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Here’s the broad strokes: You need to buy at least 5k points to receive a 100% bonus, and then you’re offer and running. The price per point? Let’s break it down. If you were to buy the maximum 100,000, you would receive a total of 200k points for an effective purchase price of $0.005 per point. That, I believe, is their best ever. I listed a few different ways that this can be beneficial to you, but as with any point currency, I never recommend speculatively buying points. August 22nd is the last day to get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG points.
Here are a few instances from my previous post where I think it makes sense to buy points:
The Cleveland Clinic is one of the best hospitals in the world. In fact, it’s where many of my family members have gone for Cardiovascular check-ups. The Intercontinental Cleveland is attached to the hospital and can be had for just 25k points. The last time my folks, who have Ambassador status, visited they redeemed points and were upgraded to a JR Suite – a great use of points.
I checked rates in the summer and they were coming in over $270. If you were to buy points at $0.00575 per point, the 25,000 award rate would only set you back $143.75. That’s a great discount for a very solid hotel.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
3x on select streaming services
3x on online grocery purchases
(excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
$50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
2x on all other travel
10% Anniversary Bonus
Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
No foreign transaction fees
Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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Just a datapoint to use your ink business preferred for buying IHG points, I recently (2 weeks ago) bought through this promo and charged to my ink business preferred and it credited as 3x points even though it is powered by points.com.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.