IHG® Rewards Club Guide: Maximum Points

InterContinental Hotels Group, better known as IHG, is a huge international hotel company with more than 6,000 hotels in almost 100 countries. Its brands include both budget and luxury hotels – big names like Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and InterContinental. IHG has thousands of accommodation options for travelers of all budgets. If you’re an IHG brand loyalist or want to take advantage of a large hotel chain around the world, you might want to consider joining the IHG One Rewards program to start earning points.

What are IHG One Rewards?

IHG One Rewards is a loyalty program for all IHG hotels that allows members to earn points for hotel stays, joint card spend, car rentals and more.

IHG One Rewards members can use their points for a variety of purchases, including bonus nights at an IHG hotel, flights, merchandise, and donations. In addition, members can transfer points to 43 different partner airlines for even more flexibility.

One of the big drawbacks of IHG One Rewards is that the points are overpriced, so they may not get you as far as competing programs. However, IHG Elite perks are valuable to loyal hotel chain customers and can help offset some of the cost.

Overview of IHG One Rewards

How much do IHG points cost?

While many hotel programs tend to overcharge their points, IHG points are not very good compared to others. CreditCards.com assesses IHG scores at around 0.55 points per point.

You must keep in mind that this is an estimate of the average score. Depending on what you redeem your points for, the value of the points may increase or decrease slightly.

Pros and Cons of the IHG One Rewards Program

Compared to other more reliable travel rewards programs, IHG One Rewards may not seem as valuable or impressive. However, given the wide range of hotel brands – from budget to luxury – it’s still a worthy loyalty program. Let’s look at the pros and cons of this hotel program.

pros

• Over 6000 hotels: You will certainly have no problem finding IHG properties to live in almost anywhere in the world, whether you are on holiday in Joshua Tree, California or Sydney, Australia.
• Points and moneyA: When you redeem points for bonus nights, you can cover your stay partly with points and partly in cash (or your preferred credit card). So you only need at least 5,000 points to stay at an IHG hotel using your rewards.
• Numerous ways to earn points: IHG One Rewards allows you to earn points in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most lucrative is hotel stays – at a variable rate, such as 10 points for stays at IHG hotels and 5 points for stays at Candlewood Suites. You can also earn points through partners (such as OpenTable), limited time offers, point purchases, spending with an IHG credit card, and milestone rewards coming soon.
• Earn miles insteadQ: Do you already fly frequently with one of IHG’s 43 partner airlines? If yes, and you are only joining IHG One Rewards to transfer those points to your chosen airline, you can change your preference and start earning air miles directly instead of hotel points.
• Abundant buyout optionsA: This hotel rewards program offers quite a few ways to redeem your points, such as bonus nights, merchandise, gift cards, digital rewards (such as magazine subscriptions), transferring your points to travel partners, and non-profit donations.

Minuses

• Difficulty reaching elite status: IHG One Rewards Elite Memberships offer many of the typical benefits, including no bonus night blackouts and free Wi-Fi. However, each Elite tier is quite difficult to qualify for – 10 qualifying nights for Silver Elite or 40 nights for Platinum Elite – compared to the equivalent tiers within Hilton Honors, it only takes seven nights for Silver and 28 nights for Gold.
• Dynamic premium pricing: Under this new pricing model, the exact number of points required to redeem a bonus night varies by hotel brand, day of the week, travel season, and other factors.
• Night rooms with limited rewards: Although the official IHG website states that there are no blackout dates for bonus nights, there is a small list of bonus night numbers. So, even if your vacation dates aren’t closed, if your chosen IHG location doesn’t have rooms available for bonus nights, you’re in a quandary.
• Low transfer costA: If you already have enough points and want to transfer them to a partner airline, the transfer ratio is usually around 5:1. At this rate, you will lose most of the value.
• Overpriced purchase of goodsA: Unfortunately, we have noticed that items on the IHG One Rewards shopping portal are scoring more points than their market price. For example, a 1600W Conair hair dryer with a folding handle usually costs $14.99. It costs 14,500 points on the merchant portal, but with an average IHG point value of around 0.55 cents, a hair dryer costs around $80 in points.

How to choose an IHG credit card

IHG has three credit cards – two for consumers and one for business owners. While the cards have a lot in common, there are a few key differences between them that make it easy for you to decide which one suits you best.

Consumer cardholders can choose between the IHG® Rewards Premier Credit Card and the IHG® Rewards Traveler Credit Card. From the outset, the IHG Rewards Premier card is better suited for frequent travelers who stay at hotels at least twice a year—enough to justify the $99 annual fee and effectively redeem up to 26X points per stay at IHG hotels. This card is especially great for hotel chain loyalists due to its annual bonus night bonus, automatic Platinum Elite status, and $30 spa credit. The signup bonus is pretty good too – 140,000 points if you spend $3,000 in three months.

As for the IHG Rewards Traveler Card, no annual fee, access to Gold Elite status if you spend $10,000, and up to 17 points for an IHG hotel stay are better for those who (infrequently) travel on a budget. This card’s introductory offer with no annual fee is also decent: you’ll get 120,000 points if you spend $2,000 over three months – a significant bonus for a reasonable spending goal.

The choice between these two cards basically comes down to whether you can justify the annual fee for the IHG Rewards Premier card and travel enough to take advantage of its additional benefits. If you are not an active IHG enthusiast and just want to maximize your travel expenses when you travel, you can use the IHG Rewards Traveler Card.

As for the IHG® Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, it has the same reward structure as the IGH Rewards Premier Card and many of the same benefits, such as free Platinum Elite status. It also has another bonus category: 5X points on social media, search ads, and stationery stores. On all other purchases, it offers 3X ​​points, which can be quite a bargain. This card can be useful for business owners whose business requires travel and hotel stays several times a year.

bottom line

Despite the low valuation of the program, IHG One Rewards can still prove to be profitable for enthusiasts of various hotel brands. If you can’t get enough of your stay at a Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo or Staybridge Suites, becoming a member of this rewards program will give you a free stay at an IHG hotel in no time.

This hotel chain is especially popular with budget travelers, and its flexibility in both earning and redeeming points works in your favor. In addition, the ability to change your preferences for earning miles or paying with points (to add to your free stay points stack) makes the program attractive to a wide range of consumers. If you already enjoy staying at IHG hotels, there is no reason for you not to participate.

Emily Sherman is a senior editor at CreditCards.com, specializing in news and product recommendations. She is also a founding member of To Her Credit, a two-week series of women’s financial advice for women. When she’s not writing about credit cards, she’s spending her points and miles planning her next big vacation.