IHG points worth more now than 5 years ago

My wife Kelley applied online for the Chase Premier Mastercard on August 1 with an offer for 140,000 bonus points and one free night credit worth 40,000 points after $3,000 in spend in 90 days. Meeting the spend requirement was an easy task given Kelley retired as a California public school teacher in June, we lost our health insurance at the end of July and enrolled for Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage.

This past week, after our second Chase IHG billing statement, Kelley’s account has 153,000 IHG points and one free night credit.

What are 153,000 IHG points worth?

Many travel bloggers post their own valuation table of what a point or mile is worth. 

• The Points Guy – IHG point = 0.5 cents
• Frequent Miler – IHG point = 0.6 cents
• One Mile at a Time – IHG point = 0.5 cents

Personally, I prefer to value hotel points in the simpler format of 0.5 cents/point = $5.00 per 1,000 points and 0.6 cents per point = $6.00 per 1,000 points.

Based on the assumption that 1,000 points has $5.00 or even $6.00 value, then 153,000 points in Kelley’s account are worth $765 to $918. Add another 40,000 points for the free night credit and her IHG account points and free night credit are worth $965 to $1,158 for future IHG hotel stays.

IHG points are worth more now than 5 years ago

My personal view is IHG points are currently worth significantly more than $5.00 or even $6.00 per 1,000 points given the option to book 4th night free reward stays at IHG hotels as a Chase MasterCard Premier member. That is why, in addition to Kelley’s points, I purchased 300,000 IHG points for $1,500 over the summer. 

My IHG points redemption value has averaged $9.50 per 1,000 points in 2022.

Summer 2022 I redeemed 243,000 IHG points for 20 nights for stays in Lisbon, Madrid and Thessaloniki, Greece.

I redeemed 243,000 to buy $2,407 in hotel nights. 

My IHG points redemption value of $9.90 per 1,000 points was substantially better than the $5 to $6 points redemption value given for IHG points by the popular travel blogs above.

I purchased 300,000 IHG points during summer 2022 for $1,500 to replace the points I burned for our June-July 2022 Europe trip. Bloggers tend to give potential buyers of points and miles the advice to have a plan for usage to justify purchases. This is good advice since points and miles tend to devalue. However, IHG points are actually worth more now than they have been in several years for many hotels, primarily due to flexible reward pricing, especially when combined with the 4th night free benefit of the Chase IHG Premier credit card.

For example, the rates for most hotels I booked in 2022 were only 50 to 70% of the points rate in 2017 when IHG had a fixed rate standard reward chart. Last Christmas I stayed at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco for 20,000 points per night.

There are hotels I booked in Amsterdam this year that were less than half the points price using the IHG Mastercard 4th night free than they were priced in 2018 on the IHG standard reward chart. 

My objective is to finish 2022 with 40 IHG nights. My points redemption value for 179,000 points redeemed for 17 more upcoming reward nights is $8.95 per 1,000 points.

In subsequent posts I will delve into some of the additional features of IHG One Rewards to show the extra value I see in reaching 40 hotel nights in 2022. 

Outsized Value of IHG points on my 24 nights trip to Europe – July 14, 2022.

Oct 10-21, 2022: IHG 100% Bonus Points sale offers $5.00 per 1,000 points purchase opportunity when you buy 60,000 points for $300. Members can buy a maximum 300,000 points for $1,500 during this sale. Members can purchase a maximum 150,000 points during the 2022 calendar year (bonus points do not count for purchase limit).