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While IHG will officially sell you IHG Rewards points at a cost of $13.50 per 1,000 points or 1.35 cents per point (which is terrible value) there has long been a way of “buying” points for a lot less – 0.7 cents per point to be exact.
I’ve put the word “buying” in quotes because this isn’t in any way an official channel to purchase IHG Reward points – it’s a workaround and one which I’m sure IHG isn’t keen on seeing exploited. Nevertheless this loophole has been around for a while and IHG has chosen not to close it….so they can’t be that bothered about it.
How It Works:
There are three main ways you can buy a room at IHG properties:
- Cash/Card
- IHG Rewards Points Awards
- IHG Cash & Points Awards
It’s this last category that’s the important one for the purposes of this blog.
To be able to take advantage of this loophole you need to have at least 5,000 IHG Rewards Points in your account.
If you find an IHG hotel which costs 15,000 IHG Rewards Points per night (there are a lot around) you should be able to see that the IHG website offers you the option to book that hotel for 15,000 IHG Rewards points or a combination of IHG Rewards Points and Cash:
It’s the 5,000 points + $70 USD option that’s of use to us here.
In effect the Cash & Points option is allowing you to purchase the additional 10,000 IHG Reward points (to reach 15,000) for $70 – which means that the points you’re buying are costing just 0.7 cents each.
The “trick” here is that, thanks to the way IHG process refunds, if you were to cancel the reservation, rather than refunding you 5,000 points and $70 cash, IHG will refund you 15,000 points.
You have effectively just purchased 10,000 points at 0.7 cents each.
This method of purchasing cheap IHG points is scalable so, if you have more IHG Rewards points in your account, you could book a stay of 2+ nights (at 5,000 points + $70 per night) and then, upon canceling the reservation, you would receive the refund in the form of cheap IHG Rewards points.
How To Buy IHG Rewards Slightly Cheaper
ViewFromTheWing reported recently that a few InterContinental hotels have been appearing on the IHG website with the option to buy points even cheaper.
VFTW is correct but the new option isn’t limited to IHG’s InterContinental Hotels – there are Crowne Plaza Hotels out there where the new cheap rate (0.66c/point) can be found.
Taking The InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam as an example:
Notice the bottom Cash & Points option at the property.
IHG is offering guests the opportunity to “purchase” 15,000 IHG Rewards points for $99 (0.66c per point).
This new option doesn’t appear to be available at too many IHG hotels right now and, while Hong Kong, Sydney and Amsterdam all have IHG properties with this new option, it appears that none of the US properties have yet chosen to offer it (or their systems haven’t yet been updated).
Still, if you plan to use this method to buy IHG Rewards points on the cheap it doesn’t really matter where the hotel is as you’ll be canceling the stay anyway.
Warning
I strongly advise against abusing this method of buying IHG Rewards points on the cheap.
There’s no doubt that IHG is aware of this loophole and, for whatever reason, they have so far chosen not to close it. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t clamp down strongly on people mass booking and mass cancelling reservations in an attempt to buy cheap IHG Rewards points.
Using this method to top up an account to the next reward should be ok but excessive use could see IHG closing down people’s accounts and confiscation the points….and I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.
Also, never forget the ever-looming possibility of a devaluation. IHG has, historically, been good at giving notice when the number of points needed for an award stay is going to increase….but past actions and future actions aren’t always the same. What points are worth today may not be what they’re worth tomorrow.
Do not buy points (in any shape or form) speculatively. Have a plan for what you’re going to do with the points and only then should you consider purchasing enough to get you to your award…and then only if it makes financial sense. Do the math and work it out.
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