If you value airline loyalty and stay so little, you can use a travel portal such as Advantage Hotels (or your airline's portal) and get X number of miles for usually a similar price. It sounds like you have no status with IHG so it wouldn't matter anyhow. I have found AA hotels a decent way to pad my status boosting. 2000-5000 miles/Loyalty Points is far better. It is third party, of course, but in your case, unlikely to matter. UA, DL, Southwest etc. have them.

Also you could just get the IHG Premier Card for $99 a year, which includes a free night (so pays for itself). That gives you instant status.