IHG Rewards has launched one of its limited time offers to buy points with a 100% bonus. The flash sale will be available until June 10th, 2021.

You must buy at least 15,000 points to benefit from the bonus. But the best price is reserved for purchases of 26,000 points or more. You would pay 0.5 cents per point when buying 26,000+ points. (you would receive double that of course)

You can buy a maximum of 250,000 points, which will become 500,000 points after the bonus.

Is it Worth It?

I certainly would NOT recommend that you buy points speculatively.

But you can definitely find many hotels where you will save money by buying points at the 0.5 cent price, instead of simply paying the cash price. This is especially true if you hold the IHG Rewards Club Premier card from Chase, where you get the 4th night free when booking award stays using points.

Of course, you also need to take into account the fact that you can earn substantial number of points on paid stays, especially when a good promotion is running. So buying points might not make sense in a year where both paid rates are low and promotions are likely to become more lucrative to tempt people into travelling again.

Don’t Forget Cashback

I haven’t provided a direct link to the promotion because IHG sells its points through Points.com, which is a merchant on Topcashback. At the moment, you can earn an additional 2% cashback via routing yourself via Topcashback.com before buying points.

If you are not yet a member of Topcashback, you can earn an additional $10. Simply sign up using this referral link – http://www.topcashback.com/join-us/inside-flyer/ref/craigsowerby – and earn $10 of cashback. With a 2% cashback rate on buying points from IHG, you would trigger the $10 cashback (and $10 bonus) by spending $500 on IHG points…