Hot on the heels of the previous promotion, IHG One Rewards is running a promotion offering up to 100% bonus points when you purchase points. There is a minimum purchase requirement of 5,000 points to get the bonus.
The current promotion runs until midnight on 12 December 2024. That’s midnight Eastern Time in the US, so will be later in the day on 13 December if you are in Australia.
To take advantage of this offer, head over to the offer page.
One thing to keep in mind when deciding on the number of points that you wish to buy is that IHG Rewards has a tiered pricing structure. There are points on the scale where the price per point drops, and it drops for every point in your purchase.
As a result, sometimes it can be worth buying more points and getting an overall lower price. For example, 25,000 Points (excluding the bonus) will set you back $287.50. Buy an extra 1,000 Points and the overall price drops to $260. That’s right – it costs less to buy 26,000 Points than to buy 25,000 Points.
Click through to Points.com to get your offer.
Standard Price
IHG One Rewards sells its points through points.com. The current standard price for points (expressed in US Dollars) is:
- First 10,000 points for $13.50 per 1,000 points
- then 11,000 – 25,000 points for $11.50 per 1,000 points
- then 26,000 – 100,000 points for $10.00 per 1,000 points
As noted above, the best price can be found when you purchase 26,000 points or more. At that level, you are paying 1 US Cent per point. Of course, if you are getting an 100% bonus the price per point comes down.
What is the value of buying IHG One Rewards Points?
So why would you actually buy points?
At first glance, buying points to cash them in on Reward Nights seems a little counterintuitive. Wouldn’t you just use the points that you get from staying at their hotels?
Well, there’s a few reasons you might want to buy points.
Firstly, you may be just a little bit short of a Reward. Topping up the points by buying some might get you enough to get an award.
Secondly, if you have a swag of points about to expire, buying points could let you extend the life of your points. You can do this even if you are not planning a stay.
Finally, you could buy enough for an outright reward. That’s right – buy enough points to cover off an entire Reward redemption. But why would you do this?
The thing is that unlike some programs IHG One Rewards sells points at quite a reasonable price. In some cases, this means that you can buy points, then claim a Reward night, and you would end up paying less than the cash price. This is true across the price spectrum. It can hold true for luxury hotels, just as much as it does for budget hotels.
IHG One Rewards can also have pretty good award availability. Sure, you may have to be flexible on dates, but if you are looking for a stay at an Intercontinental, a Crowne Plaza, or a Holiday Inn, you can usually find some award nights.
Let’s take a look at an example.
The resort hotels in Fiji can offer good pickings for the use of Reward nights. For example, Intercontinental Fiji costs 90,000 points for a Reward night. Let’s say you wanted 4 nights there, that would be a total of 360,000 points. In the current promotion, that would set you back $US2,000 to buy the points. That comes out to a bit over $3,000 Australian, at current exchange rates.
On the dates I chose at random, the cash price for the room was $3,483. So, buying points represents a saving of more than 10%.
In Summary
As always with these points purchase promotions, you will need to do your own calculations taking into account your own personal circumstances. While a good promotion, it is likely best if you have some planned purpose for the points rather than making a speculative purpose.
You might want to take a gamble on decent Points Breaks offers. This is a bit of a risk, but it may pay off.
Arguably, the best hotels to look for value are the high-end properties, such as resorts, that normally have quite significant cash prices. The other alternative is the properties that are in the mid-range of the rewards categories. This includes resorts such as the InterContinentals in Bali and Fiji.
