IHG Promos Are Still A Great Way To Earn IHG Points

There is simply no greater ROI in terms of earning free nights than these IHG promotions. In fact, we did 3 stays in Austin (where we live) last month (and I’ll explain why we did that at the end).

Carrie, my wife, has a 56,000 bonus for 3 paid stays and my dad has an 80,000 bonus for 3 paid stays (/5 nights).

However, I see why there are grumblings, because not every account I’ve checked has an amazing promotion…

Let me explain why I still love these promotions and how to best complete them.

(Also, check your IHG Accelerate here)

 

Why We Lived On These Promotions

As I recently mentioned, we were averaging under $700 a month in 4 star hotels back when we posted our stats publicly during years of full-time travel. And you may remember that the majority of our nights were IHG.

See our 2016 “Breaking Down A Year Of Living In Luxury Hotels“.

Just like before, there is simply no greater hotel ROI than these promotions.

Getting 50,000+ points from 3 paid stays (which I’ll explain how to do in the most minimal way) is an incredible deal. It’s close to a free night at any hotel, or up to 5 nights at category 1 hotels.

 

In my post “You’re Doing It Wrong: Hotel Loyalty” I run the math on how much extra you end up paying for loyalty to a program for status. In it, I drastically understate how much better you can do by chasing these promotions vs whatever the next best promotion will give you.

My old posts on our stats should be proof that you can do way better than my post suggests (because I wanted to compare conservative and easy returns), and I want to talk about how you can get more out of these IHG promotions.

 

Why people have been down on IHG promotions…

I noticed Stephen posted on Frequent Miler’s IHG Accelerate post that he and his wife only got offers for 11,000 and 22,000 point bonuses!

In my opinion, it seems that there is more variation in offerings. This is perhaps a good reason to have… umm… more family members signed up for the promotion, so you can give the stay to whoever has the best promotion.

If you’re slightly clever at all, you can figure out how to truly maximize this.

 

And if you didn’t see my Chart of Hotel Benefits, IHG literally offers no benefits to their status levels beyond bonus points. And it’s incomparable the difference in bonus points you’d earn on an account with status vs an account with no status with a better promotion, at least if the options are Stephen’s 11,000 point offer and my dad’s 80,000 point offer. There’s no question which one will earn more.

Similar to my post proving hotel loyalty is a bad investment, it is completely unreasonable to give up 70,000 points to add 3 stays to your “status” account.

 

The other reason is PointBreaks?

Yes, PointBreaks (a list of discounted hotels for 5,000 points) has been devalued by adding a 10,000 point and 15,000 point tier.

But the last great hotels I got for 5,000 points were the InterContinental Fiji in 2012 and InterContinental Kiev in 2013. And guess what? The IC Kiev hasn’t been on the list until recently, where it returned for 15,000 points. So has PointBreaks really gotten worse, or has it returned with better hotels?

Also, we lived in hotels and rarely got to take advantage of PointBreaks hotels. Granted, we did stay a lot of nights when good ones did come on the list. But I’m simply saying, I never relied on PointBreaks, as I would go many months without using anything from the list.

 

Maximizing IHG’s Promo

Our IHG promos this quarter:

• My promotion
  • 39,000 in 3 stays
• Carrie’s promotion
  • 56,000 in 3 stays, but two have to be “weekends”, which require two nights.
• My Dad’s promotion
  • 79,700
  • 5 nights / 3 stays + 1 cash & points stay

 

How to stay as few nights as possible

Here is my dad’s promo:

My Dad’s list is much longer than mine so I thought it would be a great example.

Let me go over his requirements and the minimum to qualify:

• Stay 5 nights
• Stay at 3 brands
• Stay 2 weekends (requires two nights)
• 1 night using “Cash & Points”
• 2 “bonus points” stays
• Use IHG card
• Complete 6 of 6
• Bonus: 2 stays

All this can be complete in 5 paid nights and 1 rewards (rather cash & points) night.

5 paid stays and earn 80,000 bonus points! That’s insane. (Also, he’d earn 5 to 10 points per dollar spent depending on his IHG card, and another 5 to 10 depending on the brand.)

 

Completing Them All

You can complete more than one at a time.

In the case above, my dad can do two separate weekends (which requires two nights), at two separate brands. That will knock out 4 nights and 2 brands, 2 stays and the 2 weekends.

If he pays with his card and selects the bonus point rate, he’ll complete the two bonus points and pay with the card.

Now the only thing left is 1 more brand, and 1 more night (which is obviously going to be completed on any next stay)… and then he has to work in a reward stay as a “Cash & Points”.

That’s 5 paid stays and 1 reward night (that could cost an extra $40).

 

Also, note that the last requirement in white is complete two stays… Notice that the thing above it is “complete 6 of 6” and there are 6 promos above it? That leads me to believe the ones in white don’t count towards completing the “6 of 6”.

 

“Bonus Points Package” requirement

First, I tried the “bonus points package” by just adding 1,000 bonus points for $5+ at check out, and that qualified (even though sometimes there is a rate type that’s a “package” as well).

 

I literally never noticed this until today, but each brand seems to have different prices for adding points…

I consistently found the following when selecting “Best Flexible” and then “Member Discount” in the USA:

• Candlewood Suites
  • 1,000 Points $4.75
  • 2,000 Points $9.50
  • 3,000 Points $14.25
• StayBridge Suites
  • 1,000 Points = $4.79
  • 2,000 Points = $9.50
  • 3,000 Points = $14.25
• Holiday Inn Express
  • 1,000 Points = $6.79
  • 2,000 Points = $11.64
  • 3,000 Points = $16.49
• Holiday Inn
  • 1,000 Points $4.75
  • 2,000 Points $9.50
  • 3,000 Points $14.25
  • But standard rate gave an option of 5,000 points for $20
• Crowne Plaza
  • 1,000 Points $4.75
  • 2,000 Points $9.50
  • 3,000 Points $14.25
• Even Hotels
  • 1,000 Points $4.75
  • 2,000 Points $9.50 USD
  • 3,000 Points $14.25
• Hotel Indigo
  • 1,000 Points = $4.85
  • 2,000 Points = $9.70
  • 3,000 Points = $14.55
  • 5,000 Points = $19.40
•  InterContinental
  • 1,000 Points = $9.50
  • 2,000 Points = $14.25
  • 3,000 Points = $19.00
  • 5,000 Points = $23.75
• Kimpton
  • 1,000 Points $4.75
  • 2,000 Points $9.50
  • 3,000 Points $14.25
  • 5,000 Points $23.75

(I’ll update this if I notice hotel rates with 5,000 point options).

 

Oddly enough, Candlewood suites, which is typically the cheapest IHG brand, has the worst rate for purchasing points.

 

Is purchasing points here a good deal?

Well, it’s a requirement on most of the promotions I’ve seen lately… So you have to.

And if you have to, in the case of InterContinental, it’s $14.25 to add 4,000 points ($3.56 extra per 1,000 points). Or in the case of Hotel Indigo, you can purchase 5,000 points for $19.40 (which is $3.88 per 1,000 points).

If you were considering the DailyGetaways promotion to buy IHG points at the rate of $5 per 1,000 points, this can be a better deal.

I don’t add on points.

Why? Because I can earn 56,000 points for 3 stays I’ll surely need.

 

However, in Asia it is often a really good deal!

I checked in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and you can often buy 5,000 points for the equivalent of $5 USD!

So do not forget to check the bonuses in Asia!

Here’s proof (using the currency conversion IHG provides):

The only problem / thing to consider is that the advanced purchase rate is $30 cheaper! So you’re really paying $35 extra to select “Best Flexible” rate for these points. Unless you’re like me and never book advance purchase rates.

 

Even More Maximizing

Many requirements are “stays”. So if you need a two night stay, unless you’re completing a “weekend” requirement, you aren’t maximizing the number of stays.

Here you have two options…

See, if you were to book two back to back stays at the same hotel IHG is supposed to combine them into one stay (although I haven’t actually tested that the system is that smart, I’ve just assumed it is).

But if you were to change hotels or accounts, you complete two “stays” in two back to back nights.

 

Personally, I get tired of switching hotels, and while I should be able to leave my bag with the concierge and go sightseeing, it ends up being a pain.

Therefore we often book one reservation in Carrie’s name and then the next in my name.

 

The Cheapest Hotels

This gets even bigger when you have the ability to get really cheap stays in and complete promotions done at really low costs. I’ve found and had access to hotels in eastern Europe and Asia that are only $30 a night.

Scaling this takes some work when your travel plans don’t align with the cheapest hotels, but it certainly is possible.

Getting 60,000 points on 3 nights at $30 a night is very profitable. That is .15 cents per point.

• That would make a 5,000 point hotel during PointBreaks for $7.50.
• That would make the InterContinental Kiev during PointBreaks $22.50.
• More importantly, at that rate, a category 1 hotel is $15.
• A category 2 hotel is $20.
• And the most expensive category hotels $105.

It doesn’t matter what your motivation is, anyone should find accounts with decent promotions and people needing stays (or at least willing to check into) hotels in cheap areas.

It doesn’t matter if you want the cheapest hotels, you can’t beat $7.50.

Or the InterContinental Bora Bora for $105!

This is an amazing deal for those who can work it… and I’m glad to be back at it.

 

Conclusion / Doing The Math

I probably spent $125 a night chasing the last promotion, but I had bonus point packages.

So assuming I spend $125 a night for the 3 required nights on the next promotion to get 56,000 bonus points, that’s $375.

Assuming I only end up with 60,000 points total, that’s .625 cents per point, and some promotions are better!

 

Here’s the thing, I often am looking for ways to get hotel deals, and I’ve lots of points, and I’ve lots of “Ideas on Hotel Deals” for discounts… But it is insane to me that people would pay 5 cents per point via Daily Getaways, and skip good IHG promotions.

Think about it. The goal is to get nights covered completely by points… But you could spend nearly the exact same amount of money and also get a hotel stay out of it!

For me, there’s nearly equal value in the paid hotel stays as there are with the points. I’m not looking to get 10% back via Hotel.com rewards, I’m looking at 100% returns… But the other side of the return is the stay while earning.

 

This is why I don’t prefer to buy the points during Daily Getaways, nor during the bonus points added on a flexible stay.

 

Lastly, the reason we were staying in Austin is because we had an Airbnb booking in our home. As I’ve said, normally our goal is to rent our house on Airbnb while traveling, but we ended up coming home sooner than we thought and the place got booked way before we changed our plans.

It got booked for over $300 a night though, so we bounced around. However, we actually needed one more stay later when our house wasn’t booked (because one of those 3 nights we booked the Fairmont, because we can easily figure out the Hotwire Mystery hotel.) So we ended up staying at the Crowne Plaza for no reason other than to get the breakfast I was able to add on for 97 cents… Which I had never seen.

In the end, we made over 50,000 points and probably $500 profit. Not a bad weekend.

 

Again, check your promo here.