IHG Best Price Guarantee: everything you need to know

In an earlier article, we briefly compared nine of the best rate guarantees that are offered across the major hotel chains. In this article we look at IHG’s Best Price Guarantee in a little more detail.

IHG’s Best Price Guarantee says that if you find a lower rate elsewhere, IHG will match it and give you a bit more on top. You get the matched rate plus 5x IHG One Rewards points on the room rate, capped at 40,000.

What follows are the terms that matter taken from the full published terms and conditions. It’s more detail than you’ll find on the marketing page, but these claims are usually won or lost on a technicality, so it’s worth knowing where the pitfalls lie.

The short version

The basics that apply to every chain

These terms are shared across all the major guarantees. They’re worth knowing before you go any further, because most failed claims fall down on one of them.

• The lower rate must be for an identical booking: same hotel, same room type, same number of guests, same dates, same length of stay, same inclusions, same guarantee and cancellation policies, and same booking conditions. Even the slightest of differences and a claim is likely to be denied.
• Comparisons are made net of taxes, gratuities, and other fees.
• The lower rate must still be publicly available and bookable at the moment the chain checks it, not merely when you found it. This is the term that brings down a lot of claims.
• One claim per stay, and consecutive nights count as one stay.
• Changing the booking after approval will generally void it.
• Opaque and auction sites, unitemised packages, discount-code rates, and rates that aren’t immediately bookable are excluded everywhere.

A difference in cancellation policy is the most common reason a claim gets rejected, and that remains the case even when the rate you’ve found has the more generous policy. Ridiculous? Yes. But it happens.

The IHG terms in detail

In summary:

If you find a better price than what IHG is offering elsewhere and your claim is approved, IHG will match the lower rate and give you five times the IHG One Rewards Points due on that room rate asd a bonus (up to a 40,000-point maximum).

Eligibility:

To be eligible to make a ‘best price guarantee’ claim you must:

• Book a hotel room at an IHG branded hotel using any IHG direct channel (such as a branded website, call centre or the mobile app)
• Book via the “Best Available” search feature to find the lowest rate available for your chosen room type
• Claim within 24 hours of making your reservation, and at least 24 hours before the standard check-in time at the hotel
• Only submit your claim request with IHG if you find a rate online that’s at least 1% lower than the lowest rate available on the IHG website or mobile app.

The terms that you really need to know (and focus on):

• The 5x Points Award will be calculated on the room rate only and will not include any other charges billed to your hotel room portfolio.
• The portion of the 5x Points Award that is above and beyond what you otherwise would have earned on the room rate for your stay will be awarded as bonus points and will not count towards your IHG One Rewards membership tier status.
• The guarantee does not apply to properties in Mainland China, Macau, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or to Iberostar Beachfront Resorts. Ruby Hotels are temporarily not included until October 2026.
• IHG requires the competing rate to be in the same currency as the rate you booked.
• The claim must be submitted at least 24 hours before the standard check-in time at the hotel.
• You must have booked using the “Best Available” search feature to find the lowest rate for your chosen room type. Book anything else and the claim fails.
• The competing rate must be bookable only on provision of a form of payment. IHG is explicit that rates not requiring a card to book are ineligible.
• The 1% threshold exists specifically to account for rounding errors, which is IHG saying, very clearly, that it won’t consider marginal claims.
• Only one claim will be processed per hotel room reservation confirmation number, and any modification to the reservation after a claim has been validated stops the benefit applying.
• IHG matches to the lower average nightly rate found at the time of verification, so on a multi-night stay it’s the average that gets applied rather than a per-night match.
• Members with a miles earning preference will earn points rather than miles on a successful claim.
• Important exclusions are rates that:
  • Require you to reside in a particular area of the world before you can access them
  • Require you to use a specific credit card
  • Require you to use a discount code
  • Require approval by email or phone after payment
  • Are found on sites that allow confirmed reservations to be re-sold
  • Are found on sites that don’t allow a real-time reservation.
• IHG employees and employees at any IHG branded hotel are not eligible.
• The 40,000-point cap applies per claim, not per stay.
• A reservation booked through an IHG direct channel is required before you can claim. You cannot claim without a booking.
• Bookings made directly with the hotel or through the IHG Central Reservation Office are eligible, but the claim still has to go through the online form.
• Claims must be submitted via the online claim form. IHG will not accept a claim by email.
• IHG will not look at screenshots at all. It states plainly that it determines validity independently and will not review documentation submitted in lieu of, or in support of, the claim form.
• Your IHG One Rewards membership number has to be on the reservation before you check out. The 5X points award cannot be added afterwards.
• The 5X points award is processed on completion of the stay, and the bonus points will expire under the standard IHG One Rewards expiry rules.
• Claims are processed within 24 hours. If you’ve heard nothing after that, IHG asks you to email bestpriceguarantee@ihg.com.

Note: IHG’s full terms, updated 1 April 2026, still, for some reason, refer throughout to “IHG Rewards Club” points, a program name which was retired back in 2022. It should be safe to assume that this means IHG One Rewards points. Note also that the customer-facing page and the full terms are not identical, and the thresholds and deadlines only appear in the latter, so read both.

Opinion

I’m not a huge fan of the IHG Best Price Guarantee because in lieu of the discount on your booking that some other price guarantees offer, this one gives a claimant a capped number of IHG points – that’s a currency whose value and usefulness IHG controls.

I’d much prefer to take a 25% discount (like Hilton offers, for example) rather than a handful of IHG One Rewards Points for which I may or may not have a use.

Here’s a link to the full terms and conditions. Read them carefully before assuming you can make a valid claim.

Related: Nine hotel best rate guarantees compared – see how Hilton stacks up against the other eight