Many of the hotels in the IHG program are found on the budget-friendly end. But all throughout the range, the value of IHG points is pretty consistent.

Everything has a value

I don’t need to reiterate what I’ve already stated previously, but it’s still worth mentioning. Travel using points isn’t free. Since it’s not free, there must be a value attached to it. You could then calculate the value of a point.

It’s important to also distinguish the value of a point from the cost of a point. The value is what the point can buy while the cost is what you spent to acquire the point. The difference, then, between the value and the cost can be thought of as the spread. Common sense would dictate that you don’t want the cost to exceed the value of the point (i.e., a negative spread) or you would have lost money in the transaction.

For the purposes of the below, I’m just going to define the value of the point and not the cost. Everyone’s cost will vary depending what avenues of acquiring points are available to them. I’ll save that cost calculation for you to do.

Key considerations for IHG points

It’s important to identify a few key considerations to this valuation so we can look at this in the proper framework.

Each point in the same program is not worth the same amount

This one is an odd one. If you open a loyalty account and only earn one point, what is that point worth? Well, assuming you can’t redeem just one point, that point has zero value to you. In fact, each point you earn before you can redeem any of them is worth zero. The point that enables you to then redeem for an award is the one that’s worth a significant amount.

If you were to theoretically plot this out on a graph, you’d see a chart that jumps all over the place. It’s not very useful to think of points as a function plotted on a graph. Instead, it’s better to think of points as an average value. I’d rather not think about calculus when spending time in this hobby.

How much do you cherry pick your awards?

Now that you’re thinking of points themselves bouncing around in value, you can also start thinking about cherry picking for the better awards. Do you spend 1,000 miles buying $10 off travel or do you wait for 2,000 miles when you can get $25 off? That’s a simplistic example but it does help demonstrate what this dynamic entails.

Your comfort level in cherry picking the best value will depend on your earn rate, your comfort level in the program not devaluing, and the spread you’re looking to get.

The cash price the award replaced isn’t always the proper valuation

Let’s say you find an award for two one-way international flights that together form a roundtrip journey. If you didn’t have access to points, you likely wouldn’t book these flights as one-ways. Generally international roundtrip flights are significantly cheaper than one-ways. Claiming your points have the value of the cash price of two one-ways would then be inflating the value of the points.

The proper valuation should consider opportunity cost. If you didn’t have points at your disposal, what would you have paid in cash? Sometimes the cash rate might be the proper metric (it could be the only hotel in town that works for your needs), but it might not be.

Everyone’s valuation will be different

It’s important to know that my valuation will be different from yours. That’s because the awards that I might be interested in aren’t the same awards you would be interested in. Valuing points is inherently a very personal calculation that considers what I would redeem for and when.

Within this concept is the truth that sometimes elite status affects the value of points. Take Hyatt’s program where Globalist status can offer free parking on award stays but no free parking on cash stays. That then means that Globalists might have a higher valuation of Hyatt points than non-Globalists. Another example might be Hilton’s fifth night free when booked with points but only for elite members.

What do you get out of my valuation? It’s more of the framework that matters, so that you can consider your own valuation.

The method of valuing IHG points

We’ve talked about how we built up the value for each of the following:

• Accor points (worth 2.4 cents each)
• Choice Privileges points (worth 1.1 cents each)
• Hilton points (worth 0.4 cents each)
• Hyatt points (worth 1.6 cents each)
• LHW Leaders Club points (worth 8.0 cents each)
• Marriott Bonvoy points (worth 0.9 cents each)
• Wyndham Rewards points (worth 1.0 cents each)

What about IHG points? The program is generally flooded with Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels, along with other properties at the cheaper end. That’s especially true with the loss of the Mr. and Mrs. Smith partnership to Hyatt. But let’s still take a look at a wide variety of hotels to figure out what value we should be giving the points.

I’ve seen others referencing a 100,000 IHG point cap on hotels, but I found plenty of exceptions. I came in to this expecting it to work more like Hilton (with its point cap) but walked away a bit disappointed.

How I earn my IHG points

I’ll be honest and admit that I am sitting on a large stash of IHG points that I earned from the past, and I haven’t been using them at a consistent rate. The program ends up being in fourth place in my own view, largely because of the lack of appeal the program has (the handout Platinum status on credit cards gives hardly anything valuable and the no-longer-available IHG Select card that I have doesn’t allow for free nights to be topped off with points, making it difficult to use).

Still, I’ve bought points in the past from the now-defunct Daily Getaways annual sale. For those remembering the good old days, there was an app that you could stop by hotels daily to earn a small number of points, and there was a promotion where you can write on hundreds of post cards to earn points for each one.

The methodology

Let’s apply a similar approach as I did for Marriott hotels to see if anything becomes transparent:

• I picked three hotels in each brand at random, spread across the world.
• I looked at the one-night cost of each hotel on the first of each month from April 2025 to December 2025.
• If the hotel did not have any points availability on any given night, it was omitted from the calculation.
• The cost of taxes and fees is included in the cash price but the resort/destination fee is not. That’s because IHG assesses the fee on award nights, thus points won’t cover that price.
• The cash price reflects the member-only refundable rate. While that makes the cash price more expensive than the non-refundable rate, points stays are typically refundable.
• When points can book multiple room types, the room type with the cheapest cash rate is used.

Results and observations

Unlike other programs, there is very little variance in the value of points across each hotel. Don’t get me wrong: there is still some opportunity for a sweet spot (like at the Six Senses La Sagesse) but many rooms hover around the same value.

Based on the methodology outlined, only the cheapest room type is used for the above table. But many hotels offered more than one room type. I found that most of the other room types were just a higher floor, a view of the city, or different bed types, which gave a small pricing difference. On rarer occurrences, the room type differences were much more than that, like at the Six Senses La Sagesse.

I did track the most expensive room rate to compare it to the cheaper rate, and found it increased the value of the points by about 20%. But I’m not sure how much to weight this extra value. There were many nights where a two-bed setup was a large increase over a one-bed setup. But what if I am fine with either setup? Do I just take the more expensive room for kicks? What if I wanted just a single bed?

Caveats

The obvious shortcoming of the study is sample size. I’d love to add more credibility by including more properties, but I don’t have the time or bandwidth to take that deep of a dive.

By including a broad range of hotels (using hotel collection as a proxy), I feel I have a pretty good feel for award pricing available under the IHG program. Results don’t feel compromised based on the smaller sample size.

And the survey says…!

If I take an overall average of the above results, I’d end up with $0.0064/point. But again, there is the possibility of choosing a more expensive room. As I mentioned, sometimes you’ll need it and sometimes not. If I were the one using my points to stay at these hotels, I’d walk away thinking forget the valuation, I just want to choose the best room for me. And aside from the Six Senses example above, it was hard finding significant value from the different room types.

Thus I am going to ignore the other room types and keep it simple. I’m comfortable calling the value of IHG points to be 0.64 cents/point.

Note that this doesn’t consider the benefits provided if you’re holding the right credit cards. The IHG Select card gives a 10% rebate and the IHG Premier gives the fourth night free. Those benefits do stack if you have both cards, which is awesome. But I’m choosing to ignore that for this analysis to keep it more consistent with what the typical member might see.

The thought process is the same as elsewhere

Unless you have an endless supply of points at your disposal, it would behoove you to cherry-pick your rewards. Don’t just use your points for every redemption out there because not every redemption is made equal. Of course, the far opposite isn’t good either: if you are afraid of using your points at any hotel that isn’t the absolute best redemption, you’ll never use them. Pick a price that works for you and have no regrets when you redeem above that threshold.

However, I do feel like your chances to get outsized value with IHG is a bit limited. You’re probably better off just getting any above average value and calling it a day.

How much do you value IHG points?