seem to recall getting 300,000 for around .32 a few years back
Stephen, my email increased the yearly cap from the standard 150,000 to 250,000, the same as they did last year.
Assuming everyone is seeing the same thing, might be worth mentioning that in the post.
Me too. I had already maxed out my 150,000 points so it was a pleasant surprise to see i could buy an additional 100, 000 points.
Hello, I have been trying to figure out if there is a way to add breakfast to an award booking with IHG – short of calling them – or if it is even worth it.
Thanks!
You’ll be able to pay for breakfast when you’re at the hotel. There’s no need to prepay for it; in fact, it’s generally better if you don’t in case you decide to sleep in or go for breakfast elsewhere.
I love this sales but for me personally I tend to get “no award nights available” at a lot of the IHG proerties I try to book even though there are plenty of rooms available via cash rate. I wish IHG was more like hilton in that if there is a room available you can use points
A related question… In my chase account they had a 70% bonus when transferring to IHG. A good deal? I haven’t paid much attention to IHG.
Thanks
Terrible deal. As the article outlines, you can buy IHG points for 0.5 cents each. So 1 cent could buy 2 points, or a 100% bonus. If you value Chase points on the low end of 1 cent each, you could buy IHG points for cheaper than you could transfer, plus you’d earn more points on the purchase.
Thanks! I appreciate the info and advice.
Purchased the max using your link!
Does the linked website know if the annual buying cap limit is exceeded?
Yes, it does. It doesn’t show you the purchase options that will put you over the cap. I bought 300k (150+150) earlier this year and was only able to choose up to 200k (100+100) today.
a couple of related questions about portal payout for points “buying”.
based on info i read so far, points&cash booking is treated as award booking and processed directly by ihg (higher % portal payout as opposed to buying points through points.com)?
if I use points&cash to “buy” points, portal will still pay out after I cancel the booking and ihg refunds me points paid and points for the cash portion? thanks.
I haven’t had luck with a portal paying out for Points & Cash bookings in the past, but it’s worth clicking through from one anyway because different portals sometimes track and pay out on different things. I certainly wouldn’t go into it expecting for a portal to pay out on Points & Cash though in case that’s what would make buying points that way worthwhile.