Guide to the IHG Rewards Club (2021)
Hotel Strategies, Hotel Loyalty Program Reference Guide
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Quick Guide
- IHG points are worth about .5 cents each. How Much are Hotel Points Worth?.
- The acquisition of Kimpton Hotels added a lot of very attractive hotels to the IHG portfolio. You can also earn and spend points at over 500 properties in the Mr & Mrs Smith network of luxury hotels.
- The award costs for each hotel varies on a day to day basis, based on demand. Unlike other programs there aren't fixed off-peak, standard, and peak rates. Instead, the point costs varies more widely.
- It is possible to acquire IHG points, whenever you need them, at a cost as low as .575 cents per point. No matter how many IHG points you currently have, you can always make an award booking (whenever you find an IHG hotel that is less expensive with points than with cash). IHG also runs frequent point purchase promotions, where you can sometimes buy points for even less.
- The IHG Credit Card provides a free hotel certificate every year, which can be used at their mid-range hotels. It is easy to get more value from the certificate, than the cost of the card's annual fee ($89).
- Like most other hotel programs, you can earn enough points for several free nights from the signup bonuses on IHG’s credit cards. You can earn the signup bonuses from both versions of the card, assuming you have available 5/24 slots.
- IHG runs a lot of different reward promotions, and you can sometimes take advantage of multiple promotions on a single stay, earning a lot of bonus points.
IHG Hotel Brands
Thousands of Holiday Inn hotels are located all over the world, but not every traveler stays at them. InterContinental and Kimpton are the their two largest higher-end hotel brands. The Six Senses brand will soon be added to the program.
IHG also has a partnership with the Mr & Mrs Smith network of luxury hotels that allows IHG members to earn and spend points and over 500 of their properties.
Free Night Certificates
If you have the IHG Premier credit card, you'll receive a free night certificate every year. The certificate can only be used at hotels that cost 40,000 points or less per night. The limit is based on the actual dynamic pricing for the hotel, not its underlying category. Free night certificates can often be redeemed for nights where there is no regular award availability. So, just because you see that there are no award bookings available, it doesn't mean that you can't use your certificate.
40,000 points is usually good enough for a very nice hotel room in many parts of the country or the world, and even a property or two in an expensive city like New York, but not for one of IHG's more prestigious hotels. For more information about IHG Free Night Certificates see our detailed guide.
The certificate from the Hyatt Card is probably more valuable. But it is easier to use the IHG Card's certificate, because they are over 4,000 eligible hotels in every corner of the world.
Award Chart
- If there are standard rooms available, you can often book with points—but there are no guarantees. IHG heavily advertises "no blackout dates", but all that means is that hotels need to make a minimum number (5%) of their rooms available for awards every night of the year. When a hotel is busy, they are free to hold back most of their rooms for cash-only reservations. In practice, most hotels are happy to take award bookings—you just can't count on it. And since you can always purchase points for .575 cents per point, if the room is worth more than the amount shown in the cost column, it is worthwhile to purchase the points you need to book it. How Much are Hotel Points Worth?.
- Point prices for each hotel vary on a day to day basis, based on demand. There isn't a fixed exchange rate, so points are still more valuable when hotel prices are higher than normal. But, in general, it is harder to get more or less value from your points.
- The old award chart is still useful for understanding "peak" award prices:
- If you have the old version of the IHG credit card, you get back a 10% rebate on points used for award redemptions. This is limited to 100,000 refunded points per year and doesn't require that you use the card as part of the purchase.
- IHG does not allow you to use your points to book a premium room or to upgrade a room reservation. However, you can often pay a cash fee to upgrade from the base-level award room.
- IHG cardholders get a 4th night free benefit on award stays. If you have the IHG Premier card or the IHG Traveler card, you'll get your 4th night free on regular award reservations. For example, if a hotel costs 50,000 points per night, you can get a 4-night stay for only 150,000 points. The 4th night free benefit applies to the point cost of the 4th night, not the average point cost of the reservation. This matters if the point cost varies per night. It doesn't apply to paid stays, non-standard rooms, or cash and points redemptions, and the benefit does not come with the now-discontinued IHG Card.
Note that IHG free night certificates can often be used to book a room on nights where the hotel is limiting point reservations.
| Category | Points | Last Minute Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10,000 | 57.50 |
| 2 | 15,000 | 86.25 |
| 3 | 20,000 | 115.00 |
| 4 | 25,000 | 143.75 |
| 5 | 30,000 | 172.50 |
| 6 | 35,000 | 201.25 |
| 7 | 40,000 | 230.00 |
| 8 | 45,000 | 258.75 |
| 9 | 50,000 | 287.50 |
| 10 | 55,000 | 316.24 |
| 11 | 60,000 | 345.00 |
| 12 | 100,000 | 575.00 |
Points & Cash Awards
- Whenever a regular award night is available, you'll have the option to book a Points & Cash award instead. At every hotel, you'll have the option of spending 5,000 fewer points plus paying a cash surcharge. At almost every hotel, you'll also have the option of spending 10,000 fewer points and paying a larger surcharge. At higher category hotels, you'll typically have a third option of spending 15,000 points and often a fourth option of spending 20,000 fewer points. Even at their most expensive hotels, the cash and points option will never save more than 20,000 points.
- The cost per point goes down as the surcharge goes up. When you use a Points & Cash option, you are essentially buying points. The best deal is to choose to save as many points as you can.
- The value of Points & Cash awards vary by hotel and date. IHG used to have fixed surcharges for each level of savings. For example, you always needed to pay $70 to save 10,000 points or $125 to save 20,000 points. Surcharges now vary slightly for different hotels and for different dates. The best available deal, outside of a promotion, is a surcharge of $115 to save 20,000 points or .575 cents per point.
- Points & Cash awards are sometimes a good deal.. Technically, you can acquire IHG points whenever you want at a .575 cent rate, so a purist would say that you shouldn’t make a Points & Cash redemption unless you are getting the lowest possible rate. But we are willing to spend up to .6 cents per point, in order to reduce the number of points we need to purchase through the Cash & Points trick. This equates to taking the Points & Cash option for 20,000 points at $120, 15,000 points at $90, 10,000 points at $60, and 5,000 points for $30.
Acquiring Points
Acquiring last minute points
If you do see a great redemption deal on IHG hotels, there are several ways that you can acquire additional points. .
| Cash & Points Trick |
You can acquire as many IHG points as you want, at .625 cents (or less) per point, using the “Cash & Points” trick. To do this, you make a Points & Cash reservation for any hotel that offers an option to save 20,000 points. Then you cancel the reservation. Rather than refunding the points and cash that you paid, IHG keeps your cash and refunds the normal number of points you would need for the hotel. For example, if the offer was to save 20,000 points by spending $125, you don’t get the $125 back. They keep it and give you back the extra 20,000 points. Get Cheap IHG and Choice Points Using the Cash & Points Trick. |
| Normal point purchases |
You can also purchase up to 100,000 points per year, in 1,000-point increments, at a price of 1 cent per point. If you have use the IHG Premier or IHG Traveler card to make the purchase, you'll get a 20% discount. Get a Discounted Room Rate by Buying the Points for an Award Night. IHG runs frequent promotions where you can purchase points with a 100% bonus, dropping the point cost to as low as 5.75 cents per point, or even less if you pay with the IHG Premier or Traveler cards. At that rate, it can be worthwhile to stockpile points for future reservations. |
| Transferring between accounts |
You can transfer points between members, in 1,000-point increments, for $5 per 1,000 points. |
| Transferring credit card points |
You can transfer Ultimate Reward points (1000:1000), or Diners Club Reward points (1000:1000) to IHG points. That is never going to be worthwhile compared to just purchasing the points via the Cash & Points Trick or a promotion. |
| Transferring from frequent flyer programs |
For the sake of completeness, you can transfer points from a small set of frequent flyer programs, but the exchange rates are not interesting enough to make this something to consider. |
Earning points from your stays
Members earn 10 points for every dollar spent at IHG. At Staybridge and Candlewood Suites, you only earn 5 points. Gold, Platinum, and Spire members earn an extra 10%, 50%, or 100% on stays. You can earn airline miles instead of points, but this isn’t typically a great option, because you usually only earn 2 airline miles, rather than 10 IHG points. You won’t earn points for stays booked through online travel agents or other third-party channels. You need to book directly with IHG.
You can earn points on up to 9 rooms (at North American properties). However, you will only get elite credit for a single room.
If you pay with your IHG Premier credit card, you’ll earn an additional 10 points per dollar. Unless you highly value premium-cabin award tickets, this is a better reward rate than you’ll get from any other card. The discontinued IHG card and the IHG Traveler card only earn an additional 5 points per dollar, which is better than you can get from a general-purpose credit card, but not as good as the cards that offer the best rewards for travel spending. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
Other ways to earn points
The best way to quickly earn a bunch of points is by signing up for one or both of the IHG credit cards. The normal bonus on the IHG Premier card is 80,000 points, the normal bonus on the IHG Traveler card is 60,000 points, and better offers are often available. Credit Card Signup Bonuses: The Easiest Path to Free Airplane Tickets and Hotel Nights.
IHG has a few of other point earning partners.
Keeping your Points from Expiring
If you go 12 months without any account activity, you can lose your points. However, IHG elites and IHG credit card holders will never lose their points. You can easily keep your account alive by making any charge on the IHG credit card, buying 1,000 points (for $13.50), crediting a car rental to IHG, or purchasing a song for 400 points. Our Keep Your Points from Expiring article provides more details about strategies for keeping track of upcoming expiration dates and keeping your points alive.
Member Benefits
Award nights count towards earning elite status. Like most other programs, you won’t earn credit for nights booked through 3rd parties like Expedia. IHG doesn’t offer a breakfast or lounge elite status benefit.
Club (entry level)
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| Gold (10 nights or 10,000 qualifying points) 10% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
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| Platinum (40 nights or 40,000 qualifying points) 50% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
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| Spire (75 nights or 75,000 qualifying points) 100% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
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| Inner Circle (Qualify for Spire, plus invitation from Kimpton) Some Spire members will get an invitation to the “Inner Circle” at Kimpton. It grants a few additional benefits, but only when staying at Kimpton hotels.
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InterContinental Ambassador Membership
While InterContinental is part of the IHG Rewards program, it also has its own special benefit program called “InterContinental Ambassador”. While its benefits are only available for stays at the InterContinental brand, the "free weekend certificate" can be used at participating Kimpton and Regent Hotels during 2021. Ambassador website.
You don’t earn Ambassador status, you pay to join. It costs $200 per year. Alternatively, you can pay 40,000 IHG points, but at typical point values, using points is more expensive.
The primary benefit is the second night free on a weekend stay. Every year, you get a certificate you can use for a free weekend night at an InterContinental hotel. However, it can only be used for the second night of a paid weekend stay at a special Ambassador Weekend rate and expires after a year. Ambassador rate are reasonable, but not necessarily the lowest rate you can find. One of the nice things about this certificate is that you can often book more expensive rooms, like suites, and still get the free night.
During 2021, the certificate can be used at participating Kimpton and Regent hotels.
If you can take advantage of this somewhat restrictive free night certificate to stay at one of their nicer hotels, you can get good value from a membership. If there are still a few months before your stay, there is no reason you couldn’t sign up just to take advantage of a good opportunity for a free night on an upcoming trip and then not necessarily renew later.
You also get a few minor benefits on paid stays at InterContinental hotels. These include a guaranteed minor room upgrade, guaranteed 4pm late checkout, a $20 restaurant and bar credit, and free water. You’ll sometimes get these benefits on award stays as well. These benefits are not available at other IHG hotels, like Crowne Plazas or Holiday Inns.
Shortcuts to IHG Elite Status
- The IHG Premier credit card automatically gives you IHG Platinum status. This normally requires 40 nights per year. However, regardless of how you earn it, Platinum status doesn’t get you much in the way of benefits.
- IHG rarely offers status matches or challenges. Their credit card is usually your main option. Boost Your Hotel Status.
- You can earn status with qualifying points, rather than qualifying nights. For example, you can qualify for the highest-level Spire Elite status by earning 75,000 points, rather than staying for 75 nights. The normal way to earn qualifying points is with paid hotel stays. However, you can also earn qualifying points in other ways, such as spending (but not the signup bonus) on the IHG credit card.
- You can receive qualifying points by transferring points from partner reward programs. While you can generate status just by transferring points to IHG, it isn't worth the "cost" of using your points in a sub-optimal way.
The IHG Credit Cards
The IHG Premier card has a typical signup bonus of 80-140,000 points. You can usually earn an additional 5,000 points if you add an authorized user in the first three months. Provides automatic Platinum status, which doesn't entitle you to much in the way of benefits. You'll receive a free night certificate ever year you renew the card. You also get a 20% rebate when you use the card to purchase points and your fourth night free on award reservations. $89 annual fee.
The no-annual-fee IHG Traveler card has a typical signup bonus of 60-100,000 points. Its doesn't come with the free night certificate, automatic Platinum status, or higher reward earning rate. Due to Chase 5/24 rule, it usually isn't even a good prospect for a good signup bonus.
The IHG Premier card earns higher rewards for spending at IHG than any other card. 10x IHG points are worth about 5 cents per dollar. The only reason to use another card is if you highly value premium-cabin frequent flyer tickets and want to stock up on transferable reward points. The discontinued version of the IHG Card and the IHG Traveler card only earn 5x points, which is better than what you'd earn with a general-purpose reward card, but not as good as you can earn with one of the cards that offers the highest rewards on travel spending. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
It is not worthwhile to use any of these cards for other purchases. The IHG cards earn 2x points at gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants, but that is worth less than the reward rate on a good general-purpose card.
