IHG One Rewards Buy Points: a 100% Flash Sale, for a Stay You Can Already Price (October 2026)

Last updated: October 12, 2026

IHG One Rewards is selling points with a 100% bonus on a purchase of 35,000 or more points in a single transaction, made from 12:00 a.m. ET on October 10, 2026 through 11:59 p.m. ET on October 13, 2026. The same purchase adds a 3,500-point gift. The terms LoyaltyLobby and Traveling for Miles quote say that gift is deposited within 6 weeks of the transaction. The purchased points and the 100% bonus are supposed to post within 72 hours.

At the threshold, 35,000 points cost $350. You receive 70,000 points from the purchase plus the bonus, and 73,500 once the gift arrives. $350 / 73,500 = 0.476¢ per point. LoyaltyLobby, Frequent Flyer Bonuses, AwardWallet, and Milesopedia round that to about 0.48¢. Traveling for Miles prints ~0.476¢. Without the gift, $350 / 70,000 = 0.50¢. That 0.50¢ rate is the usual floor of a 100% IHG sale. The gift is what makes the 35,000-point purchase cheaper than that floor, and only after it posts.

Buy it for a stay you have already priced. A speculative balance is a bad use of a sale IHG has already run at 100% several times this year. A cheap cash rate still wins. The 3,500-point gift is the wrong pile to count on for a room you need this week.

Before you buy points: Run your spending through the credit card rewards calculator. A buy-points sale does not fix a wallet that should be earning a transferable currency. Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt both transfer to IHG at 1:1. On a stay large enough to clear 35,000 points, buying at 0.50¢ beats moving those points. Pay cash only for the gap a transfer should not cover, and only after the cash rate loses.

The promo, without the fluff

Log in and open the purchase page. The bonus and the total on that screen are the offer. The quoted terms say the percentage shows for eligible members when they log in, and they call the offer exclusive to intended recipients. AwardWallet and Milesopedia both say it can vary by account. A headline of 100% is not your account until the page says 100%.

This sale is listed with the other active sales on the point sales page. Card transfer bonuses that are live this month are on the transfer bonuses page. There is no IHG transfer-bonus row to add for a points purchase.

The cents above are the U.S. price before tax. A checkout that adds tax is a higher price. Do not use 0.476¢ as your price if the receipt shows a tax line.

What you pay per point

Two published purchases are enough to see the rate. Both are $10 per 1,000 points you buy. The 100% bonus doubles them. The gift is a flat 3,500 points on top, so it pulls the price down more on the small purchase than on the large one.

$350 / 73,500 = 0.476¢. $2,000 / 403,500 = 0.496¢. LoyaltyLobby prints 0.496¢ on the large purchase. Traveling for Miles and Frequent Flyer Bonuses round that same division to 0.495¢. The gap between 0.476¢ and 0.496¢ is the gift getting thinner as the purchase gets larger. Buying 200,000 points to “get a better rate” moves you the wrong direction. The cheapest all-in price in the published examples is the 35,000-point purchase.

The gift is also the part you cannot spend this week. The terms put purchased points in the account within 72 hours and the gift within 6 weeks. A stay you book before the gift arrives has to be paid for with the 70,000 points, at 0.50¢. Counting 73,500 toward a room that has to be ticketed on October 14 assumes a deposit the terms do not promise until sometime in November.

Below 35,000 points, this sale adds nothing. AwardWallet’s schedule prices 1,000 to 10,000 points at 1.35¢, 11,000 to 25,000 at 1.15¢, and 26,000 to 34,000 at 1¢, with the 100% bonus starting at 35,000. Milesopedia says the same thing in one line: under 35,000 you pay the regular price, and a 1,000-point block outside a promotion is $13.50. A 34,000-point purchase is the expensive way to miss the bonus by 1,000 points. Stepping up to 35,000 is what the terms price at 100%, and it only helps if you will use the 70,000 points that post.

The quoted terms cap a member at 200,000 points purchased in a calendar year. IHG’s own buy-points page says the same number. Bonus points do not count toward it, per Traveling for Miles. If the page on your account offers 250,000 or 300,000, that is the cap AwardWallet and LoyaltyLobby say some members see. Both numbers are in public writeups. The counter on the purchase page is the one that will take your money. Points you already bought in 2026 count. The terms’ own example is a member who bought 50,000 earlier and has 150,000 left.

A repeated 100% sale, which is what LoyaltyLobby calls the maximum bonus IHG sells and what AwardWallet’s history shows over and over at 0.5¢, is this price before the gift. Frequent Flyer Bonuses counts at least six 100% bonuses a year and says there is no rush. LoyaltyLobby calls this the eighth buy-points bonus sale of 2026. The gift at 35,000 points is the new piece. It is not a reason to buy points you have no stay for, because another 100% window is the pattern, and the next one may not include the gift.

The Points Guy’s October 2026 valuations, which every MaxPoints tool uses, put an IHG point at 0.6¢. A purchase at 0.476¢ is about 21% under that figure. A purchase at 0.50¢, which is what you can actually redeem within 72 hours, is about 17% under it. On 70,000 points the 0.6¢ figure is $420, against $350 of cash. That gap is an average. Clear the purchase with a specific stay. AwardWallet’s own users average 0.69¢ per IHG point redeemed, which is a higher bar than 0.6¢ and still above this sale. It is still an average.

Price the night, then buy the gap

Search the award before a dollar goes to the purchase page. IHG’s reward-nights page says a Reward Night starts at 5,000 points, and that the number for a hotel on a date moves with the room, the season, and demand. The 5,000-point line is a floor. It is not a chart. The number on your dates is the number.

Traveling for Miles priced the rate, not a live inventory list, on October 12. A room at 70,000 points a night costs $333 to $347 at the all-in prices in this sale, which is their range from about 0.476¢ to about 0.495¢. At the unit prices above, 70,000 points are $333.33 if you spread the 35,000-point gift across them (70,000 × $350 / 73,500), and $350 if you pay for those 70,000 before the gift posts. They also say an InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile stay of four nights can be 81,000 points for someone whose card makes the fourth night free, which they price at about $401 using 0.495¢. They do not print that hotel’s cash rate as its own number. Use the points figure as their example. Read today’s cash rate yourself.

The fourth night is a card benefit on the IHG cards in this site’s catalog, checked against Chase’s pages in the October 2026 portfolio refresh. It is not a program-wide elite perk.

• The IHG One Rewards Premier and the Premier Select include a fourth reward night free when points pay for a consecutive four-night stay. On that stay you pay points for three nights. The Premier Select review uses that rule.
• The IHG One Rewards Business card includes a fourth reward night free.
• The no-annual-fee IHG One Rewards card includes it too, and the catalog says that version now also requires $5,000 of card spend.

Confirm the benefit on your card before you buy three nights of points and assume the fourth is free. The points price of three nights has to beat the cash price of four nights, including the taxes you would actually pay, or the free night did not save you money. A member with no IHG card does not get this from the program terms quoted for the sale.

The same cards include an anniversary free night you can top up with your own points. The catalog caps that certificate at 50,000 points on the Premier and the business card, and at 60,000 points on the Premier Select. A sale is one way to buy the points that stretch a certificate to a pricier hotel. The certificate’s own cap is the limit. Read it before you buy a pile “for the certificate.”

The purchase page’s increment is the increment. The quoted terms do not print one. The $10-per-1,000 price is how the 35,000-point and 200,000-point examples line up. A 70,000-point award, covered by a 35,000-point purchase, is a $350 receipt before tax if you book before the gift posts. Buying a larger block because the page sells in chunks leaves extra points that are only useful if a later night needs them.

AwardWallet says Points.com processes the purchase, so it does not code as a hotel stay. An IHG card’s hotel multiplier is the wrong thing to expect on this charge. Put it on a card where the spending itself is useful. Which card that is, for your categories, is the calculator’s question.

Purchased points and the bonus from this offer do not move you toward Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Diamond. IHG sells a separate product for that. The buy-points page says you can add up to 5,000 points per night onto a booking, and that those add-on points are elite qualifying. They cannot be combined with a 7-day free-cancellation rate. That add-on is not this flash sale. Paying $350 on the purchase page does not buy elite nights.

The points you will redeem this week are supposed to post within 72 hours, and AwardWallet says they often show up immediately. Buy while the award is on the screen, with enough slack that a 72-hour post still leaves the room there. The gift can take six weeks. Do not hold a fragile award for it.

Chase and Bilt at 1:1, and the banks that do not list IHG

Two bank currencies on this site transfer to IHG, both at 1:1. Chase Ultimate Rewards turn 1,000 points into 1,000 IHG points. Chase moves transfers in 1,000-point steps. Bilt Rewards also transfer 1:1. Amex Membership Rewards do not list IHG. Amex hotel partners on this site are Marriott at 1:1, Choice Privileges at 1:1, Hilton at 1:2, and Leading Hotels of the World at 4:1. Capital One, Citi, and Wells Fargo do not list IHG either.

The Points Guy’s October 2026 valuations put a Chase point at 2.05¢, a Bilt point at 2.2¢, and a Membership Rewards point at 2.0¢. Those are planning figures, not rates the banks pay. A Chase point you move to IHG is a point you could have used on a flight.

A gap of 70,000 IHG points is exactly 35,000 points bought at 100%. That is the pile that posts within the 72-hour window. The gift makes it 73,500 later.

On a priced IHG stay that will consume those 70,000 points, buying beats both transfers by a wide margin. $350 of cash against about $1,435 of Chase points or about $1,540 of Bilt points. Moving transferable points to avoid that $350 spends a currency that usually does more work on an airline. There is no live IHG transfer bonus on the transfer bonuses page to change that math.

The exception is a gap smaller than the 35,000-point bonus floor. The terms do not give 100% on a purchase under 35,000. If you only need 5,000 IHG points, AwardWallet’s no-bonus tier prices 1,000 to 10,000 points at 1.35¢, which is $67.50 for 5,000. Transferring 5,000 Chase points covers the same gap at about $102.50 on the 2.05¢ figure, with no $350 purchase and no 65,000 extra points sitting in IHG. Use the transfer when the 35,000-point minimum would make you buy a pile. Use the purchase when the stay will consume what you buy, and the cash rate loses.

Buying 35,000 points because you are 5,000 short is $350 for a top-off. That is the version of this sale that looks cheap per point and spends money you did not need to spend.

When to buy

Pay for the points only when all of these are true:

1. The stay is already in your IHG search. A specific property, room, dates, points price, and cash rate you would actually pay. The 70,000-point and 81,000-point figures above are Traveling for Miles’ examples on October 12. They are not the price until your search says so.
2. Your purchase page shows 100% on a single purchase of at least 35,000 points, plus the 3,500-point gift. The screen’s total is the total. A targeted offer that is missing is a different sale.
3. The cash rate loses. The cash price of the room you would book, including the taxes that rate charges, is greater than the purchase total for the points you still need. Use 0.50¢ for points you have to redeem before the gift posts. Add tax if the receipt adds it. An award and a prepaid cash rate are different products. Compare the rate you would actually buy.
4. You will use the points the purchase delivers now. A 70,000-point gap is a $350 purchase. A 5,000-point gap is a transfer, or the no-bonus price on the screen, because 35,000 is the smallest 100% purchase the terms describe.
5. Chase and Bilt are the wrong place to manufacture this pile. Buying at 0.50¢ beats transferring at 2.05¢ or 2.2¢. Keep those points for a flight. Amex cannot make IHG points at all.
6. The cap still has room. The quoted terms and IHG’s buy-points page say 200,000 points per calendar year, before the bonus. AwardWallet reports 300,000 on this promotion. Read the page. Count what you have already bought in 2026.
7. The award can survive the posting delay. The points you can spend are supposed to post within 72 hours. The gift can take six weeks. The bonus follows a purchase completed by 11:59 p.m. ET on October 13. The room does not have to wait with you.

The clean yes: you are short a known number of points for an award you have already priced, the purchase page shows 100% on a buy of at least 35,000 that you will actually redeem, a 1:1 Chase or Bilt transfer would cost more of a currency you still want, and the cash rate is higher than the receipt.

When to leave the cash alone

Skip the sale if any of these are true:

• Nothing is bookable. Buying 200,000 points on October 13 because a headline says 100%, then searching an empty calendar, is $2,000 for 400,000 points you hope IHG will still price kindly, plus a gift you cannot spend for weeks. Frequent Flyer Bonuses’ own line on this round is that another 100% sale is the pattern. That is the expensive version of this promo.
• The cash rate is the ordinary one. A Holiday Inn Express night that is cheap in dollars is a night to pay for in dollars. Dynamic pricing moves the award with the cash rate often enough that a low cash rate and a low points rate show up together.
• Your screen does not show 100%. The terms tell eligible members to read the percentage after they log in. A checkout with no bonus, or a bonus on a different threshold, is a different price. Do not pay a 100% headline against a different checkout.
• You would be buying under 35,000 and calling it this sale. AwardWallet’s tiers below the threshold are 1¢ to 1.35¢. That is above the 0.6¢ valuation. The 100% and the gift start at 35,000 in one transaction.
• You would be buying status. Purchased points and this offer’s bonus do not count toward elite status. The elite-qualifying add-on, up to 5,000 points per night on a booking, is a different checkout.
• The fourth night is not on your card. No IHG card, or a no-annual-fee card that has not met the spend the catalog attaches to that benefit, means you pay every night. Run the award without the free night before you assume it is there.
• The gap is a few thousand points and you hold Chase or Bilt. A $350 minimum purchase is a worse top-off than transferring 5,000 points when the stay is that small.
• You are moving Chase or Bilt points to dodge the receipt. 1:1 turns a 2.05¢ or 2.2¢ transferable point into a 0.50¢ hotel point. Buy the IHG points, or use the bank points on a partner that is actually worth the transfer.
• The cap is already used. The terms’ example is blunt: points you bought earlier in 2026 reduce what you can buy now. Paying for points that will not post is a non-refundable charge.
• The room is fragile and you are waiting on the gift. Six weeks is the published window for the 3,500 points. The 72-hour window is the one that matters for an award you can see today.

The verdict

Buy IHG points in this window only for a stay you can already price, at 100% on your own purchase page, after you have checked that a Chase or Bilt transfer is the more expensive way to produce the same points.

The clock is 12:00 a.m. ET on October 10, 2026 through 11:59 p.m. ET on October 13, 2026. The bonus is 100% on a single purchase of 35,000 or more points, plus a 3,500-point gift within about six weeks. 35,000 points cost $350 and become 73,500 with the gift, which is 0.476¢, about 0.48¢. The 70,000 points that post with the bonus cost 0.50¢. A 200,000-point purchase, if your cap allows it, is $2,000 for 403,500 points with one gift, which is 0.496¢.

The quoted terms and IHG’s buy-points page cap purchases at 200,000 points per calendar year, before the bonus. AwardWallet reports 300,000 on this promotion, and LoyaltyLobby says some accounts may see a higher limit. Read the page. Purchased points and the bonus do not count toward status. They are non-refundable. Purchased points are supposed to post within 72 hours. The gift is not.

70,000 Chase points become 70,000 IHG points at 1:1, about $1,435 on a 2.05¢ planning figure, against $350 to buy those points. Bilt at 1:1 is about $1,540. Buying wins that comparison. Keeping the Chase or Bilt points for an airline usually wins the one after that. Amex has no IHG transfer.

Find the stay. Read the cash rate. Read the bonus on your purchase page. Then buy exactly the points that award requires, and leave the gift out of the math until it posts.

Before you earn the next point toward an IHG award, run your spending through the credit card rewards calculator.

See this sale with the other active point sales →.

See all active transfer bonuses →.

Disclaimer / sources

This article reflects the IHG One Rewards buy-points promotion reported on October 10–12, 2026. Checked October 12, 2026.

• Campaign terms are as quoted by LoyaltyLobby on October 10, 2026, and again by Traveling for Miles on October 12, 2026: qualifying purchases from 12:00 a.m. ET on October 10, 2026 through 11:59 p.m. ET on October 13, 2026; 100% bonus when you buy a minimum of 35,000 points in a single transaction; a 3,500-point gift deposited within 6 weeks; the percentage shows for eligible members after login; the offer is exclusive to intended recipients and may not be forwarded; a maximum of 200,000 points purchased per calendar year, reduced by points already purchased in 2026 (their example is 50,000 already bought, leaving 150,000); similar 200,000 caps on points gifted or received as a gift; purchased points and bonus points do not count toward elite status; the offer can change and cannot be combined with another offer; the price includes all fees and is subject to applicable taxes; purchased points are not refundable and apply toward IHG One Rewards redemptions; allow up to 72 hours for points to post. Traveling for Miles adds that bonus points do not count toward the yearly cap. A logged-in IHG purchase page was not available for this check. Confirm the bonus, the tax, the gift, and the cap on your own account.
• LoyaltyLobby, October 10, 2026: eighth buy-points bonus sale of 2026; 100% is the maximum bonus they see IHG sell; the account limit may be raised to 250,000, 300,000, or higher, so check the account; 73,500 points for $350 at 0.48¢; 403,500 points for $2,000 at 0.496¢; 0.5¢ is the usual low price through the year. The headline calls the limit increased. The terms block on the same page still says 200,000 per calendar year.
• Frequent Flyer Bonuses, October 11, 2026: 100% plus 3,500 bonus points through October 13, 2026; up to 200,000 purchased, 400,000 with the bonus, plus the 3,500 gift; $2,000 at the maximum, 0.495¢; 73,500 points for $350, about 0.48¢; the gift posts up to 6 weeks later. They count at least six 100% bonuses a year and say there is no rush to buy without a use in the next few months.
• AwardWallet, checked October 12, 2026: through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on October 13, 2026; possibly targeted; tiers of no bonus at 1.35¢ (1,000–10,000), 1.15¢ (11,000–25,000), and 1¢ (26,000–34,000), then 100% from 35,000 for 0.5¢; a 3,500-point gift within 6 weeks turns a $350 purchase of 35,000 into 73,500 points at 0.48¢, which they describe as an effective 110% bonus; key terms also say a maximum of 300,000 points during this promotion before the bonus; posting within 72 hours, with user reports of immediate posting; non-refundable; Points.com processes the purchase, so it does not code as hotel spend; their users average 0.69¢ per IHG point redeemed. The 300,000 cap in those key terms and the 200,000 cap in the quoted terms disagree. The purchase page is the cap.
• Milesopedia, October 10, 2026: 12:00 a.m. ET October 10 through 11:59 p.m. ET October 13; 100% from 35,000 points in one transaction; 3,500-point gift within 6 weeks; 73,500 points for $350, about 0.48¢; 403,500 points for $2,000 at the 200,000 annual cap, about 0.5¢; no bonus under 35,000; off-sale price $13.50 per 1,000 points (1.35¢); the cap is reduced by 2026 purchases already made; Canadian residents add sales tax and Quebec residents add QST; the purchase is in U.S. dollars via Points.com; the offer shows for eligible members and can vary; purchased points and the bonus do not count toward elite status. Milesopedia values an IHG point at 0.7 Canadian cents, roughly 0.5 U.S. cents at their exchange rate. This article uses The Points Guy’s 0.6¢ U.S. figure instead, because that is the number every MaxPoints tool uses.
• Traveling for Miles, October 12, 2026: the same quoted window, 100% bonus, 3,500-point gift within 6 weeks, 200,000-point calendar cap, no elite credit, non-refundable, 72-hour posting, and taxes on top of a price that includes fees. Their math is ~0.476¢ at 35,000 points ($350 for 73,500) and 0.495¢ at 200,000 points ($2,000 for 403,500). They price a 70,000-point night at $333–$347 and an InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile four-night award at 81,000 points, about $401 at 0.495¢, for a Premier cardholder using a fourth night free. Those are their examples from October 12, not a quote you can hold. They also say the Premier and Premier Select cards offer a fourth night free on award stays, and that anniversary certificates can be topped up with points (caps they state as 50,000 and 60,000).
• IHG’s own pages, checked October 12, 2026. Buy points: buy up to 200,000 points per year to redeem for Reward Nights and other rewards; separately, add up to 5,000 points per night to a booking, and those add-on points are elite qualifying; the add-on cannot be combined with 7-day free-cancellation rates. Reward nights and Points & Cash: Reward Nights start at 5,000 points, and the points required for a hotel on a date vary with the room, seasonality, demand, and other factors. How to keep your points: buying points is one of the actions IHG lists for keeping a balance from expiring. This check did not open the membership terms PDF, so the 200,000-point calendar cap in the quoted promo terms is cross-checked against the public buy-points page, not against a fresh copy of the full membership terms.
• 0.476¢ is $350 / 73,500. 0.48¢ is the rounding LoyaltyLobby, Frequent Flyer Bonuses, AwardWallet, and Milesopedia use for that rate. 0.50¢ is $350 / 70,000 and $2,000 / 400,000. 0.496¢ is $2,000 / 403,500. 0.495¢ is the Traveling for Miles and Frequent Flyer Bonuses rounding of that same division. $333.33 is 70,000 × 350 / 73,500. $350 is the published price of 35,000 points, which is also the cost of the 70,000 points that post before the gift. $2,000 is the published price of 200,000 points in those writeups. $420 is 70,000 × 0.6¢. $67.50 is 5,000 × 1.35¢, using AwardWallet’s 1,000–10,000 tier. About 21% is (0.6 − 0.476) / 0.6. About 17% is (0.6 − 0.50) / 0.6.
• Transfers. Chase Ultimate Rewards to IHG at 1:1, in 1,000-point steps, and Bilt Rewards to IHG at 1:1, are how this site’s transfer-partner pages list those partners as of October 2026. Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Citi, and Wells Fargo do not list IHG there. Amex hotel partners on that page are Marriott at 1:1, Choice Privileges at 1:1, Hilton at 1:2, and Leading Hotels of the World at 4:1. 2.05¢, 2.2¢, 2.0¢, and 0.6¢ are The Points Guy’s October 2026 valuations for Chase Ultimate Rewards, Bilt, Membership Rewards, and IHG, fetched October 12, 2026, and the same figures the calculators use. $1,435 is 70,000 × 2.05¢. $1,540 is 70,000 × 2.2¢. $102.50 is 5,000 × 2.05¢.
• Fourth reward night and free-night certificates are this site’s October 2026 card catalog, checked against Chase’s IHG card pages on October 5, 2026: fourth reward night free on a consecutive four-night award stay for the Premier and Premier Select; fourth reward night free on the business card; fourth reward night free on the no-annual-fee card, with that version also requiring $5,000 of card spend; anniversary free-night caps of 50,000 points on the Premier and the business card and 60,000 points on the Premier Select, with the option to add your own points. The Premier Select review states the four-night rule as paying points for three nights. Confirm the benefit on your card. It is a card benefit, not a benefit the promo terms give every member.
• Related MaxPoints pages: point sales, transfer bonuses, Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners, Bilt transfer partners, Amex transfer partners, IHG Premier Select review.

Offers can end early. Confirm the bonus, the tax, the cap, the gift, and the award price on your own IHG account before you pay.