Reader Question: Canceling IHG Rewards Club Points & Cash Reservation?

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a question regarding refundability of IHG Rewards Club Points & Cash award reservation.

Remember that you can always email me, sent a message via Facebook or use Twitter and include photos too. I’ll try to cover Reader Questions & Comments here several times a week.

You can access IHG’s web page for various award types here.

Here’s the email from the reader:

I have been following you at loyaltylobby.com for several years and use it as my guide to determine which hotel chain promotions I want to take advantage of when planning my hotel stays, I am currently IHG Spire, Marriott Gold and Hyatt Platinum. I have been Marriott Platinum and Hyatt Gold in the past.

I recently booked 7 separate nights at IHG hotels with my Rewards Club account using the Points with Cash option. The reservations were cancelled far in advance of the cancellation policy which stated that cancelling the reservation before 6:00 pm the day prior to the reservation date would result in no charge.

I was dismayed to be charged the cash portion for the cancelled reservations along with what appeared to be points for each reservation credited to my account. I called inquiring about the matter and was told that this was their policy. (If this is their policy why doesn’t it state that when you make your reservations??).

I used my IHG Rewards Club Chase Visa credit card for the reservations so I called them to dispute the charges. I was shocked when I received the follow up from Chase Visa that they were upholding the charges.  I am totally dumbfounded.  Did I mention the I have Spire status :/  Have you ran across this before?

You have to understand that the Points & Cash that IHG Rewards Club offers is vastly different product compared to Hyatt’s or SPG’s similar product.

Here IHG Rewards Club actually sells you points (non-reversible transaction) and then redeems a full points award. If you cancel the award reservation, the points are just put back to your account.

Here’s an example:

InterContinental Paris – Le Grand

You can substitute 10,000 points for $70 or as a matter of fact IHG sells you 10,000 points.

This rate rule is actually incorrect. You are not buying 50,000 points but rather 10,000.

This is clear on the Terms and conditions that you must accept before making the purchase (then the points are deposited to your account and the full award amount withdrawn).

Conclusion

The beauty of IHG Rewards Club Points & Cash is that you can essentially buy unlimited number of points for $70 per 10,000 points or less and these won’t count towards the maximum number of points that you can buy from IHG each calendar year.

You cannot, however, get refund for the points purchase that you made in case that you ended up not needing the award reservation(s).