How To Earn And Use IHG Points

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How To Earn And Use IHG Points

Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) includes over 5,000 properties in almost 100 countries within 12 different brands.  While many of their properties lean towards budget travel, there are also some high end hotels in their portfolio.  This is a popular hotel chain among points and miles enthusiasts because of promotions like PointBreaks (where select hotels rooms are only 5,000 points a night) and the free night that comes with the co-branded credit card!  In this post, I will show you how to earn and use IHG Points.

How To Earn and Use IHG Points

Earn IHG Points Through Hotel Stays

Each time you stay at any IHG hotel you will earn IHG Rewards Club Points.  The points earned will vary based on hotel brand.

How To Earn and Use IHG Points

Earn IHG Points Through Your Credit Card

  • 60,000 IHG points after spending $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 monthsHow To Earn and Use IHG Points - IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card earns valuable IHG points
  • 5,ooo IHG points after adding an authorized user who makes a purchase in the first 3 months
  • Free night each year after account anniversary that can be used at any IHG hotel
  • 5x points per dollar at IHG hotels
  • 2x points per dollar at gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants
  • 1x points on all other purchases
  • $49 annual fee is waived the first year
  • Bonus is only available if you do not have this card and haven’t received a new card member bonus in the previous 24 months

Other Ways To Earn IHG Points

  • Earn 1,500 IHG points when you book your Hertz car rental through IHG
  • Earn 500 IHG points for declining housekeeping at select hotels
  • Buy IHG points…don’t do this unless you have a specific redemption in mind as it’s generally not a good deal
  • Sign up with the IHG dining program and earn points every time you dine at a select restaurants with your registered credit card.
  • Transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards at a 1:1 ratio

Related Links: How To Use Shopping Portals and Dining Programs Chase Ultimate Rewards Overview


How To Use Your IHG Points

  • Use Points for Free Nights with no blackout dates.  Points per night needed for a free night vary by hotel and start at 10,000 points per night.
  • PointsBreaks hotels are offered at select times of the year.  This promotion allows you to book select hotels for only 5,000 points per night!
  • Cash + Points: This is a great option if you want to stretch your points or don’t have enough for a redemption.  When searching for a hotel room, choose “Reward Nights” as your rate preference to see the Cash + Points options.
How To Earn and Use IHG Points - IHG Points Options - Cash and Points
This room is available for $130.66 per night or 35,000 points.   If you wanted to use Cash + Points, you could choose to pay 30,000 points + $40 or 25,000 points + $70
  • Bad Ways To Use Your Points:  Points can be used for gift cards, shopping online or they can be transferred to airlines but these usually have terrible redemption rates so you won’t get the most out of your hard earned points.

What Are Your IHG Points Worth?

Point valuations can vary based on who you talk to and how they determine the value of a point.  I’m a firm believer in the fact that everyone has the best way to use points for them and that can effect the “value” of the point.  However, with that said, I still like to know generally what my points are worth and I try to get the best redemption I can.  Sometimes that doesn’t happen and that’s ok – if your points can help you to travel more then they are doing their job.

IHG Points are loosely valued around .7 cents per point.  I follow The Points Guy’s Monthly Valuations as a guideline to know what my points are worth.  In the above photo, you can see a room at the Holiday Inn Resort: Orlando Lake Buena Vista costs $130.66 per night or 35,000 IHG Points.  If you were to redeem points for this room you would only be getting a .3 cents per point value – an awful redemption!

How To Earn and Use IHG Points - Use your IHG Points To Stay at the beautiful Intercontinental Shanghai
Use your IHG Points To Stay at the beautiful Intercontinental Shanghai…look at this pool!

Stay In The Know

I hope this guide showed you how to earn and use IHG Points!  To keep up to date with tips and tricks on how to use points and miles for FREE and discounted travel subscribe to our updates.  Don’t worry – I like to keep my email to a minimum too…no daily emails here, just a couple a month to keep you in the know!

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Everything you need to know about how to use IHG Points at over 5,000 hotels around the world. IHG brands include Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental Hotels!

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This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Lieurene Tran

    These are great tips about IHG points. I am actually still learning about the whole points thing from different credit cards but it can be quite overwhelming. Its important to understand how to play the game to get the most out of it rather than getting a bad redemption. Thanks for listing out the ways of getting the most points. I’ll keep these in mind if I ever get this card.

    1. Katie @ ZenLifeandTravel

      It can be a little overwhelming at first for sure! There are so many ways to earn points and different ways to redeem. check out my beginner’s guide as a resource to get started. I also have breakdowns of some of the other major hotel programs for reference.

  2. Kerri

    I literally just joined the loyalty program yesterday to book a hotel. Is the annual fee for the credit card US based? I have never seen an annual fee so low. All of the Australian ones are $400-$600 per year.

    1. Katie @ ZenLifeandTravel

      Yes, sorry Kerri! The annual fee is US based. We have some US cards that are in the $400+ range but they have a lot more benefits than the IHG card!

  3. Punita

    IHG has such a great reward program. We have availed free nights in Porto and Milan recently. They also upgrade you to superior rooms and the standards are always high. Love this chain.

  4. Angela @ Dang Travelers

    We use IHG all the time and LOVE the point breaks and the free anywhere anniversary night with the credit card. Great posts on how to make the most of them!

  5. Brianna

    I stuggle with maintaining loyalty to brands. I like to try different things and find good deals. This can’t be done by staying in the same hotels all the time. Although, it is nice to know that when you want comfort and amenities you can rely on, you can look towards one particular brand.

  6. Sarah

    Great post. My SO actually does this and he had been collecting points since before we got together. We managed to get a whole night for free for our anniversary in a really nice apartment! Really useful to know about

  7. Kevin's Travel Diary

    Great post, I’m also a member and t is a great idea to share with everyone else. Their hotel range is great. only good things to say. well done for having a write up about this

  8. jo

    It’s a great idea to use these hotel loyalty programmes. Thanks for explaining it so clearly, they can be complicated so this really helps.

    1. Katie @ ZenLifeandTravel

      Glad this helped you – they can be complicated, can’t they!

  9. Tom

    Reading this, I’m struck by how little we see how-to guides for travel points (for any program) on travel blogs. Any frequent-flyer-hotel-whatever program seems designed to be as complicated as possible, probably to discourage usage, and thus this writeups are sorely needed. Brilliant job. Going to cover the rest of the plans next?

    1. Katie @ ZenLifeandTravel

      Thanks. I already have guides up for Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt – in the Miles and Points 101 Tab. I also have posts about elite status for these brands too. I haven’t tackled the frequent flyer programs yet but they are on my (long) to do list.

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