The Points Mom

I Earned 29,500 IHG Rewards Points Filling Out Almost 100 Index Cards

images

For the first time, I participated in a sweepstakes offer from a loyalty program. I usually don’t click, play, mail, call, etc, because I do not believe my time is worth trying to win something with very very poor odds.  (Who are these people who win anyway?) However, this time, many bloggers were actually posting about receiving rewards even if they DID NOT WIN THE BIG PRIZE, so I decided to give it a shot.

Best Price Guarantee or Your First Night is Free

I played IHG Priceless Surprises. The offer was targeted to members of the Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card.  The offer required members to fill out up to 94 entries from the period of November 15, 2015 through February 15, 2016 with their name, address, both home and cell phones, email, birthdate, IHG Rewards number and the first 6 digits of their IHG Mastercard on a 3×5 index card.  Upon receipt of the entry by IHG, they hopefully sent you an email with an elevator to pick a floor and learn your prize, with 500 points being the minimum prize per entry.  We’ll see….

I filled out about 85 index cards with my information.  (I could not get it together to fill out all 94).  About two weeks after I sent my initial batch, I did in fact receive emails from IHG, letting me choose my elevator floor and in turn, earning a prize.  Wow, it was true.

I continued filling out about 5 cards a day (when I remembered-wasn’t great for my tennis elbow) and mailing them along as well until the deadline of February 15th.  The emails continued to roll in, with me earning mostly about 500 points per entry, but 2 times I won 1,000 points and 2 times I WON 2,000 POINTS per entry.

I just calculated the total amount of points that I earned and it tallies 29,500 points.  (I am assuming I do not get any other emails that come in–there is definitely a big time lag).  The valuations of IHG Rewards points from other bloggers come in at about $.0065 per point.  (I will calculate my own valuations one day too, just not there yet.)  So “my work” yielded about $192 in value.  I spent about $42 in postage (85 * .49) and I already had the index cards.  So I netted about $150.  Not bad.  In the future, I may not be as skeptical about sweepstakes offers!!!!