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IHG Rewards Club (the loyalty programme for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn etc) is holding yet another promotion for buying IHG Points. Until 30th September you can pick up half price IHG Points as a result of a 100% Bonus on purchased Points.

The minimum purchase to attract the bonus is only 1,000 Points, which is great as quite often you need to buy substantially more to get the highest level of bonus.

You can buy up to 60,000, which would then be doubled to 120,000 Points.

The Numbers:

The standard price for IHG Points is between 0.886-1.041 pence per Point (depending on how many you buy it ranges between $11.50-$13.50 per 1,000), so with the bonus, at the top end it works out at 0.443p (0.575 cents) per Point – or £4.43 per 1,000.

At that rate you can book IHG ‘Pointsbreaks’ hotels for ~ £22.15! The current list is down to the dregs now really to be honest, but there should be a new one in a few weeks.

It also means you can book IHG Category 1 Hotels, which require 10,000 Points per night, for ~ £44.30 (and Category 2 for £66.45, Category 3 for £88.60 etc). This can lead to some serious bargains, like the excellent Holiday Inn Krakow City Centre for ~£66.45 (15,000 Points) rather than ~£125.00.

At the luxury end, the highest Category IHG hotels require 60,000 Points, so would cost ~ £266.00. That’s too expensive for me, but can still be a significant discount off what the hotels charge. For instance, next Saturday the standard rate for the Intercontinental Park Lane is £324.00 (which is fairly typical), so you could save about 20% by buying the Points and using those instead.

It’s important to remember that you don’t earn any Points or cashback on award stays, so the saving wouldn’t necessarily be that great. If you can find award space during a special occasion like New Year’s Eve though you can save a huge amount!

Bottom Line

This is as good a price as IHG sell Points for.

Although it certainly won’t always be the best option (and I wouldn’t buy Points without a specific purpose in mind), it could save you serious money in some circumstances, so is worth bearing in mind!