The Chase IHG Rewards Club Premier card is offering an increased new cardmember bonus of up to 105,000 IHG Rewards Club points after making $3,000 in purchases in the first 3 months — plus you can get a $50 statement credit after first purchase. That’s the highest we’ve ever seen on an IHG credit card, which makes it worth a look if you’re after IHG points.
The Deal
- Earn 100,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months with the IHG Rewards Club Premier credit card plus earn 5,000 points after you add an authorized user and make your first purchase within 3 months plus a $50 statement credit after first purchase
- Find more information and a direct link on our IHG Rewards Club Premier page
Key Card Details
- $89 annual fee
- Earn 10x at IHG hotels
- Earn 2x at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants
- Earn 1x everywhere else
- Automatic Platinum status
- Free night annually at any hotel that costs up to 40,000 IHG points per night
- Fourth night free when you redeem points for a stay of 4 or more nights
- Save 20% on points purchases
- Earn 10,000 bonus points after you spend $20,000 and make one additional purchase each cardmember year
Quick Thoughts
Fortunately for those interested, this card is not (thus far) subject to 5/24, making it available even if you have opened a number of cards in the past couple of years (though keep in mind that Chase shutdowns have increased this year).
If you’re after IHG points, this is a decent windfall. Since you can often buy IHG points for around half a cent each, the bonus is “worth” somewhere around $500 — though you can certainly use the points toward much more valuable redemptions in the right situations. It is possible to get as many as 26 free nights out of this bonus if you were to spend all of them at (one of the few) 5,000-poiint options from the PointBreaks and do all of those stays in 4-night incremembers where the 4th night is free.. On the other hand, you won’t get 2 nights at a top-tier property, as those now cost 70K per night.
Speaking of top-tier, this card comes with an annual free night that is not valid at top tier properties, either. That said, it is valid at any hotel that costs up to 40,000 points per night, giving you plenty of opportunity still for that benefit to offer more value than the $89 cost of the annual fee. Those who often make award stays in 4-night increments can take advantage of the 4th night free on award stays. finally, if you spend a lot at IHG hotels, the 10 points per dollar earned at IHG properties is a decent enough deal to make it worthwhile (though I’d personally prefer 3 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar with the Sapphire Reserve).
Overall, this one might be worth it if you need IHG points and it’s not a bad deal in ongoing years if you know you’ll use the 40K night for a good value.
H/T: Doctor of Credit
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Hi, RE: “save 20% on points purchase” Is the 20% on top of any special discounts offered periodically on points, in other words, does it stack?
Thanks for the article, and pointing out the list of exclusions. I have the older card from about 2 years ago. This is kind of a bummer that they are limiting free nights to so many locations. With my current IHG card, I could easily book the Hotel Indigo in Rome Italy and the Intercontinental in Washington DC. Poof! All gone now.
I’m upset about this offer. I signed up for this card the day it first came out a few months ago thanks to your blog (at least I seem to recall it being yours!). The offer was only for 80,000 points. No issue getting approved and I do already have the other card as well. It was within a day of getting confirmed that the IHG site advertised this card with a $50 credit. I took a screen shot of it to hold on to as proof before calling IHG as the original offer I signed for, only a day or two before, did not include this. I called and asked, they said I was not entitled to the $50 credit. I also could not find the offer again on their website. I suspect it was up and down as soon as someone realized the error. NOW…100K + $50! I may have to get one for my wife. I’m annoyed.
Unfortunately, they usually won’t match to an offer that includes a statement credit as they will say that those are targeted. Historically, it has usually been possible to get an offer with the statement credit from a dummy booking (that is logging in to your IHG account and starting a booking and going through to the checkout page and you’ll see an advertisement there for the card most of the time). That’s where this link came from. That wasn’t available on day one of the new card launch.
Quite frankly, I’m pretty surprised to see an increased offer already on this card. I can definitely understand why you feel a little frustrated, and you’re probably not the only person. I’m surprised they didn’t wait a few more months at least and even then I would have bet on the bonus decreasing to 60K sooner than increasing to 100K – not necessarily because the points are so valuable as because of the fact that the classic card usually teetered between 60 and 80.
Are you allow to have multiple IHG cards? This card has decent sign-up bonus but I don’t want to give up my old IHG card for this.
Yes, you can. You don’t need to get rid of the old card.
> Free night annually at any hotel that costs up to 40,000 IHG points per night…
Is there any place where one can easily see which IHG hotels are 40K/night and lower (and thus eligible) and those that are not?
I’m currently on the fence about the usefulness of IHG free night certs now. I used to redeem them regularly at a favorite resort that’s now above the cutoff line. Being able to see which hotels worldwide are/are not going to be usable with the annual free night certs would be very helpful in deciding on my IHG strategy (and whether I’ll have one or not). Any pointers?
I’m only aware of a list of properties where you CAN NOT use it:
https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/deals/partner-offers/anniversary-free-night?_PMID=99634986&cm_mmc=CJ-_-4453693-_-7718223-_-www.ihg.com%2Fcontent-_-31ba1c16973711e881f9021b0a24060e&glat=AFFI&setPMCookies=true&url=https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/deals/partner-offers/anniversary-free-night
That said, I think there are plenty of places at 40K or less still. It’s not hard to get more value than $89 — but I agree that it would be easier if there were a simple list of 40K properties.