[Expired] How I Turned the IHG Premier Card’s Elevated 175K Bonus Offer Into 8 Free Nights

Over the last decade, I have spent hundreds of nights at hotels worldwide across every major U.S. hotel chain. Naturally, I have several co-branded hotel credit cards that offer perks and benefits at each respective hotel chain.

One of these is the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card that has a modest $150 annual fee and offers tons of long-term value. In addition to its benefits, the IHG Premier card has a limited-time welcome offer that’s only available through March 18, 2026:

• Earn 180,000 Bonus Points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

Here’s a quick look at the IHG Premier card and how I used the elevated welcome bonus offer to score 8 free nights this year.

IHG Premier Card Overview

With the IHG Premier card, you can earn up to 26 total IHG One Rewards points per $1 spent when you stay at IHG Hotels & Resorts. You can also earn 5 points per $1 spent on purchases on travel, at gas stations, and at restaurants, and 3 points per $1 spent on all other purchases.

The IHG Premier card offers several perks and benefits, including automatic IHG Platinum Elite status, which provides benefits like late checkout, complimentary room upgrades, and a welcome amenity. Elite status holders can enjoy their fourth consecutive night free on award stays, which has saved me tens of thousands of IHG points over the years.

The IHG Premier card also provides a 40,000-point free-night certificate every cardmember anniversary. To provide all this value, the IHG Premier card has a $150 annual fee.

What Are 175K IHG One Rewards Points Worth?

IHG One Rewards points can be extremely valuable when redeemed correctly. We value IHG One Rewards at 0.5 cents a piece, so the IHG Premier card’s current welcome offer is worth at least $900 for IHG hotel stays.

Of course, how you redeem the points ultimately determines how much value you get. Fortunately, there are many ways to redeem IHG One Rewards points.

How I Redeemed the IHG Premier Card’s 175K Welcome Offer

Here at Upgraded Points, we strive to get the maximum value from our hard-earned points and miles. After meeting the minimum spending requirements of the IHG Premier card, I would have slightly over 190,000 IHG One Rewards points, accounting for the welcome offer plus the earnings on the spending requirement.

In my experience, the best way to maximize IHG One Rewards points is by booking 4-night award stays. If you find nights priced around 30,000 points each, you’ll pay just 90,000 points total instead of 120,000 — essentially getting 1 night free.

With that strategy, the welcome bonus offer on the IHG Premier card can stretch to roughly 8 award nights on its own.

And by keeping the card and paying its $150 annual fee, I’ll also receive a 40,000-point free night certificate each account year — a valuable benefit that continues lowering the cost of my trips long after the bonus offer is gone.

4 Nights in Seoul, South Korea

I wanted to surprise my wife with a trip to Seoul, South Korea, for our anniversary. Since we expected to be out exploring most of the days, I didn’t want to book an over-the-top luxury hotel. After all, hotels in the South Korean capital tend to be on the pricier side.

So I decided to use IHG points to cover our stay in Seoul. After narrowing down our hotel options for our 4 nights in Seoul, we booked the voco Seoul Myeongdong, located near Seoul’s best shopping and street food vendors.

The voco Seoul Myeongdong could be booked for just 24,250 points per night, which included the fourth-award-night free benefit, for a total of 97,000 IHG One Rewards points.

As mentioned, we value IHG One Rewards points at 0.5 cents a piece, making 97,000 points worth roughly $485. So, as long as the cash rates for the 4-night stay were higher than this, we would get solid value from our IHG points.

For my same dates, the booking would have cost us $847, meaning we received 0.87 cents per point for this redemption — considerably higher than our valuation.

4 Nights in Bali, Indonesia

After 4 days in South Korea, we will fly over to Bali, Indonesia, for an island getaway. Although Bali has relatively inexpensive hotels, the higher-end properties can still be quite pricey. Since I still had a decent stash of IHG One Rewards points, it was worth redeeming them to save money.

After narrowing down several enticing properties, I booked a 4-night stay at the 5-star InterContinental Bali Resort for 89,000 points.

As I do with every single award redemption, I compared the award cost to the cash rates to see if I was getting good value. According to our valuations, 89,000 IHG One Rewards points are worth $445.

Once again, the cash rates for our 4-night stay were significantly higher than what we value the points.

The cash rate for the 4-night stay was roughly $691, meaning we got 0.78 cents per point for this redemption in Bali.

Final Thoughts

Between the complimentary Platinum Elite status and the 40,000-point free-night certificate, I consider the IHG Premier card a no-brainer. The card also has a fantastic welcome offer that’s only around through March 18, 2026, which I redeemed for a total of 8 hotel nights in Seoul, South Korea, and Bali, Indonesia, saving me over $1,500 in travel costs.