Newbie question regarding Velocity and IHG Rewards

[Jaian]

I'm looking at an Intercontinental hotel in Asia, and noticed when looking at the booking rate for the cheapest room that they offer it at 50,000 points instead of $600 per night. I did a quick bit of research, and it appears that I can transfer Velocity points to IHG Reward points at a fairly favourable rate (1 VFF = 5 IHG), so essentially it would only cost me 10,000 VFF points to book the room. That sounds too good to be true, so my questions are:


1) Can I definitely transfer Velocity points to IHG Rewards at a 1:5 ratio?
2) Is there any issue with booking IC hotel rooms using just points? ie. two nights at 50,000 IHG reward points per night, plus taxes
3) Is it really that easy?


This seems a little too good to be true, I have 100+k velocity points to burn, and it sounds like I don't need any more than 20k VFF points to book 2 nights in a 5 star $600 per night hotel.

 

[JohnK]

Way too good to be true.

You are reading it wrong. You can transfer 10,000 IHG points to 2,000 Velocity points not the other way around.

Nothing wrong with using points to pay for hotel rooms. If you have some points in your account you can purchase 50,000 IHG points for USD350 so still a little bit cheaper than the $600/night.

 

[zainman]

There is also a 25% bonus on at the moment I believe? Received an email today... so 10,000 IHG = 2500 Velocity?

 

[Jaian]

Damnit, I had my hopes up for a bit. Oh well, looks like I'll be paying full cash, as I don't have any points in an IHG account (just registered with them last night).

I did find just now that I can pay for the hotel using Velocity points through the Velocity eStore, but it costs 87k VFF points for one nights stay. I'd rather book a First Class flight for those points instead!

Thanks JohnK