The U.S. Travel Association’s Daily Getaways promotion starts today, May 6th. For the first day, they’re featuring IHG hotels and have several different offers for different point levels.
Today’s Offers
Here are the offers that will go on sale today on the Daily Getaways website at 1PM ET:
- $50 – 10,000 IHG Rewards Club points – 410 available (Max 5)
- $175 – 35,000 IHG Rewards Club points – 440 available (Max 4)
- $300 – 60,000 IHG Rewards Club points – 425 available (Max 4)
- $500 – 100,000 IHG Rewards Club points – 550 available (Max 3)
There’s a limit on how many of each package you can buy and you can only purchase 16 total packages total per account, which is the same number as buying the max of each category.
To be eligible to purchase Daily Getaways packages, you must meet the following requirements:
The Program is available to all legal U.S. and Canadian residents (excluding residents of Quebec) who are above 18 years of age and have reached the age of majority in their province or territory of residence at the time of participation in the Program, except as exempted below (“Participant” or “You”). To be eligible to participate in the Program, Participants must comply with this Agreement and with any additional terms and conditions applicable to participation in the Program and/or or Merchant Offers (as defined below).
Full Terms and conditions can be found at this link.
Is it worth it?
I find it interesting that every package is set at buying points for 0.5 cents each, a price IHG apparently has set as the base for the sale of points.
I always like to have a stash of IHG Rewards points. We cashed in 60,000 points to stay three nights in Palm Desert, CA at a Holiday Inn Express when we went to see the Desert Trip concerts. Rooms were going for over $400 a night, so we paid with $300 worth of points instead of $1,200. #Winning.
We used 50,000 IHG points to stay at the Kimpton Gray in Chicago. Rates at this hotel the weekend of our stay were over $300 (and one of the nights was covered by a free night certificate). Paying $250 for a night in a hotel located in downtown Chicago might not be a bad deal, depending on what rooms are going for at the time.
There have also been times where rates at our Candlewood Suites in Texas can reach $200 a night. This hotel costs 20,000 points a night, so paying $100 worth of points instead of $200 is a deal I’ll take all the time.
One thing to remember is that IHG points expire for base members with 12 months of no account activity. If you have no IHG status, make sure not to let your points expire. Elite members are exempt as their points never expire. The easiest way to get elite status is to have an IHG credit card since doing so gives you automatic IHG platinum status
Am I buying points?
That’s a fair question to ask, isn’t it? This year, I’m not going to be buying any IHG points. It’s not because I don’t think it’s a decent deal if you know you’ll use the points. Currently, Sharon and I have enough IHG points since she signed up for the IHG Select card with a 60,000 point bonus we still haven’t used. Considering you can purchase up to 100,000 IHG points per year (which, if they have another 100% bonus, is 200,000 points at the same price as the Daily Getaways), I can’t see us needing more IHG points given our hotel stays planned for the rest of the year.
Final Thoughts
While purchasing IHG points can be useful if you have a specific stay in mind or need to replenish your account, buying them speculatively is never a good idea. IHG pretty consistently devalues their program at the beginning of every year by reclassifying a large number of hotels into higher categories. If you were looking at a hotel that used to cost 50,000 points and now it costs 60,000, that’s a big difference if you were going to stay for 5 nights.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
