FLASH SALE: Buy IHG Points With A 100% Bonus (Some Accounts Targeted For Discounted Price Too)

Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published. For more details please see the advertising disclosure found at the bottom of every page

IHG Rewards has just announced a flash sale in which members can buy points with a 100% bonus. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this as IHG has been offering 100% bonuses on points sales with increasing frequency…but there is one oddity that IHGRewards has thrown in this time.

For only the second time that I can remember some IHG Rewards accounts are being targeted for a 100% bonus AND a cheaper price per point.

Link to the flash sale

IHG Flash Sale – The Details

• The flash sale is available for IHG Rewards points purchases made by 11:59 PM on 22 March 2018.
• IHG Rewards members may purchase up to 60,000 points per calendar year (excluding bonuses)
• Purchases of IHG Rewards Points are processed by Points.com so they’re not eligible for a credit card category bonus

This is the offer that everyone I know has received:

• Buy 1,000 – 4,000 points and get no bonus
• Buy 5,000 – 60,000 points and get a 100% bonus

But, while the bonuses on offer appear to be the same for everyone, the cost to purchase points is not.

IHG Flash Sale – The Math

IHG Rewards will normally sell 60,000 points with a 100% bonus for a total of $690 and this is the offer a lot of people are getting right now:

$690 for 120,000 points comes to a cost/point of 0.575 cents.

On this occasion, however, Joanna and I have both been targeted for a slightly better offer:

$600 for 120,000 points comes to a cost/point of just 0.5 cents…and that’s the lowest price we’ve seen IHG offer its currency for sale.

Should You Buy Points In This Sale?

The first thing to note is that IHG Rewards has devalued since the last time we had a 100% bonus sale so things have changed somewhat. The way IHG Rewards manages its PointBreaks promotion has changed too (so that’s worth bearing in mind).

Top tier properties now cost 70,000 rather than 60,000 points and, if you take a look at the headline info below, you’ll see that the devaluation was a big one:

33 InterContinental properties (the properties where a lot of people like to spend their points) saw their award cost/night change in January and, of these…..

• 30 InterContinental properties increased in price
• 3 InterContinental properties decreased in price

Of the InterContinental properties increasing in price…

• 5 now cost 25% more
• 8 now cost between 20% and 22% more
• 14 now cost 17% more

Those are significant increases.

Most of the top IHG properties around the world now cost between 60,000 and 70,000 points per night so, assuming you were targeted for the 0.5 cents/point rate, this promotion effectively buys 2 nights at a very good InterContinental for between $300 and $350/night (inclusive of all taxes and fees) and gets you a flexible reservation.

While this can be a very good deal at certain properties during busier times of the year it certainly isn’t as good a deal as it has been in the past….and I can’t say that I’m particularly tempted.

If you weren’t targeted for the reduced cost/point the top IHG properties would cost between $345 and $402.50 per night if you bought points in this sale to make a booking – that’s not a very attractive deal.

Yes, there will be occasions where buying points in this sale to then make a booking makes sense and there’s a very simple set of tasks you can do to see if your situation is one of them:

• Explore various locations you’d like to visit and see if there’s a good IHG property there
• Check what award availability is like for the dates you’re thinking of visiting
• Check how much rooms are selling for on the dates you want to visit
• Work out the math – will buying points and booking a room save you cash?

Remember that IHG Rewards bookings are flexible while the cheapest cash rates will most often not be flexible at all so, if the cost of points is close to that of the cheapest cash rate, buying points may be the better way forward.

Bottom Line

If you can see award availability at a hotel you’d like to visit and the math works in your favor then go ahead and buy some points in this sale…if not, you should probably give this promotion a miss. There’s no point in stockpiling points “just in case” you find something that works – there will always be another sale.