IHG One Rewards points are on sale again with 100% bonus points from November 16 to December 29, 2022. This sale creates a sweet spot at the purchase of 52,000 points for $260 where the price of points drops to $5.00 per 1,000 points. Members can buy up to 500,000 points for $2,500 during this sale.
IHG points are the best value hotel points currency you can have for travel this year when combined with the opportunity as an IHG Mastercard member to book 4th night free reward stays using IHG points. I currently have 399,000 in IHG points reservations booked for 26 reward nights over my next four months of travel. These hotel bookings are great deals with more than $1,000 in rate savings. This sale is one I find very convenient for restocking IHG points that I will no doubt find a use for in 2023.
Calendar Year Limit on IHG Points Purchases
IHG has an official annual purchase limit of 150,000 points a member can buy during the calendar year still listed in its IHG program terms and conditions. The terms of this promotion raise that limit to 250,000 points for the period of the promotion through December 29, 2022. Bonus points do not count for the annual purchase limit. The purchase of 250,000 points earns 100% bonus points for a total 500,000 points for $2,500. Since IHG has made this offer for 500,000 points multiple times in 2022 it seems the actual effective purchase limit is 500,000 points in a calendar year if you wait around for buy IHG points discount offers.
If you previously purchased IHG points in 2022 through the IHG Points.com channel, then your limit is reduced by how many base points you purchased before, not counting bonus points offered in previous sales.
I purchased 300,000 IHG points over summer during the U.S. Travel Association Daily Getaways sale. Those points purchases do not prevent me from being able to buy 500,000 points during this sale since they were not distributed through IHG’s Points.com channel. Then my IHG counter for buying points resets to zero on January 1, 2023.
My objective for this sale is to buy sufficient IHG points to carry me through a trip to Europe in spring 2023. I anticipate needing around 200,000 more IHG points.
Having recently possessed more than 500,000 IHG points when planning itineraries for upcoming trips, I enjoyed the opportunity to make multiple bookings for hotel stays in different cities and different dates during the planning process. I booked and canceled more IHG hotel stays than I ended up keeping after finalizing flight dates for travel through several countries around Europe.
Periodically rechecking reward rates for IHG hotels I booked allowed me to save more than 20,000 points when I noticed rate drops and rebooked. Finding rate drops at higher end IHG brands along with my recent upgrade to IHG Diamond elite also motivated me to change some reward stay bookings for Holiday Inn Express and Holiday Inn hotels to higher brands like Crowne Plaza and Kimpton for elite benefits like breakfast, potential room upgrades and even lounge access for stays in 2023 after I choose that IHG Milestone benefit next month for 40-IHG-nights completed in 2022.
