Before I get into anything, let me be straight with you. This only works if you check all three boxes:

1. You’re a US-based traveler that travels to Southeast Asia most of the time.
2. You have or plan to get the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card. This card is only available to US customers, and it’s the single most important tool in everything I’m about to describe.
3. You travel almost full time or have the kind of flexible schedule where you can pick up and go during off-peak seasons, especially in Southeast Asia without being tied to school schedules or a fixed work calendar

If that’s you, keep reading. If not, this strategy probably won’t translate to your situation and you might want to skip this one.

Still here? Great. Let me walk you through exactly how I do this.

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Step 1: It All Starts With the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier Card

I know some people are skeptical of hotel credit cards. But the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card is the foundation of everything. Without it, none of what I’m about to share would make sense or come close to the same value.

The card gives you automatic IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status just for holding it. No nights required. And the perk I use constantly is the 4th Reward Night Free benefit: when you book IHG Reward Nights using points, your fourth consecutive night is completely free. That’s basically a built-in 25% discount on every 4-night points booking.

So I never book just 2 or 3 nights. I always book in multiples of 4, like 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 nights and so on. That way I’m always getting one free night for every three I pay with points. On an 8-night stay, two nights are free. On a 12-night stay, three nights are free. The math just keeps getting better the longer you stay, which works perfectly for how I travel.

One thing I want to make clear: I always book my nights using points, not cash. That’s the only way to get the 4th Reward Night Free. This means I’m not actually using the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card to pay for the room itself. But I still use it for everything else during my stay, things like food, laundry, and any other hotel charges. The reason is that when you charge extras to your IHG card at an IHG property, you earn anywhere from 10x to 26x points per dollar depending on your status and card tier. So when I check in, I always give them my Chase IHG card for the deposit they collect at check-in. That way any room charges automatically go to that card and I keep earning points on every dollar I spend at the hotel.

Step 2: Buy IHG Points When They Offer 100% Bonus

Once or twice a year, IHG runs a promotion where they sell points at a 100% bonus, meaning you buy points and get double the amount deposited into your account. They sometimes allow you to buy up to 300,000 points during these promotions.

When that offer comes around, I max it out. I buy 300,000 points for $3,000 USD and end up with 600,000 points in my account.

A few important things to know about this offer. IHG normally caps point purchases at 250,000 points per calendar year for members. But when the 100% bonus promotion is active, they raise that cap to 300,000 points. I ignore the 50% and 80% bonus offers completely. I only pull the trigger on 100% and I just wait patiently until that offer shows up. To keep an eye on it, I log into the IHG app every couple of weeks to check if the offer is available. Keep in mind this offer is targeted, meaning not every member will see it at the same time. Also, you can’t make this big purchase again within the same calendar year.

How to Make the Points Purchase the Right Way

When I see the 100% bonus offer available in my IHG account, I don’t go straight to IHG to buy the points. Instead I go to Rakuten first and search for IHG points to find the link to points.com for IHG. If you are a Rakuten member and you shop through their link, you earn Amex Membership Rewards points on your purchase. Just make sure your Rakuten payout preference is set to Amex Membership Rewards points and not cash back, otherwise you will earn cash instead of Amex points. Of course, if you don’t have an Amex card that earns Membership Rewards points, you can always select cash back instead. The Rakuten cash back rate on IHG points purchases varies but it can be anywhere from 1x to 5x Amex points per dollar spent. Then I use my Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card to complete the purchase, which earns me 3x IHG points per dollar on top of everything else.

So on a single $3,000 purchase during the 100% bonus offer, here is what I walk away with:

• 300,000 bonus IHG points from the 100% promotion, bringing my total to 600,000 IHG points.
• Around 6,000 Amex Membership Rewards points from Rakuten at 2x on this purchase.
• 9,000 IHG points from using my Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card at 3x per dollar.

That is a lot of value from one purchase. The Rakuten and Chase card stacking on top of the 100% bonus is something most people miss completely.

Now here’s the math that makes everything click:

If I paid $3,000 for 600,000 points, each point effectively cost me 0.5 cents. So a 10,000-point night doesn’t cost me $100. It costs me $50.

Think about that. A night at a Crowne Plaza or voco with Club Lounge access included through my Annual Lounge Membership, with complimentary breakfast and evening drinks, with a potential room upgrade at check-in. All of that, for $50 a night.

That’s the number I keep coming back to. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but the math is just straightforward.

Step 3: Build Up 40 Nights at Low-Cost Properties in Southeast Asia

This is the move that unlocks everything else.

When you reach 40 Elite Qualifying Nights in a calendar year, you hit a special tier in IHG’s Milestone Rewards program. At 40 nights, you get to choose two rewards and one of them can be the Annual Lounge Membership. Once you select it, that lounge access is valid for the rest of the year you earned it, plus the entire following calendar year.

So the goal is simple: get to 40 nights as early in the year as possible, and those 40 nights don’t have to be consecutive nights in one stay.

To do that cheaply, I target low points-cost properties, mainly Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels in places like Jakarta, Indonesia, where you can find nights for as low as 3,500 points. Bali also has some solid options in a similar range. These aren’t luxury stays, but they’re clean, comfortable, and they count as full Elite Qualifying Nights toward your milestone.

I did this in early 2026, building up nights across Southeast Asia at these budget-friendly properties to hit my 40 nights by mid-year. Once I crossed that threshold in late May, I got the Annual Lounge Membership for the rest of 2026 and all of 2027.

That’s close to 19 months of lounge access from one milestone. And that changes everything about how I stay at hotels.

Step 4: Once You Have Lounge Access, Upgrade Your Properties

After you unlock the Annual Lounge Membership, it’s time to shift gears. You stop staying at budget properties and start staying at proper upscale hotels such as Crowne Plaza, InterContinental, voco where the Club Lounge actually means something.

Here’s where the flexibility to travel off-peak really pays off. In Southeast Asia, during the right months, you can find these properties for 8,000 to 10,000 points per night. That includes cities like:

• Da Nang, Vietnam
• Penang, Malaysia
• Bali, Indonesia
• Some cities in Japan (if you’re flexible enough to catch low season)

An upscale hotel with a Club Lounge, in a great city, for 8,000 to 10,000 points a night. That’s already a solid deal. But it gets even better when you factor in what the lounge actually offers.

The Club Lounge at most of these properties includes breakfast, afternoon snacks, and evening cocktails. Most of the time, that covers what I would consider a full and satisfying meal, sometimes two. I’m not spending extra money on food when I have lounge access. That’s a real, daily cost saving on top of the cheap points redemption.

And because I have Platinum Elite status from the Chase card, I’m also getting complimentary room upgrades most of the time at check-in. Not guaranteed, but in my experience at Southeast Asian properties it happens more often than not.

Step 5: Keep Stacking Nights for Food & Beverage Credits

The benefits don’t stop at 40 nights. Every 10 nights after that, I keep earning Milestone Rewards. At milestones like 50, 60, 70, 80 nights and beyond, I can choose food and beverage rewards each worth $20 in credit toward food and drinks at the hotel.

At the 40-night milestone itself (where I choose two rewards), I also take five $20 Food & Beverage Rewards as my second choice alongside the lounge membership. That’s $100 in food credit right there, just for hitting 40 nights.

And every 10-night milestone after that keeps stacking more credits. When you’re doing longer stays and always booking in 4-night blocks, the nights add up fast and so do the credits.

The Full Picture: What This Actually Looks Like

Let me put it all together so you can see how it works in practice.

• I wait for the IHG 100% bonus points promotion, then buy 300,000 points for $3,000 through Rakuten using my Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card. I walk away with 600,000 IHG points, plus 6,000 Amex Membership Rewards points from Rakuten, plus 9,000 IHG points from the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card.
• I use cheap properties in Jakarta or Bali to build to 40 Elite Qualifying Nights, spending as little as 3,500 points per night.
• I always book in increments of 4 nights because the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card gives me every 4th Reward Night free when booking with points.
• At 40 nights, I select the Annual Lounge Membership, valid for the rest of the year plus all of next year.
• I shift to nicer properties in Da Nang, Penang, Bali, or Japan at 8,000 to 10,000 points per night.
• My effective cost per night at an upscale lounge-access hotel: around $40 to $50.
• I get complimentary breakfast and evening food in the lounge. No extra spending on meals.
• I keep collecting Milestone Rewards every 10 nights for five $20 Food & Beverage Rewards.
• I get complimentary room upgrades most of the time thanks to Platinum Elite status from the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card.

That’s a full-time travel setup. Good hotels, lounge access, free food, room upgrades, for a fraction of what most people pay.

Should You Pay Cash or Use Points for This Stay?

Every hotel and every city is different, so the best way to know if points make sense for a specific stay is to run the numbers yourself. Use the calculator below — it factors in the 4th Reward Night Free benefit if you have the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card and the effective cost of your points if you bought them during a bonus promotion.

One Important Note

This strategy is built around flexibility. You need to be willing to accumulate 40+ nights in a year, plan your trips around off-peak seasons in Southeast Asia, and have the patience to wait for IHG’s 100% bonus points purchase offer. If you’re locked into a fixed vacation schedule or can only travel during peak season, the points costs go up and the value of the whole approach goes down.

But if you’re already living this lifestyle or actively building toward it, IHG with the Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card is one of the best systems I’ve come across for making long-term travel genuinely affordable without giving up comfort.