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Buying IHG points has always been $0.5 cents a piece when IHG has 100% bonus points sales from time to time. There are instances that you can do a points + cash booking then cancel the reservation and get the points back instead of cash. This trick is good for those that are looking to top up their IHG points balance to book a more desirable hotel or resort.
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| Holiday Inn Resort Aruba |
Today I came across another awesome trick to purchase IHG points at a very low $0.30 cents or lower a piece, depending on the property that you can find. Allow me to explain and walk through this with me step-by-step:
Step 1 – Register for IHG’s Quarterly Accelerate Offer
Make sure you register for the IHG Accelerate promotion. Verify that your account is targeted for the following offer:
4,500 Stay for Less and Earn
Book 1 stay(s) using Points & Cash and earn 4,500 bonus points. Points & Cash allows you to book Reward Nights with fewer points.
Step 2 – IHG Points & Cash Discount Promotion
IHG runs this type of promotion from time to time. Via Points Express, currently IHG is running a promotion that offers points and 20% discount on the cash portion.
Step 3 – Find A Cheap IHG’s Points & Cash Property
This is the challenging part because you need to search for an IHG property that has the points & cash booking available, and the cash portion has to be lower than what most IHG property charges.
In my experience, I made points and cash reservation at Holiday Inn Express Bali Raya Kuta. This property is dirt cheap with the rate without points ~$20/night. Their full points rate is 10,000 IHG points. Their points & cash rate is 5,000 IHG points + $29 (after the 20% cash discount).
Step 4 – Cancel Reservation and Keep the Points
After booking, when I went to look at my account’s activity, I saw 9,500 points were awarded to my account. It turns out, the 9,500 IHG points are the result of 5,000 points that I purchased for $29 when making the points and cash booking above, and additional 4,500 points from the IHG accelerate promotion. Factoring all that in, I basically paid $29 for 9,500 IHG points!
IHG’s points and cash booking provides free cancellation, so when I cancel that reservation, I will receive the points portion of 5,000 points back and keep the 9,500 points.
Conclusion
As you can see, by leveraging the IHG’s accelerate promotion and the points & cash discount offer, you can purchase IHG points at a significant discount cost per point. My example yields $0.30 cents per point; however, if you can find another IHG property that offers points and cash booking, and has even lower cash portion, you can potentially purchase IHG points at a much lower than $0.30 cents a piece.
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