Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.

It can often make sense to buy points, so this offer from IHG Rewards might interest you. IHG Rewards’ latest points sale is being marketed as a “mystery bonus”. Bonuses of up to 100% are available, but you will have to log into your own account to find out your own bonus.

The mystery bonus will apply to points purchased between now and 18 March, 2022.

The regular price of IHG points is 1 cent each. You can buy a maximum of 150,000 points pre-bonus. If, unlike me, you receive the 100% bonus offer, you would be paying 0.5 cents per point if you buy 26,000 points or more (pre-bonus). That works out to 0.37p per point.

Is it Worth It?

I certainly would NOT recommend that you buy points speculatively. However, I do like to keep a reasonable balance of IHG points handy, if only because their award pricing algorithm sometimes comes up with excellent bargains…

It’s not as easy as it used to be, but you can definitely find many hotels where you will save money by buying points for 0.36p, instead of simply paying the cash price.

Of course, you also need to take into account the fact that you can earn substantial number of points on paid stays, especially when a good promotion is running. The current double point promotion isn’t great, but you might be chasing elite status via the points method (before the thresholds increase in March.)

Don’t Forget Cashback

I haven’t provided a direct link to the promotion because IHG sells its points through Points.com, which is a merchant on the USA version of TopCashback. At the moment, you can earn an additional 2% cashback via routing yourself via TopCashback.com before buying points.

If you are not yet a member of TopCashback USA, you can earn an additional $10. Simply sign up using this referral link – http://www.topcashback.com/join-us/inside-flyer/ref/craigsowerby – and earn $10 of cashback. With a 2% cashback rate on buying points from IHG, you would trigger the $10 cashback (and $10 bonus) by spending $500 on IHG points…