Planning ahead for your IHG One Rewards points
Lifetime transfer options and steps to take now for IHG Hotels & Resorts points
IHG One Rewards Customer Care (United States and Canada)
IHG One Rewards Customer Care — deceased-member points transfer (no separate estates team published)
While IHG Hotels & Resorts does allow post-death transfer of points, lifetime planning gives the account holder more control over how points are shared and used.
IHG One Rewards allows members to transfer points to other program members during their lifetime. Fees may apply, but this is a direct way to move points to family members while you are alive.
How to protect your IHG One Rewards points
6 steps for managing your IHG One Rewards points during your lifetime:
Family sharing
IHG One Rewards points may be transferred between two specifically designated member accounts. The maintain-points page describes transfers to friends and family in 1,000-point increments, and the Membership Terms and Conditions state that an authorization to transfer points form must be submitted, that the member authorizing the transfer is charged $5 US per 1,000 points transferred, and that once the authorization is processed the transferor relinquishes all rights to the transferred points, with no cancellations or refunds. Members may also purchase up to 200,000 points within a calendar year, in minimum increments of 1,000 points. Points can be converted to Loyalty Program Partner rewards, which the Terms say happens only in block increments for specified partners, with the partner's own terms setting how many IHG points a given reward takes and posting taking up to 6 weeks. IHG publishes no pooling or joint-ownership feature and no household account.
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Frequently asked questions
Keep the account active, since Club level membership points expire after twelve (12) months with no "earn" or "redeem" transaction. Transfer points to family during life if that is the intent, confirm each intended recipient holds an IHG One Rewards account, and leave the executor a note of the one-year deadline and the two documentation paths. Maintaining Elite status removes the twelve-month expiration risk entirely, because Elite members' points do not expire while Elite level membership is maintained.
Yes. The Terms and Conditions allow points to be transferred between two specifically designated member accounts, and IHG's maintain-points page describes transfers to friends and family in 1,000-point increments. An authorization to transfer points form must be submitted, and the member authorizing the transfer is charged $5 US per 1,000 points transferred. Once the authorization is processed the transferor gives up all rights to the transferred points, and no cancellations or refunds are permitted.
For Club level membership, yes. Points expire if the account balance has no "earn" or "redeem" transaction for twelve (12) months or longer, and are then removed from the account. Use of the one night per year provided to IHG One Rewards credit card holders does not count as an "earn" or "redeem" activity for this purpose. Elite members' points do not expire as long as Elite level membership is maintained. Separately, if a member has no activity for five years, IHG reserves the right to permanently cancel the membership, and cancelled accounts forfeit all points, point vouchers, and Reward Nights.
Yes. The Terms and Conditions allow points to be converted to Partner Rewards, but only in block increments and only for the Loyalty Program Partners IHG lists. The partner's own terms determine how many IHG points a given reward takes, posting can take up to 6 weeks, and once the points are converted there is no re-conversion and no refund. IHG does not publish the conversion ratios in the Terms themselves.
An inventory listing the IHG One Rewards account lets a fiduciary identify it and act on it through the operator's official channels.
IHG One Rewards does not support beneficiary designations. Unlike financial accounts, there is no way to name a beneficiary on this type of account.
Sources
Data sourced from IHG Hotels & Resorts primary sources (7 pages reviewed). How we research.
IHG One Rewards Customer Care (United States and Canada)
IHG One Rewards Customer Care — deceased-member points transfer (no separate estates team published)
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