Whether you’re a luxury traveler or traveling on a budget, the IHG One Rewards program is one of the most well-rounded rewards programs out there. The loyalty program, which is free to join, is definitely worth signing up if you have an upcoming stay at any IHG hotel. In fact, IHG revamped the program in 2022 for the better — with the launch of a new elite status level and more ways to earn rewards to use toward future stays.
That said, you will have to contend with the low value of IHG points. That means you’ll need an enormous amount of points to score an award night at a luxury-level hotel. But, fortunately, you can earn a huge lump sum of points by signing up for an IHG rewards credit card.
IHG has a global footprint with more than 6,000 total hotels in over 100 countries around the world. With that many hotels, you’re likely to find an IHG-branded hotel no matter where you travel. IHG also offers a wide variety of different types of properties, from ultra-luxury (Intercontinental) to budget and extended-stay (Candlewood Suites).
| Brand | Type of property | Number of locations |
|---|---|---|
| Six Senses | Luxury | 27 |
| Regent | Luxury | 10 |
| Intercontinental | Luxury | 224 |
| Vignette Collection | Luxury | 12 |
| Kimpton | Luxury | 75 |
| Hotel Indigo | Luxury | 158 |
| Hualuxe | Premium | 20 |
| Crowne Plaza | Premium | 407 |
| Iberostar Beachfront Resorts | Premium | 50 |
| Voco | Premium | 71 |
| EVEN | Premium | 31 |
| Avid | Budget/family | 73 |
| Holiday Inn | Budget/Family | 1,206 |
| Holiday Inn Express | Budget/Family | 3,190 |
| Garner | Budget/Family | 4 |
| Staybridge Suites | Budget/Long Term | 330 |
| Candlewood Suites | Budget/Long Term | 384 |
| Atwell Suites | Budget/Long term | 3 |
| Holiday Inn Club Vacations | Budget/Long term | 28 |
IHG doesn’t reveal the “true” value of its points, but we estimate them to be worth roughly 0.5 cents each. This means 10,000 IHG points are worth approximately $50.
Compared to other loyalty programs, IHG points aren’t worth a ton, though they can prove to be valuable when used strategically. For example, 100,000 IHG points are worth an estimated $500 in value.
By contrast, 100,000 points are worth approximately $900 for Marriott Bonvoy points and $1,700 for World of Hyatt points.
However, these points fluctuate in value depending on how you use them. If an IHG hotel requires more points than usual for a reward night, points will be worth less. There is a simple strategy to avoid this trend — use your points only when it makes sense.
IHG points are generally valued around $0.005 per point — if a hotel stay is worth around $0.005 per point, then it’s likely worth it to use them. To calculate the value of IHG points, use this simple equation:
Cash price (including taxes and fees) / Number of points needed for hotel stay = Points value for that specific reservation
The IHG Rewards program is widely known as one of the most consumer-friendly loyalty programs, because of the number of opportunities available to earn IHG points, including:
One of the best ways to rack up points with IHG is to sign up for one of their co-branded credit cards through Chase. Depending on which IHG credit card you have, you may be able to earn a sign-up bonus of over 100,000 points, as well as up to 26 points per $1 spent at IHG hotels. That’s nearly 13% back on your IHG hotel stays if you value IHG points at $0.005 per point.
| Credit Cards | Our Ratings | Welcome Offer | Rewards Rate | Annual Fee | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card*
|
Earn 140,000 Bonus Points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening | Earn up to 26 total points per $1 spent when you stay at IHG Hotels & Resorts. Earn 5 points per $1 spent on purchases on travel, at gas stations, and restaurants. Earn 3 points per $1 spent on all other purchases. | $99 | ||
IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card*
Learn More
on Chase's secure site |
Earn 100,000 Bonus Points after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. | Earn up to 17 total points per $1 spent when you stay at IHG Hotels & Resorts. Earn 3 points per $1 spent on purchases on monthly bills, at gas stations, and restaurants. Earn 2 points per $1 spent on all other purchases. | $0 |
Learn More
on Chase's secure site |
|
IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card
 Apply Now
on Chase's secure site |
Earn 140,000 Bonus Points after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening | Earn up to 26 total points per $1 spent when you stay at an IHG hotel. Earn 5 points per $1 spent on purchases on travel, at gas stations, select advertising, and restaurants. Earn 3 points per $1 spent on all other purchases. | $99 |
Apply Now
on Chase's secure site |
When you book an IHG stay through IHG directly, you’ll earn IHG points. The amount of points you earn varies based on the price you pay and your IHG elite status. Here’s what a basic IHG member earns:
| 10 IHG points for every $1 USD | 5 IHG points for every $1 USD |
|---|---|
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When you have elite status, your points earnings will increase as follows:
You have the opportunity to earn bonus points every 10 nights you stay at an IHG hotel.
| When you stay this number of qualifying nights: | You can choose one of the following: |
|---|---|
| 20 nights |
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| 30 nights |
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| 40 nights |
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| 50 nights |
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| 60 nights |
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| 70 nights |
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| 80 nights |
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| 90 nights |
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| 100 nights |
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IHG frequently announces opportunities to earn more IHG points. Utilizing promotions like this is perfect for jumpstarting your points balance. You can find IHG promotions for members on the IHG® Rewards Club offers website.
IHG Hotels & Resorts Dining is a free program where you can earn IHG points when you connect your IHG rewards account to any credit card you use for dining. When you sign up, you’ll be asked to link a card, though you can link multiple cards (including ones that aren’t co-branded by IHG) to maximize your earnings with the program. And when you use any card listed in your IHG Hotels & Resorts Dine & Earn profile, you’ll earn IHG points for dining, in addition to credit card rewards. This is a practice known as “double dipping,” as you’re earning points with two different programs with one purchase.
The amount of points you’ll earn in the IHG Hotels & Resorts Dining program will depend on your status level:
| Membership level | Requirements | IHG points / dollar |
|---|---|---|
| VIP member |
| 8 |
| Select member |
| 5 |
| Basic member |
| 1 |
To join the dining program, visit IHG’s sign-up page. Just know, the number of participating restaurants is limited. To find out which restaurants participate in your area, check out this interactive map.
You can buy IHG points if you need additional ones — note, however, that we don’t recommend this option, as points can be expensive to purchase.
Purchasing IHG points is best for people who need to top off their points balance for a stay, not for purchasing in large quantities. However, IHG periodically offers discounts on purchased points that may be a decent value.
Chase is the only bank that allows its points to be transferred to IHG. You can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® to IHG points at a 1:1 ratio.
The following Chase credit cards earn Ultimate Rewards® points:
You can also transfer your IHG Rewards points to friends and family members, though we don’t recommend this option. Unlike some other points pooling programs, there’s a fee to transfer points — $5 per 1,000 points transferred.
If you have a participating IHG One Rewards Credit Card, you can also earn points by referring friends and family to apply for a participating IHG One Credit Card. If your friend or family member applies through your personalized link and is approved, you can earn 20,000 IHG Rewards points, up to a maximum of 100,000 points each year.
You can earn IHG points by renting cars through IHG’s site, as well as receive discounts and special promotions. The car rentals that participate in the program will depend on where you’re located — you can find the details on the IHG car rental deals page.
Free night awards
IHG no longer offers an award chart with fixed prices for award nights. Instead, the points price varies depending on the date. The cost for an IHG award night can range from around 5,000 points to more than 120,000 points per night.
For example, the Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown – Wall Street will run you 120,000 points on New Year’s Eve 2024.
Higher-end IHG hotels under high demand will cost a high amount of IHG points. If you’re looking to stretch your points, you can also find a decent amount of hotels that have availability for a much lower amount. For example, you can stay at Candlewood Suites in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina for as low as 15,000 points in early March 2025.
IHG 4th night free
If you have the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card or IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card, you can take advantage of one of the best deals from any hotel chain. With this benefit, you can get the fourth night free when you book the first three nights using IHG points. This is a great way to stretch your points further, and works for stays in increments of four, so you can, for example, plan a 10-night vacation to get two free nights. If you plan to stay often with IHG hotels, getting one of these cards could potentially save you thousands of points.
The IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card also comes with a certificate that’s good for a free night each year on your anniversary. These anniversary free night certificates are good for hotels where the nightly cost is 40,000 points or less. One thing to be aware of is that because the points cost for a hotel varies each night, you may find that you can use your free night certificate at a given hotel on some nights, but not others.
IHG Points and Cash
IHG’s Points and Cash program lets you book an award stay with as few as 5,000 IHG Rewards points. You can then use cash to purchase the remaining points you’ll need for your stay.
This can be a good deal if you’re a few points short of booking a stay, since the rates for buying points via Points and Cash are usually cheaper than the rates for buying points directly. However, if you cancel your stay, you’ll only be refunded your points and not the cash you paid for the additional points.
Transfer IHG points
IHG allows you to transfer IHG Rewards points to a variety of different types of airline miles. For most airlines, it takes 10,000 IHG points to make 2,000 airline miles — which makes this deal less-than-ideal in most circumstances.
Here are the transfer ratios for some of IHG Rewards’ top airline partners:
| Airline partner | Transfer ratio |
|---|---|
| Aeromexico | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| Air Canada | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| Air France KLM | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| American Airlines | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| British Airways | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| Delta Air Lines | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| JetBlue | 10,000 : 2,000 |
| United Airlines | 10,000 : 2,000 |
Other IHG redemption options
If you accumulate IHG points but don’t travel much, you can always redeem points for options other than hotel rooms. However, these redemptions are almost always a poor value. So you should only use them if you see yourself never using your IHG Rewards points for hotel stays.
Joining the IHG One Rewards program as a basic member is easy to do. Simply visit the enrollment page and enter basic information about yourself, such as your name and address, and create a password.
While you can become an IHG Rewards member just by enrolling in the program, you can earn elite status through elite qualifying points or hotel stays:
Having IHG elite status is a great way to make your hotel stay experience go from good to great — with benefits like complimentary internet, late checkouts and room upgrades.
IHG One Rewards membership levels
| Status levels | Requirements to earn | Member benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Club member | Join the program |
|
| Silver Elite | 10 hotel nights | Club member benefits plus...
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| Gold Elite | 20 hotel nights or 40,000 elite qualifying points | Silver member benefits plus...
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| Platinum Elite | 40 hotel nights or 60,000 elite qualifying points | Gold member benefits plus...
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| Diamond Elite | 70 hotel nights or 120,000 elite qualifying points | Platinum member benefits plus...
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Once you earn status, it’s valid until the end of the following calendar year. So if you earn status in January 2024, you’ll maintain that status level until December 2025.
The IHG Rewards program is unique in that you can purchase elite status outright. You can use either points or cash to get InterContinental Ambassador status, which grants you Platinum elites status benefits, plus additional perks like guaranteed room upgrades. These benefits may be worth it if you plan to stay frequently with IHG in the upcoming year:
| Status level | Requirements to earn | Member benefits |
|---|---|---|
| InterContinental Ambassador | Annual membership fee of $200 or 40,000 points |
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You can join the IHG One Rewards program for free simply by enrolling here.
IHG® One Rewards is the rewards program offered by IHG Hotels. You can use IHG rewards to earn free night stays and get access to valuable hotel benefits.
Yes, IHG Rewards points expire after 12 months of inactivity if you’re not an elite member. You can extend the life of your points by earning or redeeming points within 12 months.
There are currently five different levels of status within the IHG One Rewards program. When first signing up, you’ll become a Club Member. Further qualifying can give you Gold, Silver, Platinum or Diamond status.
You can reach IHG rewards customer service by calling 888-211-9874.
The easiest way to check the balance of your IHG Rewards Club account is by logging on to your account at IHG.com. If you’re staying at an IHG hotel, you can also ask the front desk to check your account balance.
No, you cannot transfer IHG points to Chase Ultimate Rewards® points. If you have Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, you can transfer those points to IHG, but you’re not able to transfer them back to Ultimate Rewards points.
No, Hyatt is not part of the IHG Rewards program. Hyatt has its own loyalty program, known as World of Hyatt.
The information related to the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card, IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card, Chase Freedom Flex℠, Chase Freedom Rise℠ Credit Card and American Express® Gold Card has been collected by LendingTree and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card prior to publication. Terms apply.
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