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Up to 100% buy points bonus with IHG, Choice and LHW
[IHG]
IHG has brought back its mysterious bonus for buying points, and you can reveal your targeted bonus here.
The best bonus available is 100%, which means buying the points at half price effectively. If you buy at least 26,000 points, you will be paying $50 per 1K points. It is the best price that IHG has ever offers (although regularly), and IHG has been very good at preserving the value of their points, so it may make sense to buy if you stay with them at times.
[Choice]
Choice Privileges is running a Black Friday sale on points purchase which offers you 50% bonus until December 3rd. It is also the best bonus that Choice ever (and rarely) offers and you pay $68.67 per thousand points if you buy at least 10,000 of them.
The annual Daily Getaways can beat this price, but that’s much more difficult to come by, so I recommend you to seriously consider this deal.
The best Choice redemptions are in Japan (budget hotels starting at 8,000 points) and Northern Europe (starting at 10,000 points). I’m writing a detailed guide on how to spend Choice points.
[LHW]
Leading Hotels of the World, one of the niche alliances for high-end hotels, introduced the buying points feature recently, followed by an interesting bonus promotion.
You can view the offer here. Until December 26th you get a tiered bonus when buying LHW points:
- 2,000 – 11,000: 50%
- 12,000 – 29,000: 75%
- 30,000 – 50,000: 100%
At the top of the ladder you’ll still be paying $60 per 1K points, which sounds a lot. Let’s have a look at how LHW’s redemption works first.
LHW has a revenue-based redemption system and there’s no fixed price for hotels, which is why you’ll always see odd number of points as the price. Unlike Accor or Hilton though, that exchange rate from the cash price can fluctuate quite a lot.
I’ve taken a closer look at some hotels:
- Tokyo – The Imperial Hotel $591.79 / 3,886 points ($152.3)
- Bali – The Legian Seminyak $555.74 / 5,887 points ($94.4)
- Kuala Lumpur – The RuMa Hotel and Residences $159.46 / 1,738 points ($91.7)
- Shanghai – J Hotel – $751.55 / 8,144 points ($92.3)
- Berlin – Hotel Palace Berlin $171.03 / 2,040 points ($83.8)
- Paris – Ritz Paris $2,225.02 / 28,494 points ($78.1)
- Porto – Maison Albar Le Monumental Palace $232.26 / 2,817 points ($82.4)
The cash price I’ve taken is the member-exclusive flexible rate, or the closest alternative if unavailable. The number in brackets is how much value you are getting per 1K points for that hotel.
As you can see, the value proposition is in the range of $78 – $95. The Imperial Tokyo is a weird one that sticks out, as you are getting an outstanding $152.3 per thousand points. I double checked the number and my math is correct – not sure if it’s a system error or not.
So it could make sense to buy at the current 100% bonus, but there are things to be mindful of:
- You must pay at least $3,600 to secure the 100% bonus, which is a big spend
- LHW doesn’t have that many hotels in its portfolio
- As far as I can see there’s no part-pay-with-point option, so if there are orphan points left in your account it might be tricky to spend them
LHW points don’t expire as long as you earn or redeem every 24 months. It’s free to sign up as a member, which gives you benefit including continental breakfast, upgrade priority, early check-in and late check-out. After the first stay you’ll also earn a room-upgrade voucher.
Hotel Loyalty Programme Series – Leading Hotels of the World
The Leading Hotels of the World, or LHW, is a collection of 400 luxury hotels in over 80 countries in the world. Like other hotel groups LHW has a membership program which entitles you to additional benefits when you book directly with them.
[LHW Brands]
LHW acts mostly as a marketing platform, so there’s no strong branding within the group and many hotels are actually independent. It’s also common to see LHW hotels affiliated with another hotel chain.
For example, the Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin is also part of GHA Discovery – actually all Kempinski hotels belong to GHA Discovery because of the deal, but the same isn’t true for LHW. LHW also has a few Gran Melia hotels in Spain, which are part of the Melia group.
In terms of geographical distribution, LHW is best represented in Europe, with especially strong footprint in Italy and Switzerland.
[Membership Tiers and Benefits]
You used to have to pay $175 a year to enrol in the LHW program, but it has been made permanently free since mid 2021. LHW has three membership tiers: Club, Silver and Aurelian.
Club – entry level
- One Pre-Arrival Upgrade each year after their first paid stay as a new Club Level member
- Upgrade priority at arrival based on availability
- Early check-in and late check-out considerations upon availability
- Complimentary Wi-Fi access throughout their stay
- Complimentary continental breakfast for two for each day of the stay
Silver – $5000 annual spend requirement
- Five Pre-Arrival Upgrades each year
- 5% stay points bonus in addition to 1 point for every USD 1 spent on qualifying stays.
Aurelian – invitation only (top 1% spend)
- Unlimited one-category Pre-arrival upgrades
- No Black-Out dates for redeeming free nights
- 10% stay points bonus in addition to 1 point for every USD 1 spent on qualifying stays.
- A USD 1000 Annual Premium Ground Transportation Budget
- And a Guaranteed 4 PM Late Check Out
Everyone can start enjoying Club benefits by signing up to the program for free. There’s some value here, especially the free breakfast and room upgrade – the latter doesn’t look great on paper, but some of my readers suggest it tends to be quite generous (including suite upgrade) in practice.
Silver status doesn’t sounds exciting to be honest. Its top-level invitation tier Aurelian is exclusive to the heaviest spenders only which is quite similar to the Royal Ambassador status in InterContinental Ambassador, but the benefits are weaker.
[Earn and Spend]
You earn 1 point for each USD spent on qualifying room rates for up to three rooms in the same reservation. Until recently it was only possible to earn points on direct LHW bookings, but it’s now expanded to some other channels:
- Luxury consortiums such as Amex FHR and Virtuoso
- Business travel bookings made via corporate travel agencies and corporate booking tools
Be careful that direct bookings with the hotel don’t qualify for points accrual. This is one main difference with other hotel groups.
Points can be redeemed towards an award night, at the rate of 100 points = $8. Note that cash + points is not an option so you must have enough points to cover the entire cost, which can be an issue if you only have a small stash of points.
Given its earning structure, you basically earn 8% cashback when making an LHW booking, which is just okay.
[Summary]
The only time I stayed at an LHW hotel was at the Gran Melia Fenix Hotel in Madrid, where I booked using Melia points. It’s unlikely I’ll ever use LHW’s website to make any booking, as the perks don’t excite me.
On the other hand, a lot of people do think very highly of their hotels. Now that FHR / Virtuoso are also qualifying rates, you might as well bag some points when you book a relevant hotel.