IHG, the parent company of Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and the Intercontinental hotels, is having a flash sale to buy points for the IHG Rewards Club program. They’re offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles for now until March 22, 2018. I’m not a big fan of purchasing miles without a use in mind but it’s really easy to get at least 0.5 cents per point value out of IHG points. For a while, I found IHG points to be the best value of any hotel program.
I maxed out my IHG point purchase last year when I bought 60,000 points during one of these 100% bonus promotions, ending up with 120,000 IHG points in my account. Unfortunately, those points are still sitting there. I don’t feel that was a bad purchase; I haven’t found a good time to redeem them. I did lose out by holding on to them because the value of my points decreased when IHG increased the points needed to redeem a free night at several hotels we like to stay at.
I’m still going to buy points again during this flash sale. Why?
One of my tasks in the current IHG Accelerate Promotion is to purchase IHG points.
I’ll get an additional 1,000 IHG points for completing this task but also it will be the third task I’ll complete. I’ve already stayed once at a IHG hotel and used my IHG credit card for the stay.
When I complete three (out of four) of my tasks, I’ll get an additional 25,500 IHG points. So for buying 1,000 points or more, I’ll get 26,500 extra points. The only question I have right now is how many points to buy. The price per point decreases for when you buy more points. Remember for each of these point values, you’re also getting an 100% bonus.
- Buy 5,000-10,000 points + 100% bonus points for 0.675 cents apiece
- Buy 11,000-25,000 points + 100% bonus points for 0.575 cents apiece
- Buy 26,000-60,000 points + 100% bonus points for 0.5 cents apiece
For buying 5,000 points, I’ll end up with 10,000 points for $33.75.
For buying 11,000 points, I’ll end up with 22,000 points for $63.25
For buying 26,000 points, I’ll end up with 52,000 points for $130.00
I don’t need more IHG points right now because we have over 200,000 of them. However buying them at 0.5 cents a piece might make sense. Rooms at the Candlewood Suites in New Braunfels for a weekend at Schlitterbahn in June are going for $200 a night. Reward nights are only 20,000 points. I could buy those points right now for $100 and save 50% on the room. That’s not counting the 26,500 extra points I’ll get from the Accelerate promo for buying points.
I think I’ll just buy the minimum of 26,000 points to get the best value of 0.5 cents per point. I don’t have a need for another 120,000 points right now. IHG has run several of these promotions over the last year so I’ll take a chance that another flash sale will come around if I need to buy more points later in the year.
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