I think your advice is sound for the average member, but not for folks who redeem massive amounts of points. The annual purchase limit is 600k even with the extended cap. In years past, I also picked up some 800k points from Daily Getaways (now no longer available). Depending on how shady you want to go, you can get a Diamond friend to transfer you 500k, do some C&P cancellations, whatever (I advise against these things because IHG has cracked down in the past). Even if you do the shady stuff, it's hard to get more than 1.5 million points a year. With the Chase cards, my redemptions are always more than 30% off revenue rates (certainly refundable ones), and with 70+ nights, I could easily burn 3-4 million points a year. So rather than redeeming points for any old reservation, I keep them for the gems that are well above 1cpp. I don't think it makes sense for me to value my points at .5cpp, does it?