What are IHG points worth?

At Frequent Miler, we keep a database of point valuations called “Reasonable Redemption Values.” These are estimates of the “worth” of airline miles, hotel points, transferable points, and more. The idea is that we try to identify the point at which it is “reasonable” to get that much value or more from your points.

This information is critical for making informed decisions. In fact, it’s a key component of the First Year Value information shown on our Best Credit Card Offers page, and it’s similarly used to show which cards offer the best value for everyday spend and which offer the best category bonuses.

When we first started looking at the value of hotel points, we used a laborious process that involved manually comparing the cash and award prices of hundreds of stays each year, then using those results to create RRV estimates. However, we now have a much better way of pinning down the value of IHG points.

Gondola is a terrific free hotel search tool that shows prices of properties both in cash and in points, and it keeps data of both for searches done via its platform.

The kind folks over at Gondola have made this data available to us for the purpose of identifying hotel program point values. Thanks to them, we now have access to the results of around 2 million domestic and international IHG searches at almost 6,300 different properties, and each one notes both the cash and award prices for the same room. Using this data, we can provide a far better estimate of the “Reasonable Redemption Value” of IHG points than we were ever able to obtain by using manual calculations.

Based on Gondola’s data, we’ve lowered the Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) of IHG points ever so slightly from 0.62 to 0.61 cents per point.

Background

When collecting points and miles, it’s always a good idea to have a general idea of what points are worth. Let’s say, for example, that you have the opportunity to either earn 1,000 Hyatt points or 2,000 IHG points. Which should you go for? If you don’t know what the points are worth, you’d likely go for the IHG points.

However, in our analyses we’ve found Hyatt points to be worth about three times as much as IHG points. Therefore, on average, 1,000 Hyatt points are worth considerably more than 2,000 IHG points. In this post, you’ll find our best current estimate of the value of IHG points.

Methodology

In order to determine the value of IHG points, we looked at Gondola’s collected, real-world cash and point prices at just under 6,300 IHG properties. Since IHG award bookings are fully-refundable, we excluded data from all cash rates that were non-refundable in order to make it a complete apples-to-apples comparison. We also used the Total Cash Rate, which includes taxes and any local fees.

Hotel Programs that Waive Resort Fees on Award Stays

Hilton, Hyatt, and Wyndham waive resort fees when you book stays using points or free night certificates. For these chains, the resort fee does not have to be considered separately from the Total Cash Rate (which includes the resort fee). So, the RRV calculation is as follows:

RRV = Total Cash Rate ÷ [Point Price]

Hotel Programs that Charge Resort Fees on Award Stays

IHG, Marriott, and many other hotel programs impose resort fees on award stays. For these chains, the resort fee must be specifically taken into account in the calculation. We do that by having Gondola subtract it out of the Total Cash Rate. The RRV calculation is as follows:

RRV = [Total Cash Rate – Resort Fee] ÷ [Point Price]

Gondola Data

For our hotel RRV values, we use the median value we see based on the data from Gondola. If the median is 1 cent per point, that means that half of all searches produced a value of less than 1 cent per point, and the other half above 1 cent per point.

• Gondola Median Observed Value for IHG redemptions: 0.61 cents per point
  (based on data as of June 4th, 2025)
• Range: .29 to .98 cents per point

Brand Comparison

Another cool feature of the the data set that Gondola provides for us is that we can actually see how points values vary across a program’s different brands. For some analyses, we’ll break that out in a separate table, but for IHG almost every brand had a median value of .59 – .61 cents per point. The one outlier was the expensive luxury brand, Six Senses, which had a median value of 0.65 cents per point.

That seems to indicate that IHG award prices tend to closely track cash rates across all brands.

Results

Point Value

The median observed point value was 0.61 cents per point. This means that half of the observed results offered equal or better point value and half offered equal or worse value. Another way to think about it is that without trying to cherry pick good awards, you have a 50/50 chance of getting 0.61 cents or better value from your IHG points when booking free night awards.

Pick your own point value

When we publish Reasonable Redemption Values of points (RRVs), we conservatively pick the middle value, or the 50th percentile. The idea is that just by randomly picking hotels to use your points, you have a 50/50 chance of getting this value or better.

But what if you cherry-pick awards?

With some other hotel programs, the 75th percentile cents per point is much higher than the median. This used to be true with IHG, but in recent analyses we found that the 75th percentile was only slightly higher than the median, while even the 90th percentile only offered around a 15% uplift versus the median. There are certainly still cases where you can get better than 0.71 cents per point value, but the chance of stumbling upon that higher value is low.

This analysis shows that even those who cherry-pick good value awards for stays can’t count on regularly getting much more than 0.66 cents per point value with IHG properties.

New IHG Reasonable Redemption Value: 0.61

Our Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) for IHG points was previously set to 0.62 cents per point. With the latest analysis, the value went down only a smidge to 0.61. RRV’s are intended to be the point at which it is reasonable to get that much value or better for your points. In this case, it’s not necessarily easy to get much more value, but it’s definitely easy to get around 0.62 cents per point value.

• Reasonable Redemption Value for IHG: 0.62 cents per point
• Reasonable Redemption Value for those who cherry pick awards: 0.66 cents per point

Overvaluing vs. Undervaluing Points

There is no perfect way to estimate the value of points. Decisions we made here in some ways overvalue points and in some ways undervalue points. The hope is that these things roughly offset each other…

Factors that cause us to undervalue points

• With hotel programs that offer 4th Night Free Awards (IHG, with some credit cards), or 5th Night Free Awards (Hilton & Marriott), or award discounts (Wyndham), we do not consider the point savings in our analyses.
• With hotel programs that offer free parking on award stays to top-tier elites (Hyatt), we do not factor this in.

Factors that cause us to overvalue points

• We do not use discount rates (other than member rates) in our analyses. In real-life, many people book hotels cheaper (and sometimes far cheaper) by using AAA rates, government & military rates, senior rates, etc.
• We do not use hotel promotional rates. Often, individual hotels have deals such as “Stay 2 Nights, Get 1 Night Free” which can greatly reduce the cost of a stay.
• We do not use prepaid rates in our analyses. Sometimes these rates are significantly lower than refundable rates.
• We do not factor in rebates which can be earned from booking hotels through shopping portals.
• We do not factor in points earned on paid stays.
• We do not factor in rewards earned from credit card spend at hotels.
• We do not factor in hotel loyalty program promotions: Most promotions, but not all, only offer incentives for paid stays. We often see promos offering bonus points, double or triple points, free night awards, etc.
• With hotel programs that waive resort fees for top tier elites on paid stays (e.g. Hyatt), we do not factor this in.

Conclusion

Based on the latest analysis, we decreased the IHG RRV from 0.62 to 0.61 cents per point. Further, the latest percentile results show that those who cherry-pick awards (75th percentile) can expect to get around 0.66 cents per point.

We have to admit, it’s somewhat gratifying to see the much more exhaustive data that Gondola assembles reach a value that’s so close to what we previously had arrived at using our manual methodology with limited data points. It’s also good to see that IHG’s point values have remained fairly steady over the last couple of years.

For a complete list of Reasonable Redemption Values (and links to posts like this one), see: Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs).

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