Good afternoon everyone, happy Valentine’s Day!  I started working on this post about 2 months ago, but totally forgot to finish.  Stephen at Frequent Miler wrote a post about transferring IHG points for free to other IHG members, but only if the member sending the IHG points was an IHG Diamond Elite Member or if they were an IHG Business Rewards Member.  Laura and I are both IHG Platinum Elite Members (thanks to having the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card), but Laura was able to become an IHG Business Rewards Member easily online (I have been an IHG Business Rewards Member for at least a year).

To get started, she signed into her IHG online account and went through the process to become an IHG Business Rewards Member.  Continue reading to learn more about transferring IHG points to another member and how long the points transfer took.

She submitted her request on December 5, but I believe it took a few days for the status to be applied to her IHG account.  Once your IHG account is updated, you should see the “IHG Business Rewards Activation” in your Account Activity section.

A few weeks later, on December 22, she received an email from IHG about transferring points for free.  I am sure she could have done this between December 5-22, but we forgot about this during the busy holiday season.

Here is the link to transfer IHG points.  After she signed into her IHG account, it showed her current balance of 23,559 IHG points.  There is also a 500K points transfer limit per calendar year.  She selected the highest amount from the drop down menu (23K), filled out the form, and clicked the Add Recipient button.

Here are the complete terms and conditions for IHG points transfers:

Point Transfers: Points may be transferred between two specifically designated Member accounts in increments of 1,000. Members may transfer or receive up to 500,000 points per calendar year. A new Member can transfer or receive Points 30 days after enrollment.

An authorization to transfer Points form must be submitted to transfer Points. Once the Point Transfer has been completed, the transferor relinquishes all rights to the transferred Points, subject to local laws; no cancellations or refunds are permitted. Beginning December 6, 2023, Diamond Elite and IHG Business Rewards members may transfer points free of charge. For all other Members, the Member authorizing the transfer will be charged $5 US per 1,000 Points transferred, payable via valid, accepted credit card or approved payment method.

Except for the Point transfers allowed under these Terms and Conditions or authorized in writing by IHG, Points may not be sold, bartered, attached, seized, levied upon, pledged, or transferred under any circumstances, including, without limitation, by operation of law, upon death, or in connection with any domestic relations dispute and/or legal proceeding.

This offer does not have an expiration date and will continue at IHG’s discretion. IHG may withdraw points from a member’s account if they were deposited into the member’s account in error and may revoke all points in a member’s account if the member abuses the IHG One Rewards program, including but not limited to abuse of the point redemption process. IHG expressly reserves the right to remove a member’s points, reverse a member’s points transfer, downgrade their status, or cancel their account if fraudulent activity is detected. Any fraudulent or other prohibited activity relating to a member’s account or the IHG One Rewards program is subject to the IHG One Rewards Membership Terms and Conditions, including any of the identified actions that may be taken in response to such activity.

She verified the information was correct, agreed to the terms, and clicked the Transfer Points button.

The IHG points transfer request was submitted and it said that the process would take up to 72 hours.  She then had 559 IHG points remaining in her account.

The 23K IHG points were deducted from her IHG account right away. The points were transferred at 11:30am PT on December 22.

I kept checking my IHG account over the next few days and saw that the 23K IHG points were received at 9:30am PT on December 24 – roughly 46 hours later.

I wish IHG would allow all IHG members the ability to transfer points for free, but until that day comes, you should be able to apply for the IHG Business Rewards program to unlock this feature.  I also wish points transfers were instant, but this is a good reminder that the transfer can take 2-3 days to process, so don’t count on this transfer happening right away.  If you have any questions about transferring IHG points, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone and happy Valentine’s Day!