5 steps to booking InterContinental hotels for free (UPDATED)

I’m going to show you a step-by-step guide on booking InterContinental (IHG) hotels for free, while maximizing the value of IHG points. You’ll also learn a secret about the best way to get a room upgrade, which is tough to accomplish with this hotel chain – even with elite status.

Steps in a nutshell:

1. Get the IHG Premier Card and link it to your IHG account.
2. Hit the minimum spend required:
   • $3K (at time of this writing) in 3 months
3. Wait for your bonus points to hit your IHG account.
4. Search the IHG website or app for award availability.
5. Book your award stay. If using all points, make sure you get your Fourth Night Free! Call IHG to link free night reservations together.

Step 1: Get a credit card.

The IHG Premier Card provides 80,000 bonus points. (Check for promotions, because sometimes this offer goes up to 140,000 bonus points!) Every year, after your first year, you get an annual free night award certificate worth up to 40,000 IHG points per night. (The “legacy” IHG card, no longer available for application, provided a free unrestricted award night annually through early 2019. Nowadays, those who still have the legacy card receive a free night capped at 40K points, just like the Premier Card. For an $89 annual fee card, the IHG Premier Card is still a great value though.)

Link your credit card to your IHG account. If you don’t already have one, IHG accounts are free and quick to create.

Note: In my Guide to booking Hyatt hotels for free, I also suggested linking your Hyatt account to your Chase Ultimate Rewards accounts (if you have a Chase card that earns UR points), because Chase UR points transfer directly to Hyatt.

Just like Hyatt, you can get more IHG points by transferring them from Chase. However, I do NOT recommend using your Chase UR points on IHG redemptions because IHG points are worth less than Chase UR points. For instance, The Points Guy values IHG points at only 0.5 cents apiece, but Chase UR points are worth 2.0 cents apiece. You’d lose value by transferring Chase points to IHG.

Step 2: Hit your minimum spend.

You need to spend a certain amount after getting approved for a card in order to receive your bonus IHG points. As of right now, you need to spend $3K on the IHG Premier card to hit your bonus.

You have 3 months to hit this minimum spend requirement, but this is usually from the date you get approved for the card rather than the date you receive the card in the mail. Read this post by The Points Guy for some tips on how to make sure you don’t miss out on your bonus points!

Step 3: Wait for your bonus points to hit your IHG account.

IHG’s terms and conditions state that it could take 6-8 weeks after you hit your minimum spend, before you receive your bonus.

HOWEVER in my experience, it happens much faster than that. I recommend calling Chase’s customer service number to confirm you’ve met your minimum spend, and to ask when you should receive your points.

While you’re waiting, get familiar with the IHG app and/or website, and start thinking about the property you want to use your points for!

Step 4: Search the IHG website or app for award availability.

I find IHG’s app to be clunky, so these screenshots are of the website. But regardless, the process is the same.

First login to your IHG account and pull up the My Account section. You can see from mine that I have a little under 40,000 IHG points, AND 2 Free Nights.

Clicking the details on the 2 Free Nights reveals that one of my certificates expires sooner than the other. In fact, I really need to use at least one of the Free Nights, or I risk losing it.

I got my 2 Free Nights by having two IHG cards – the legacy IHG card that is no longer available to new applicants, and the new IHG Premier card. The legacy card’s Free Night used to be uncapped, but that changed in early 2018 when IHG devalued its free nights to limit them to 40,000 points. Now, both of my Free Night awards are capped at 40,000 points per night.

This means I’m close to having 3 free nights at 40,000-point properties if I combine my points with my free night certificates.

Step 4(a): IHG has updated to Dynamic Pricing for awards.

UPDATE AS OF JUNE 2020: IHG has just introduced “dynamic pricing,” meaning that award night prices can vary over time. Previously, a 40,000-point Standard Night hotel cost 40,000 points regardless of when you stayed. Now, with dynamic pricing, it could cost more or less. As of June 2020, most properties are actually cheaper than they used to be, probably because of COVID-19. But I do not know if this will be true in the future. For reference, 2 out of 3 of the IHG hotels I’ve reviewed came down significantly in price with dynamic pricing, and 1 stayed the same:

• InterContinental Berlin: Was 40,000 points/night when I stayed there; now only 20,000 points/night
• InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam: Was 60,000 points/night when I stayed there; now only 45,000 points/night
• Kimpton RiverPlace Portland: Was 50,000 points/night; holding steady.

One great benefit to the new IHG Premier card is that you get your 4th night on award bookings free, which is better than Hilton’s 5th night free policy. This got me excited at first. But then I realized that unlike with Hilton, you cannot combine your free night certificates with points to realize this benefit. In other words, you must book your stay entirely using points for all 3 nights, before you will get your 4th night free.

I have my eye on an award property – the InterContinental Berlin – that costs exactly 40,000 points per night. I also want to stay for exactly 4 nights, near the Christmas holiday time. This means I have a couple of choices:

• Option 1: Wait until my account hits 120,000 points, either by buying or earning IHG points, then booking 4 nights for the price of 3 (120K);
• Option 2: Use my 2 Free Night certificates on this property, and then pay in a combination of cash and points for the remaining 2 nights.

I know I’m going with Option 2 already, because one of my Free Night certificates will expire before I can use it!

Even if I were choosing Option 1, I should make sure there is award availability at the property first. To do this, I simply enter my desired dates and click “Reward Nights” under Rate Preferences:

Click the InterContinental Berlin property and move forward. Reward nights ARE available for all 4 nights, which I can see from this screen:

When I click Select Room, the site reminds me that I don’t have enough points in my account to book a Reward Night.

But wait, where are my Free Night Certificates?? Shouldn’t those show up?

Well, they will, but IHG’s site is really clunky. First, abandon your search and switch to the app, since the website doesn’t allow you to look for Chase Anniversary Award Nights there. Next, only look for ONE night at a time:

I have two Free Night certificates, so I have to do this twice.

I noticed that the cash rate for a room at the InterContinental Berlin is only 81Euro, which is very cheap. Rather than buy or earn the extra points I need, I’ll just pay cash and save my points.

Which brings me to another uniqueness of IHG’s points program: IHG will never upgrade you if you booked with points or free nights, regardless of your status. You get Platinum status just for having the IHG Premier card, but you won’t get room upgrades when booking with points anyway! This is a huge downside to the IHG program compared to pretty much every other hotel loyalty program, including Hyatt AND Hilton.

One secret to getting upgraded in the IHG program…

Here’s a secret: If you pay cash for your FIRST night’s stay in a multi-night stay using points or Free Nights, you have a better chance of them upgrading you to a better room. In my experience, hotels don’t like to upgrade you to a better room on a multi-night stay, then make you check out and come get a different (less nice) room during the subsequent nights. If the cash cost of the first night of your stay is comparable to that of the other nights, then pay cash for that first night!

Step 5: Book your award

Once you’ve figured everything out, execute your bookings, being careful to adhere to these principles:

1. If you’re booking with points only, make sure you take advantage of your 4th Night Free due to the IHG Premier card.
2. If you’re booking with at least one Free Night Certificate, you have to manually book it one night at a time.
3. If you’re booking at least one night in cash, try to make it the very first night of your stay, since you’ll have the best chance of receiving and keeping an upgrade throughout your stay. Only do this if the first night isn’t significantly more expensive than the subsequent nights of your stay, of course.

After making your booking(s), I highly recommend that you call IHG and ask them to string your multiple reservations together.

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed my secret room upgrade strategy with IHG, and I hope you’re able to get some great value out of the program.