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In the weirdest news of the week (which is saying a lot in 2020), Chase Ultimate Rewards is offering a 60% transfer bonus to IHG. With this bonus, you’ll get…a bad deal. Seriously, give this one a hard pass.
The Deal
- Chase Ultimate Rewards is offering a 60% transfer bonus to IHG Rewards. With this bonus, the transfer ratio is 1,000:1,600 (though note that the 600 bonus points are awarded on IHG’s end, so Chase will only show 1,000:1,000)
Key Terms
- Bonus points offer is valid for point transfers to IHG Rewards Club completed between 12:00AM ET on August 1, 2020 and 11:59PM ET on August 31, 2020.
- Minimum transfer is 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
- Bonus points will be awarded by IHG in your IHG Rewards Club account after your transfer is complete. Please allow two (2) business days for the Bonus points to post to your IHG Rewards Club account.
- For the Bonus points offer, you will receive 60% Bonus points for each Ultimate Rewards point transferred during the promotional period listed above. For example, if you transfer 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points, you will receive a total of 1,600 points.
- You must be enrolled in IHG Rewards Club with both your membership in good standing and your Ultimate Rewards credit card account open and not in default in order to participate in this offer. Visit IHG.com/rewardsclub to enroll.
- Once you have transferred Ultimate Rewards points, they become points subject to the Terms and Conditions of the IHG Rewards Club and cannot be transferred back to your Chase Ultimate Rewards Program account.
Quick Thoughts
Before I get into what a bad deal this is, it’s worth noting that like the only other transfer bonus I ever recall from Chase (which was to British Airways last April), the bonus is awarded on the loyalty program side. Chase will show you a 1,000:1,000 ratio, but is advertising the fact that IHG will give you a 60% bonus within a couple of days after you transfer (provided you transfer before the deadline on August 31st).
As noted, this is a terrible deal. You can frequently buy IHG points for half a cent each (the most recent sale ended last night, but I’m sure it’ll be back before long). For every 1 Chase point transferred here, you’re getting 1.6 IHG points. At half a cent each, you could buy those IHG points for a cost of 8 tenths of a cent ($0.008). You would be better off cashing out your Ultimate Rewards points for 1c each and using them to buy 2 IHG points when they are on sale for half a cent each. Every 1,000 Chase points would yield you an effective 2,000 IHG points.
Better yet, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you could use points at a value of 1.5c each to pay yourself back for grocery or home improvement store purchases. Then take the cash you saved thanks to your points and buy IHG points for half a cent each — your effective rate there is 1,000 Chase points to 3,000 IHG points.
I am glad to see a second Chase transfer bonus nearly 17 months after the first one they ran, though at this pace they have some work to do to make transfer bonuses useful (not to mention they’ll need to find a more desirable partner than IHG).
Still, we have added this to our Current point transfer bonuses.
H/T: Reader Adam
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[…] week we reported that Chase is offering a 60% bonus for transferring Ultimate Rewards points to IHG. This deal is valid through the end of August. Nick described this as a terrible deal. Was he […]
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>>the bonus is awarded on the loyalty program side <<
I get it, this is a terrible transfer deal. However, you gotta give IHG some credit. Here is another example of IHG making an effort to attract loyalty members during the clampdown. Marriott guests, and franchisees, should be so lucky as to have a corporate overlord who makes such an effort.
They could bring back a promotion like Accelerate. I sure do miss that!
IHG has just extended their 100 % bonus, at least to me & SO, so I presume to everyone.
Yep, me too.
[…] (HT: Frequent Miler) […]
Would rather be able to transfer ihg to Chase UR
Does the bonus point consider as elite qualifying point ?
Yes, this is the important question that was completely missed in the post. Regular UR transfers are elite qualifying. I will test a 1K transfer.
The 1K posted instantly and was elite qualifying. Hopefully the 600 bonus posts fast, and we will have an answer. An easy 35K transfer could get you Spire for potentially quite a while if it works.
That is exactly the point!
I’d probably do the $35K for spire if the bonus is elite qualifying. Interested in hearing the results of your test.
The results are in: epic fail. The 60% portion is non-qualifying.
Bummer! Thanks for taking one for the team!
Using the cancellation trick you can almost always buy points for 0.7 cents each if you need them in a pinch. OTOH, a 100% bonus would tilt the scales towards me using it, especially since I am not a CSR holder.