The is the IHG hotel co-branded card with a new, improved bonus offer of up to 120,000 IHG points. Here are the highlights:
- Up to 120,000 total bonus points: Earn 80,000 bonus points after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening plus an additional 40,000 bonus points after spending a total of $5,000 on purchases within 6 months of account opening.
- Free Night award after each account anniversary year at eligible IHG hotels worldwide. Valid at IHG® Hotels with a current point redemption level of 40,000 points or less. Plus, enjoy a free reward night when you redeem points for any stay of 4 or more nights.
- Earn 10 points per $1 spent when you stay at an IHG hotel.
- Earn 2 points per $1 spent on purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. Earn 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- Platinum Elite status as long as you remain a Premier card member.
- Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® fee credit of up to $100 every 4 years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to your card.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- $89 annual fee.
This is a relatively new card, but please note the following:
This product is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of this credit card, or (ii) previous cardmembers of this credit card who received a new cardmember bonus for this credit card within the last 24 months.
This offer is for the new “IHG Club Premier” card, so this language should mean that if you have the older and different “IHG Club Select” card, you can still apply for this card and get the sign-up bonus.
What can you get with IHG points? The best redemption value for IHG points is for free hotel nights. The other options offer significantly less value. While the points don’t translate directly to a dollar value, but overall you should expect around 0.60 cents of value per point. This would place 80,000 IHG points at a $480 value and IHG points at a $720 value. You can perform the calculations for hotels that fit your needs. I tried a bunch of other various combinations and got between 0.5 cents and 0.8 cents per point equivalent value.
IHG stands for Intercontinental Hotel Group which has over 5,000 hotels including the following brands:
- Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts
- Crowne Plaza
- Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express
- Staybridge Suites
- Candlewood Suites
- Hotel Indigo
- EVEN Hotels
IHG Rewards Club puts out a new list of PointBreaks hotels every few months where you can redeem a hotel night for only 5,000 to 15,00 points. There are some nice hotels on the list, but the locations are very specific and few people are sufficiently flexible with their travel to constantly take advantage of these deals. However, you could get value of over 1 cent per IHG point with a hotel on this list.
IHG points expire after 24 months of inactivity, so if you keep up your activity then you can save up these free nights for later. Chase Ultimate Rewards points also convert to IHG points.
Ongoing rewards structure. I might book my IHG nights on this card, but not my everyday purchases on an ongoing basis. Remember that IHG points are worth less than other points like Hyatt or Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
- 10 IHG points total per $1 spent at IHG properties.
- 2 IHG points per $1 spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants.
- 1 IHG point per $1 spent on all other card purchases
I would consider keeping this card if you can use the anniversary night certificate with the 40,000 point maximum value. You should be able to get $89 value out of it as long as you need a hotel night. Stay must be completed within 12 months from date of issue.
Bottom line. The has a current sign-up bonus of up to 120,000 total IHG points. As with most of these co-branded cards, the best value is obtained by regular IHG hotel customers. Even after the annual fee, the total first-year value of this card is still over $630 if you value IHG points at 0.6 cents per point. (Even more if you can use the Global Entry/TSA PreCheck $100 credit.)
I will be adding this new, improved offer to the .
“The editorial content here is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.”
from .
Copyright © 2018 MyMoneyBlog.com. All Rights Reserved. Do not re-syndicate without permission.