Get Cheap IHG and Choice Points Using the Cash & Points Trick (2021)

Easily Earn Points for Free Travel, Using Your Points for Free Travel

With most hotel programs, it is usually too expensive to buy points at the last minute. The cost to purchase the points would likely be more expensive than the regular room rate. But that's not often not true with the IHG and Choice programs.

The “Cash & Points” trick allows you to easily “buy” IHG or Choice points at lower-than-normal prices and then use them to make award reservations. You aren't really getting a free night but can frequently lower the out-of-pocket cost of your room.

For example, if a room at an IHG hotel requires 20,000 points per night, you can use the Cash & Points trick to buty the points you need for $115. Whenever prices are a bit higher than normal, this will be less than the normal room rate.

At IHG, you can you the Cash & Points trick to buy points at .575 cents each (or less during promotions). At Choice, you can buy points for .80 cents.

The basics of the "Cash & Points" trick are simple. You make a "fake" award reservation for any hotel and pay for the room partly with cash and partly with points (using the Cash & Points option). You then cancel the reservation. Instead of refunding the cash and points you paid, they refund the number of points required for a regular award reservation. You are essentially "buying" extra points with the cash part of the original reservation.

For example, a hotel may be available for either 40,000 points or 20,000 points plus $115 in cash. If you choose to book with the cash and points option and then cancel, they will give you a 40,000-point refund instead of the 20,000 points and $115 you spent. You are essentially buying the 20,000-point difference for $115 or .575 cents per point.

With IHG, you may have to search several times to find an opportunity to buy points at the lowest cost. The cash portion of a Cash and Points reservation is different for different hotels and different dates. The best rate per point is when you are paying $115 to save 20,000 points from the normal award cost.

Start by doing an award search for a more-expensive city—to get the best deal you need to book a hotel that would normally cost around 40,000 or more points. Book at least a few days out to avoid non-refundable award reservations.

Once you see a list of hotels, use the controls to switch the prices to Points + Cash.

Then scan the list to find an option with a $115 surcharge. If no hotel displays with that option, try a different city and a different set of dates. We tend to have better results when searching within the next few weeks rather than far in the future.

If you find a hotel, click on the "Select Hotel" button, then select your room type, and you should see all your Cash + Points options.

There should be four options with the last option requiring 20,000 fewer points plus a $115 surcharge.

With Choice, you get the same rate on every reservation. The more expensive the hotel, the more points you can purchase at a time. Points and cash reservations always cost 6,000 points plus .8 cents for each additional point. For example, with a 25,000 point hotel, you'll be buying 19,000 points for $152, and with a 16,000 point hotel, you'll be buying 1,000 points for $80.

If you need a bunch of points, make a reservation for multiple nights. For example, with IHG, you can only use the Cash & Points trick to acquire 20,000 points per night. If you need 80,000 points, make a four-night reservation. If you are having trouble finding availability for all the nights you need, you can break it up into multiple reservations. With Choice, the maximum number of points you can acquire is typically 24,000 points per night (with hotels that normally require 30,000 points).
Book a Cash and Points reservation. You are going to cancel your reservation in a minute, so it doesn't make any difference which hotel you book. Just make sure to book a few days out, so you don't wind up with a non-refundable reservation.
Cancel the reservation you just made. When that happens, rather than refunding the cash portion of the reservation, IHG and Choice simply return all the points to your account—the original points from the point portion of the reservation and the additional points you effectively bought with the cash portion. In this example, you would get 40,000 points back, rather than being refunded the 20,000 points and $115 you paid.
Book the room at the hotel that you really want to stay at, using the new points in your account.

More details

Sometimes, IHG runs promotions that let you buy points (using the trick) for even less money.
To make the initial reservation, you will need to already have at least some points in your account. If you don’t have enough points, you’ll need to start out by buying those points at regular price.

For Choice, you want to keep 6,000 points in your account. You can book any Choice hotel, using a cash and points award, for only 6,000 points plus a cash payment. When you use the cash and points trick to acquire new Choice points, make sure to acquire 6,000 points more than you need and leave them in your account until the next reservation.

If you want to book Preferred Hotels and Resorts, you’ll need at least 10,000 points plus cash, rather than 6,000. So, you'll want to keep more points in your account.

For IHG, you ideally want to keep at least 20-30,000 points on hand, but you can get by with only 5,000 points. The lowest rate for acquiring IHG points with the Cash & Points trick is .575 cents per point (when you buy 20,000 points at a time). To buy these 20,000 points, you’ll typically need to book and cancel a hotel with a standard rate of at least 35,000 points and sometimes at least 50,000 points. This requires at least 20-30,000 points in your account.

If you don’t want to keep this many points around, the absolute minimum number of points is 5,000. This allows you to make and cancel a reservation for a 15,000-point hotel, buying 10,000 points at a time at higher rates.