How to Quickly Increase Your IHG Hotel Points From 0 to 100k!

This deal is over. Stay tuned to the blog for the most recent IHG promotions.

Do you have 0 IHG hotel points? Heck, maybe you haven’t even heard of the IHG Hotel Rewards Program! No worries! Now is your chance to begin travel hacking your way to free hotel stays!

Do you want to know how to quickly increase your IHG hotel points from 0 to 100k? Even better is those 100k (or more) IHG points can be earned from the comfort of your living room.

In this post, we’ll look at how to quickly increase your IHG Hotel points from 0 to 100k points and get you on your way to booking award stays at any of IHG’s hotels around the world.

First, let’s cover a few basics of the IHG Hotel Rewards Program.

• IHG (formerly Choice Hotels) has thousands of hotel properties worldwide, with many within the Americas and the Caribbean. The hotels include brands like Intercontinental, Hualuxe, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Even Hotels, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Resort, Holiday Inn Club, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites.
• IHG hotel points are generally easy to earn thanks to the co-branded Chase credit card, the IHG Points and Cash option (allowing you to take advantage of a Points and Cash trick!), by joining the IHG dining program, and for completing surveys on sites like e-Rewards.

Here’s how to quickly increase your IHG Hotel points from 0 to 100k!

It’s easy (well, for the most part…)! IHG is currently offering 2 promotions. By taking advantage of both, you could come away with over 100k IHG points.

1. The IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card is offering 60k points and a $50 statement credit after your first purchase for signing up and meeting the minimum spending requirement of $1k within 3 months. The card has an annual fee of $49, which is waived the first year. The card comes with 1 free night each year you renew your card, which more than makes up for the annual fee after the first year.

The free night can (and should!) be used at IHG’s highest category hotels, which include InterContinental Hotels in Tahiti, London, Paris, Key West, and Washington, D.C. These hotels typically start at over $300 a night!

With the IHG Rewards Club Select credit card, you’ll earn 5x the points for IHG purchases, 2x the points at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants, and 1x the points for all other purchases. The card has no foreign exchange fees so it can go with you when you travel abroad.

The IHG Rewards Club Select credit card comes with Platinum status, which comes with a 10% discount on award redemptions and late checkout when available. IHG also gives its members free wifi access.

This credit card sign-up is a good deal, but not the highest sign-up bonus offer ever on this card. Still, it’s a great travel hacking starter card because of its low annual fee and straightforward redemptions!

The second step on the road to 100k IHG Hotel points requires a bit more effort than filling out an online credit card application but could prove to be quite lucrative.

2. Between November 15, 2015- February 15, 2016, IHG and MasterCard are running a promotion called Priceless Surprises. By registering for the promotion, each paid stay during this period of time would earn IHG points plus unlock a “Priceless Surprise.” As with many promotions, there are a few really fantastic surprises like winning a million IHG points or a trip to New York City, but most people will just win 500 points per entry.

Although the promotion is intended to require paid stays, there is a perfectly legal way around this. To stay in line with state lottery rules and regulations, IHG and Mastercard also need to offer a FREE entry method. Even though the promotion started back in November, I’ve waited to blog about this method until it was confirmed that points would actually be awarded. Plenty of people are reporting success most of the time!

Here’s how it works.

Each person is allowed to play up to 94 times. To enter, mail in a handwritten 3×5 notecard. It must include:

1. your full name,
2. complete mailing address,
3. day and evening phone numbers,
4. a valid email address,
5. your IHG member number,
6. the first 6 digits of your MasterCard (This is only to confirm the card is a MasterCard.),
7. and your date of birth.

Mail the handwritten 3×5 notecard to:

IHG and MasterCard® Priceless Surprises® Promotion
c/o HelloWorld, Inc.
P.O. Box 5996
Kalamazoo, MI 49003-5996

When your entry is received, IHG will email you with an opportunity to play the game online and win. This process can be redone 94 times! With most people reporting 500 points for most, if not all, of their entries, you could earn 47k IHG points if you complete all 94 entries. Remember, some entries could win a higher prize, which means you’d do better than the 47k IHG points!

All entries must be mailed separately, postmarked by February 15, 2016, and received by February 22, 2016. Each online game email must be played by March 15, 2016.

Before you play, make sure you:

1. Sign up to become a free IHG Member and
2. Register for the Priceless Surprises Promotion.

This will take a few hours (unless you can bribe, ok pay, some nephews to do it like I did!) and cost about $60 for postage, stamps, envelopes, notecards.

Is all of this worth it?

IHG reward nights start at 10k a night for lower-tier hotels and go up to 50k points per night for their higher-end properties. Select Points Break Hotels released every few months have redemptions for just 5k a night! Stretching your points can earn you at least 2 award nights for a good value low to mid-tier hotel, more if the hotel is on the Points Break List!

If you happen to win a higher prize, the time, effort, and money spent on supplies (and nephews) could earn back a value of several hundred to several thousand dollars in hotel rewards and prizes like cameras and gift cards. You’d also have a chance (albeit a slim one!) to win grand prizes like trips to Paris or New York City.

If you apply for the IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card and earn the 60k IHG points and most of your Priceless Surprises Promotion entries earn the minimum of 500 points each, you’d have around 100k IHG points.

With a new year just beginning and your travel plans being made, you’d set yourself up for free hotel nights to lower, if not cover, the cost of your accommodations!

What do you think? Will you take advantage of these promotions?

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