I was recently on the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) website looking for a hotel room and came across a a great promotion. Unfortunately though, this promotion is only available to those with Platinum and Spire IHG status. Note: If you have the IHG credit card you automatically have Platinum status. With this promotion, you can book a Cash + Points award reservation and use 15% less cash. Just make sure to sign in with your IHG account number and password to see the point + cash rates with this promotion.
With this offer, you can essentially “buy” points for as low as .566 cents per point. With the example above, the 40,000 point level means you are buying points for .68 cents per point, the 35,000 point level lowers it to .595 cents per point, and the 30,000 point level lowers it to .566 cents per point. If you are looking to redeem your IHG points for a free night, considering a Cash + Point offer might be a great use of your points (over just fully using points) assuming you are okay putting out the cash.
Additionally, if you are not actually looking to redeem for a free night, but instead looking to purchase points on the cheap, this could be a good promotion to date advantage of through a roundabout method. With IHG if you make a Cash + Point reservation and need to cancel, you will get the “Cash” portion back in points, NOT cash. For example, if you were to book the above hotel room using 30,000 points + $85, instead of getting $85 back, you’ll instead get back 15,000 points (the difference of the points used and the full amount of points required to redeem for a free night). This means you are essentially purchasing points at .566 cents per point. Keep in mind though that if you abuse this often, IHG could easily close your account. Currently, there is a promotion to purchase points with a 75% bonus (just for credit cardholders) – allowing you to purchase points at .66 cents per point. While this is still higher then the roundabout method, if you wait for a 100% bonus offer, you’ll be able to purchase points for .58 cents per point.
This 15% discount applies for every hotel (except The Venetian and The Palazzo), but it must be booked by March 26, 2016. Also, the discount is valid for stays through April 30, 2016.
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Great find! Just saved a few bucks for the IC London this summer!