In May of 2015, IHG made changes to their rewards program, indicating that points would expire after 12 months of inactivity.
The good news is that if you are an IHG elite, your points will never expire as long as you remain an elite (you can retain Platinum elite status for as long as you are an IHG credit card holder).
Many people stuffed envelopes to get a boatload of IHG points during the lucrative IHG priceless surprises promotion. If you created accounts for every one in your household, some of those accounts are soon going to have points expiring.
One way to extend the life of the points without an IHG stay (or new credit card, or transfer, or points purchase) is by taking a survey at Opinion Check-in for 1,000 (or 5) points. The points post instantly.
My survey said it would take 13 minutes to complete, but I swear it was endless. So I have no shame in saying that I quit (at 49%) because I value my time (eternity) more than the value of 1,000 IHG points ($13.50 to purchase).
So if you’re not in a dire state, you can still extend the life of your points by purposely not qualifying for a survey to receive 5 points instantly – that works just as well to extend your points for another year. ;)
Do the 1,000 birthday points count to extend the expiration date? If so you theoretically should never have points expire. Of course there is the chance they won’t hit the account the same day (and be a little more than a year apart).
My points expired, they told me if I did one stay in the next 3 months I would get my points back.
How do you purposely not qualify for a survey?
You can kind of get a feeling of the direction the survey is heading in and then answer in ways that aren’t looking like what they’re
looking for.