(EXPIRED) Targeted IHG promos: Get 8k points every 4 nights, 2k points every 2 nights & more

This past week IHG sent out targeted emails to IHG One Rewards members offering bonus points when staying a certain number of nights.

The Deal

• IHG is offering targeted promotions including:
  • Earn 8,000 bonus points for every four nights you stay
  • Earn 2,000 bonus points for every two nights you stay

Key Terms

• Terms below are for the 8k points/4 nights promo
  • To participate in the “8,000 points every 4 nights” Promotion (the “Promotion”), an individual must have an active, valid IHG One Rewards member account and must register for the Promotion.
  • Members can pre-register for this Promotion starting January 19, 2024 through January 31, 2024 (the “Pre-Registration Period”).
  • Members will be able to stay and earn IHG One Rewards bonus points under this Promotion beginning February 1, 2024 and ending on March 31, 2024 (the “Promotion Period”).
  • Members who did not register during the Pre-Registration Period may register for the Promotion during the Promotion Period.
  • A member can only register once.
  • After registering for the Promotion, a member can earn 8,000 bonus points every four (4) qualifying room night stays during the Promotion Period. The points earned during the 8,000 points every 4 nights Promotion can be used toward Reward Nights, can be redeemed for merchandise, or can be used for other redemption opportunities, as permitted under the IHG One Rewards program.
  • The time needed for awarding points can vary with each promotion, so please allow up to 6 weeks for any earned bonus points to be posted to the recipient’s account.
  • To be a qualifying room night under the Promotion, the room night must fall within the Promotion Period and must be part of a Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay. As stated, the “Promotion Period” is from February 1, 2024 through March 31, 2024.
  • Room nights outside of the Promotion Period are not included, and room nights that are part of a stay that was completed prior to registration for the Promotion also are not included.
  • For purposes of this Promotion, a “Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay” is defined as a minimum one (1) night stay at a participating hotel booked under a Qualifying Rate, with total spend exceeding US $30 (or local currency equivalent) for each night.
  • Stays booked using Rewards Nights or Points & Cash are not Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stays for purposes of this Promotion.
  • Bookings made through on-line travel agencies or other reservation sites such as booking.com or expedia.com also do not qualify under this Promotion. (For additional details on Qualifying Rates, please see the full IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions .)
  • If more than one member who registered for the Promotion checks into the same room, only one member is eligible to earn points under the Promotion for those nights that qualify.
  • If a member books more than one room on the same night, the member will receive credit towards this Promotion for only one of the rooms that also meets the requirements of a qualifying room night under the Promotion.

Quick Thoughts

I was targeted for the offer giving 8,000 bonus points for every four nights we stay, while my wife got the offer for 2,000 bonus points for every two nights we stay. The emails we received had a button to click for one-click registration, so it’s worth checking your inbox to see if you got one of these offers or something better. The email subject lines were “Invite only: Register to earn 8K points every 4 nights” and “Invite only: Register to earn 2K points every 2 nights”, so doing a search for “Invite only” will hopefully display your offer if you were targeted.

Note that these offers aren’t eligible on award stays and Points & Cash stays – only regular paid stays.

These promotions can stack with several other earning opportunities. For starters, you can earn through a shopping portal – here are the current rates. At the time of publishing this, TopCashback is offering 9% cashback and Swagbucks is at 10%. It’s also worth checking Capital One Shopping – particularly the ‘Your Personalized Deals’ on the home page of that portal as they often give notably high targeted cashback rates. If you’re not planning on making an immediate reservation, do a dummy booking (where you pretend like you’re making a reservation, but don’t actually submit on the final booking screen). If you have the Capital One Shopping extension installed and wait a couple of days, I’ve often found that’s when I’ll get an email from them offering something like 15% cashback for IHG.

Other stacking options include the targeted Chase Offers for select IHG brands. Those include Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn Express, Kimpton and more. Those seem to be short-dated as their expiry date is usually within the next week. However, they seem to get perpetually extended and so if your stay isn’t until more than a week away, it’s worth keeping an eye on your Chase cards in case they become available to load again.

There’s then the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express offers from SimplyMiles. Those are giving 930 American Airlines AAdvantage miles + 930 Loyalty Points when spending only $100.

To give a better idea of how rewarding these stacking opportunities could be, let’s say you’re targeted for the promotion giving 8,000 bonus points for every four nights you stay and you book a four night stay costing $125 per night at a Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express. You then pay for the stay using an IHG Premier card which is targeted for one of the 10% Chase Offers. You’d be spending a total of $500 and would earn the following:

• 8,000 IHG bonus points (from the stay four nights promotion)
• 5,000 IHG base points (10x on $500 spend)
• 3,000 IHG bonus points (60% bonus points for having Platinum status (an IHG Premier benefit)
• 5,000 IHG bonus points (10x earnings on the IHG credit card on $500 spend)
• $50 cashback (from the Chase Offer)
• $50 cashback (from 10% earnings via a shopping portal)
• 930 American Airlines AAdvantage miles
• 930 American Airlines Loyalty Points

That’s a total of 21,000 IHG One Rewards points, $100 cashback, 930 AA miles and 930 Loyalty Points – an excellent return on only $500 of spend.

There are a couple of caveats with this. First, IHG base and bonus points earnings are based on your spend before taxes and fees, so if $125 was your all-in rate, you’d earn fewer points than that (bonus points earned from the IHG credit card are based on the all-in rate though). There’s also no guarantee that paying with an IHG card will subsequently track with SimplyMiles; those SimplyMiles offers have a line in the terms stating “Only U.S.-issued Citi Mastercard Credit Cards are eligible”; if that’s enforced, IHG cards which are issued by Chase wouldn’t be eligible.

It’s also worth checking whether it would be better value to book your stay with IHG points. IHG points frequently go on sale for 0.5cpp (cents per point) and you can get every 4th night free on award stays and/or a 10% points rebate with certain IHG credit cards. As luck would have it given the promo I was targeted for, I need to book a four night stay for next month. I can take advantage of both the 4th night free and 10% rebate, so my net cost for the stay would be 45,900 points, or a total of $229.50 in points when purchased at 0.5cpp which equates to $57.38 per night.

The cash rate for that stay is $109.35 per night including tax, so the value I’d need to get from the bonus points, portal cashback, etc. would need to total almost 50% in order to make it worthwhile to pay the cash rate over redeeming points. Even with the perfect stack, it seems like redeeming points still works out to be the better option for my scenario.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.