15% discount on IHG Rewards Club hotel gift cards – worth it?

Until 30th June, IHG Rewards Club is offering a 15% discount when you use your hard-earned points for merchandise or gift vouchers.

This is usually a terrible way to use miles or points.  You will get the highest value for them by redeeming for hotel rooms or flights.

This is also true with IHG, although I can see some circumstances where it might work.

Take a look at the available deals here.  You will need to sign-in to get the UK deals.

12,750 IHG Rewards Club points will get you a £25 gift voucher.  These cover Halfords, M&S, John Lewis / Waitrose, Starbucks …. generally places where you would be able to use them.  This is discounted from the usual 15,000 points.

I tend to value IHG points at 0.5p each.  If you used these points for hotel rooms, you should be able to get £60 of value for the same number of points.

There may be some scenarios where this makes sense though.  You need 50,000 points for a high-end InterContinental redemption.  If you have an account with only a small number of points in it, the value calculation changes.  A small town Holiday Inn may be £70 or 20,000 points for example.  The value gap between what you would get for a hotel stay and what the voucher is worth shrinks.

For clarity, I have zero interest in redeeming my IHG points for gift vouchers in this promotion.  If you only have 13,000 points or so in your account with no plans to earn more, it is not a dreadful way of emptying them out.

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IHG One Rewards update – April 2025:

Get bonus points: IHG is not currently running a global promotion.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.