Last Updated on 25 August 2025 by Dan Wilderness
Hello everyone! Intercontinental Hotels Group (known as IHG) are really a dominant force in the hotels market, owing a range of brands from luxury Six Senses, well-known Holiday Inn and boutique-y type Kimpton – something for everyone. IHG unify their brands under a single loyalty programme in the form of IHG One Rewards Club so today we’re asking our classic question – is it a loyalty programme that’s worth it?
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What is IHG One Rewards Club?
IHG One Rewards operates in a similar way to most other hotel loyalty travel programmes where there are three core streams of reward. We’ve summarised them here and then will go into more details in specific sections on each.
IHG One Rewards Points
Every time you stay in an IHG hotel, you’ll earn points which can be redeemed for future stays. Points are awarded on a point-per-dollar basis (more on this below) rather than on a per night basis, which is helpful in meaning it’s your spend rather than the number of nights which determines your return – I’ve always thought that was the fairest hotel loyalty system.
IHG One Rewards Tier Status
As you stay more in the IHG range of hotels, you’ll can qualify with frequent stays for a higher tier. The biggest benefit of the tier is largely you’ll earn points at a faster rate, but the other tiers also come with a extra perks.
IHG One Rewards Milestone Rewards
Another nice perk with IHG Milestone rewards is that after you’ve stayed for a number of total nights in IHG properties in a calendar year, you’ll be rewarded with “milestone” rewards where you’ll be given a choice of some additional rewards to pick after 10 nights, 20 nights etc.
How do IHG One Rewards Points work?
Every time you stay at an IHG Property, you’ll earn:
- 10 Points for every dollar-equivalent spend at IHG hotels except:
- 5 Points for every dollar equivalent spend at Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites.
What this means is that a spend of $1000 on a trip nets a 10,000 points.*
Important note: This assumption assumes you’re an IHG One Rewards basic member. One of the advantages of tier progression is a multiplier to your earning rate of between 20%-100% of reward value.
How much is an IHG One Rewards Point worth?
Based on our calculations, we’re calculated the value of a IHG One Reward Point at about 6.2 cents, or the scheme paying a 6.2% return rate on every dollar spent.
This assumes basic tier status – the rate of return will improve with a higher tier of IHG One Rewards membership.
There’s a lot of variability in this as the value of a point it determined by all of how, when and where you’re using it.
If you’d like to understand the detail how we’ve made our calculation read on – else you may want to skip to the next section!
So what we’ve done to try and reach a fair approximation is take a range of IHG Hotels. We’ve then checked what the price is for a single night booking for a basic double room in London is using points vs. what the cash price to make a calculation.
Given you earn points based on the dollar equivalent spend, I’ve chosen to look at the price of each room in USD rather than GBP given points are earned on a dollar equivalent value.
We’ll then use the average price to determine a point cash value.
We picked the following hotels and worked out the following values:
Kimpton Fitzroy London: 63,000 points/night. vs $376 per night = 168 points per $
Hotel Indigo Central London: 59,000 points/night vs. $399 per night = 148 points per $
Holiday Inn Express Victoria: 42,000 points/night vs. $253 per night = 166 points per $
Crowne Plaza London Docklands: 43,000 points/night $280 per night = 153 points per $
This highlights that whilst the range of value is reasonably tight, there are var
Those 4 options give us an average point to dollar cash equivalent of 159 points per $.
So at 10 points per $ you effectively get a dollar back for every $15.90 spent, which is a 6.2% rate of return or 6.2 cents per $ equivalent spend.
What this also shows is that it can be worth doing your own calculations of value. What we see in the first two examples above is that the more expensive hotel room doesn’t necessarily cost more points.
Can I combine using IHG One Rewards points and money to redeem a hotel stay?
Yes, this is an option in the search functionality on the IHG website, however the proportion of the balance paid by cash or by points can’t be determined by you.
(Just search for a hotel first, and the ability to do so will come up)
In most of the examples I looked at, they were largely about an 80% points / 20% cash split.
Can I use my IHG One Rewards points on any date and stay?
Yes, IHG say if you’re a rewards club member then no days are blacked out, however you should expect that you’ll need to pay a premium even in terms of points cashing them in on peak demand dates and locations.
How does IHG One Rewards Tier Status work?
As you stay more nights in IHG Hotels you’ll begin to accumulate tier status, which will earn you additional rewards when staying at properties.
The biggest benefits are the points multipliers, which the other bonuses largely being nice to haves unless you hit the very highest tiers.
There are 5 tiers. We’ve summarised each and the benefits of each beyond “Club Member” which is the basic membership, highlighting just the rewards that actually matter.
IHG One Rewards Silver Elite Membership
At IHG One Silver Elite membership you’ll get a 20% bonus on any points earned, your points won’t expire whilst this status or above.
To qualify you need to stay 10 nights in IHG Hotels in a year.
IHG One Rewards Gold Elite Membership
At IHG One Gold Elite Membership in addition to Silver benefits you’ll get a 40% bonus on any points earned, and can rollover spare nights towards next years tier status.
To qualify you either need to stay 20 nights in IHG Hotels in a year, or amass 40,000 IHG points.
IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite Membership
This is the reward level with the most tangible and useful benefits.
At IHG One Platinum Elite Membership in addition to Gold benefits you’ll get a 60% bonus on any points earned, a discount when using points to redeem for free nights, guaranteed room availability with 72 hours notice, a complimentary upgrade if available, an early check-in subject to availability and a welcome on arrival (either a drink and snack or some bonus points!)
IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite Membership
At IHG One Platinum Diamond Membership in addition to Platinum benefits you’ll get a 100% bonus on any points earned, the possibility of being offered free breakfast as your welcome gift and a dedicated support team.
How do IHG One Milestone Rewards work?
You earn IHG One Milestone Rewards as you stay for multiple nights in addition to any Tier benefits earned. They’re all nice little bonuses, with some really meeting rewards at the far end but it’s likely only those who are serious business travellers will net those.
You’ll earn the rewards at each step rather than just where you max out – so for instance if you stay 30 nights in a year, you’ll get both the 20 nights and 30 nights rewards listed below.
- At 20 nights you can choose one of either 5,000 bonus points, 2 Food and Beverage Rewards or a confirmable suite upgrade.
- At 30 nights you can choose one of either 5,000 bonus points or 2 Food and Beverage Rewards.
- At 40 nights you can choose two of 10,000 bonus points, 5 Food and Beverage Rewards, 1 confirmable suite upgrade or an annual lounge access pass.
- At 50 nights you can choose one of either 10,000 bonus points or 5 Food and Beverage Rewards.
- At 60 nights you can choose one of either 10,000 bonus points or 5 Food and Beverage Rewards.
- At 70 nights you can choose two of 10,000 bonus point, 5 Food and Beverage Rewards, 2 confirmable suite upgrades or an annual lounge access pass.
- At 80 nights you can choose one of either 10,000 bonus points or 5 Food and Beverage Rewards.
- At 90 nights you can choose one of either 10,000 bonus points or 5 Food and Beverage Rewards.
- At 100 nights you can choose one of either 10,000 bonus points or 5 Food and Beverage Rewards.
What IHG Hotel Groups are valid for IHG One Rewards?
You’ll qualify for IHG One Rewards Points when staying at any of the following IHG properties:
- Six Senses
- Regent
- Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts
- Viginette Collection
- Kimpton Hotels and Resorts
- Hotel Indigo
- Voco
- Hualuxe Hotels and Resorts
- Crowne Plaza
- Iberostar
- Even
- Holiday Inn Express
- Holiday Inn
- Avid
- Atwell Suites
- Staybridge Suites
- Holiday Inn Club Vacations
- Candlewood Suites
Is IHG One Rewards worth it?
We think IHG One Rewards is a really good loyalty scheme. We like it because the rewards are decent even at the lower end of membership, offering a reasonable cashback rate and focuses the scheme towards points which are actually meaningful. Leisure travellers even have potential to qualify for some of the earlier stage bonus options if taking a couple of holiday a year.
At the same time the scheme offers extensive benefits for business travellers, and the ability to get regular points add on shows clear benefits.
Whilst the many strands of the scheme do create some complexity which we’ve docked half a star from, everything does build towards points or extras you might actually use, something hotel schemes can be lacking in.
As a result, if you’re looking at staying in an IHG property we’d absolutely suggest signing up to IHG One Rewards.
How do I sign up for IHG One Rewards?
You can sign up at the IHG One Rewards website right here
Any questions?
If you have any questions about IHG One Rewards or favourite hotels you’ve stayed in we’d love to hear from you! Just leave us a note in the comments below.
And don’t forget to check out our reviews and recommendations of other fantastic top loyalty schemes!
You can also read our thoughts on rival loyalty scheme Accor Live Limitless.
And that’s it!
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