I Bought IHG Points Today—and Saved $300 on One Booking

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Another IHG points sale launched yesterday. You’ve probably already seen the deal posts, so I’m not going to rehash the terms here.

Instead, I want to talk about the part that actually matters: why we buy IHG points… and how, in the right situation, it can be a ridiculously good deal.

Case in point: the last time I bought points, I grabbed 300,000 IHG points and immediately questioned my life choices. (Spoiler: it worked out.)

Those points ended up covering real stays — including the InterContinental Miami and the Kimpton Theta. And now, with another trip coming up, I needed to reload… but there was one problem.

During the last sale, neither my wife, Sharon, nor I received the offer.

So when this new promo appeared, I checked both accounts.

My account: 60% bonus. Meh.

Sharon’s account: BOOM. 100% bonus.

(This is why it’s always worth checking every household account before you buy.)

The Math: How One Point Purchase Saved Us ~$300

Here’s the exact booking I was trying to make:

• 34,500 points per night
• 4 nights = 138,000 points
• With 4th Night Free, the total dropped to 102,000 points (IHG discounts the 4th night for IHG Premier cardholders)
• Cash price: 650€

With the current 100% bonus offer, we bought 102,000 points for $510.

Then the IHG Select card perk kicked in: 10% points back.

• 10% rebate: 10,200 points back
• Net points “spent”: 91,800 points

If we value those rebated points at the same rate we just paid (0.5¢ each), that rebate is worth about $51.

• Effective net cost: $510 − $51 = $459

Final Thought

This is exactly why we buy IHG points. Not because there’s a sale (there’s almost always a sale), but because sometimes the math lines up so cleanly that it’s hard to ignore.

In our case, buying points during the current promo let us book a 4-night stay for an effective net cost of about $459 (after the 10% points rebate), compared to a cash price in the mid-$700s. That’s roughly $300 saved on one booking — and a redemption value of about 0.82¢ per point on points we bought for 0.5¢ (about 65% more value than we paid), immediately. And did I mention that we booked two rooms, almost doubling the savings?

Just remember the big “gotchas”: offers are targeted, points pricing is dynamic, and I never buy speculatively. But if you have a near-term booking, the right bonus offer, and a points rate that beats cash? That’s when it can be a slam dunk.

If you want the full promo terms and fine print, here are a few solid write-ups:

• Frequent Miler
• One Mile at a Time
• Monkey Miles
• IHG’s official points purchase page

And if you want more of our real-world examples, here are the two related posts:

• I just bought 300K IHG points. Am I crazy?
• Is buying IHG points worth it?

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