IHG Rewards Club frequently sells points at a discount, and when they do, the lowest cost per purchased point is typically 0.5 cents. Aside from any IHG promotions on purchased points, there's often a way to indirectly purchase IHG points at a discount, which could also represent a good deal. IHG has a Points &…
Continue reading: Amazing: Buy IHG Points For ~0.38 Cents Each
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I’ve done this once in the last to grab a minimal amount of points needed to complete a stay at an amazing IC beach hotel. I hope wide-spread use of this tactic doesn’t lead to any cracking down. Using the IHG CC w/ 10 p/$ brings down to ~0.37 c/p.
They probably have some 'bad intent' clause hidden somewhere.
None the less, I say worth trying for those with small points. At worse you lose it all, at most you could be banking enormous amount of IHG. In the middle, they claw back and nothing happens.
I say 'bloggers ruined it' (no offense) means you have to act fast.
So what's with booking outside the cancellation window.. how will the refund go through. U will not be fully refunded
Is this already dead? I'm not showing the 20% discount even though I have the promotion email
I was hunting for the lowest price and found this yesterday, it's $0.00384 per point, bought some points this way. The other low prices ones were about $0.004 in China. Are there lower ones out there?
@ Ben -- I do not agree that this is amazing. 0.38 cpp is all IHG points are worth these days.
Do I need to mention that this is a bit unethical? I love doing points and miles but there are hacks and there are abusive hacks. Lets all try to use the regular hacks and keep the points flowing as long as possible and not abuse the system. If people do enough abusive hacks, our points and miles won't be there to play with anymore and we will have to pay full price again.
@ Ben,
Its showing 28 dollars for 5000 points. You've booked for which dates please specify. Thanks
Search Krabi Thailand, $25 for 5k pt. Not as good as $19 for 5k but best I could find.
I believe IHG has fixed this loophole by hard-coding the cash portion of Points + Cash to never go below $28 USD.
In the example of Holiday Inn Express Bali Raya Kuta, the standard rate = $29 a night, but Points + Cash = 5000 points + $28.8
If anyone finds any more lower values of points ( less than 0.5 cpp ) please share your analysis before 22nd July. Thanks : )
Brilliant deal and I love the way it works….but, one minor gripe, namely that I do not recommend staying at The Holiday Inn Express Bali Raya Kuta, unless for business. It is miles from the beach and anything touristy and it is on a very busy road.
@Paul Jackson -- I'm having trouble seeing the ethical problem here. IHG is clearly selling points in this manner. That's their intention. If they wanted to discourage this practice, they could make points and cash bookings nonrefundable or they could price them higher. Or, they could do what every other chain does and make the cash portion of the booking collectible by the hotel. IHG has decided that they want the cash now and that they'll give back the points.
I usually find myself a bit on the conservative side when it comes to the ethics of certain travel hacking practices, but this one doesn't bother me. Perhaps I have a blind spot and I will keep an open mind about it, but IHG has made its points and cash option a points for cash selling scheme and people are just using it as intended. I guess if people were artificially holding hotels rooms before cancelling them that they had no intention to use, that would be distasteful because it might block the hotel from selling those rooms. My guess is that most people are cancelling right away. Plus, people make speculative reservations all the time that they know they are likely to cancel.
Up there someone asked what is "book outside the cancellation window".
I am curious too.
Would anyone please explain what it is.
@Ike Choi and other
If you book this point + cash "deal" inside the cancellation window you then cannot get any refund whatsoever. It means you are burning your existing points AND cash for exactly nothing
@ike - basically it means to check what a hotel’s cancellation policy is and make sure you cancel in time or if a hotel says no refunds if canceled less than x days before your stay, then make sure you’re not booking a date that’s < x days from now
This is no longer true. It seems like the IHG has increased all the cash rate for point+cash rate. Now, with the 20%, it is no longer attractive. The best I found so far is to buy the point with 100%. Let see if they drop the price after the 20% promo is over.