IHG Rewards Club is currently offering a bonus of up to 100% IHG Rewards pointswhen purchasing points.
The actual bonus is targeted, so your offer may be less. In my case, I was offered a bonus of 100% on purchases of 5,000 points or more..
The current promotion runs through until 23 August, 2019. For those of us in Australia, this works out to be on 24 August – 2p.m on the east coast, and midday on the west.
The structure of the offer is as follows:
When looking at the number of points you wish to buy, remember that, IHG Rewards has a tiered pricing structure.That is, as you buy more points, there are steps where the price drops.
The result of this is that in some cases going up a step in points can actually decrease the overall 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 Rewards sells it 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.
Is it Worth it?
IHG Rewards is the loyalty program that covers hotel chains such as Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn. One advantage of the program is it generally has a good availability of Award Nights.
The main advantage of buying points would be to purchase an award night, rather than buying a more traditional revenue night. Comparing the costs of the purchasing points to buy an award night with the cost of a revenue night will determine whether it is worth doing.
Points Breaks
The current Points Break promotion ends at the end of September. Under this promotion, hotels are made available for a discounted rate of between 5,000 and 15,000 points per night.
While history suggests that we can expect a new list by the end of September, there is no guarantee of which hotels will be included.
However, if you can take advantage of Points Breaks, then being able to buy points at half price is quite a deal.
Standard Reward Rooms
At the other end of the scale, the Category 9 hotels which come in at 50,000 points per night, are still on the expensive side. Having said that, there may be value on nights where there is a high cash price.
Resort hotels in Fiji and Bali, however, offer good pickings for the use of Award night. For example, the Intercontinental Fiji costs 30,000 points for an Award night. Under the current promotion, 30,000 points could be purchased for an effective price of $US167. In comparison, on a selected date in October, the cash price is $US270, which would represent a worthwhile saving.
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 are the properties that are in the mid-range of the rewards categories. This includes resorts such as the InterContinentals in Bali and Fiji.
