One Mile at a Time and users on Reddit report Chase has sent out a letter with bad news: IHG annual reward night certificates issued from May 1, 2018 onward will be no longer be redeemable at any IHG hotel. They will now be redeemable at hotels that cost up to 40,000 points per night.
For years, the free night at any IHG hotel that comes with the IHG Rewards Club Select credit card made this card arguably the best ongoing rewards card benefit. I’ve used my free night at Intercontinentals from New York to Sydney on nights when paid rates were north of $500 per night.
Going forward, it will still certainly be possible to get better value than $49 per year. However, most of the IHG hotels in Manhattan now charge 50,000 points per night, so the certificate loses a lot of value for me since I often used mine in NYC and it will now be of much more limited use there.
While Greg has long predicted that this benefit was too generous to last forever (In fact, he predicted it almost a year in advance to the day — See: The next best credit card perks that will be taken away), I’m somewhat surprised to see the benefit devalue with such little notice as Chase has generally been good about grandfathering existing cardholders with benefits for quite some time after a change. I’m not sure how this will affect people who applied within the past week expecting to receive an uncapped certificate at their 1-year anniversary. It’s always worth keeping a screenshot of details like that, though since this benefit applies after first anniversary I’m not sure if it will be helpful in this case.
See the Reddit post linked at the top for a screenshot of the letter. If you have a certificate that is issued before 5/1/18, it should still be valid for any IHG hotel — but your next one will be capped.
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[…] the free night certificate for use at properties costing up to 40,000 points per night (See: BUMMER: IHG Free night capped for everyone (includes $49 card)). Many people applied for the card shortly before that change was officially announced, only to […]
My annual free night was issued in April, but IHG is saying that if I didn’t use it to book a reservation with it before May 1, then it’s no longer an unlimited night and instead capped at a 40,000 property
[…] IHG Card Losing Value: So letters are being sent out stating that the free night certificates offered by the IHG card will be capped at 40K points. This means that you’ll only be able to use your free night certificates at properties where award nights are at 40K points or less. […]
Can we still use the free night after the expiration? That has always been a nice unstated benefit. It’s allowed me to make a 2 free night stay before as long as I booked night 1 before expiration, even if the stay was well after.
Try to book it IF it won’t call them .My comes in Dec so I booked the old one in Nov. for 1/21 stay then the new one for 1/23 WORKED .
Always call and beg like I do it is MONEY u know .
CHEERs
[…] H/T Reddit and FrequentMiler […]
8 years for my dw, 3 years for me with the cards. Setting aside the “what have you done for me today” for a moment, I’m left with a lot of gratitude for all the time in Pensacola beach and our upcoming 3 night stay at the Willard for an important family event.
Good run!
And I can see us sticking around at $49 for 40k pt nights.
It still works for me. IC Bangkok, IC Santo Domingo, and IC Buenos Aires all require 40k or less points. Hong Kong, Paris, Amsterdam, and London become problematic, but I’ve been to Europe too many times already so a break is ok.
” IC Bangkok, IC Santo Domingo, and IC Buenos Aires all require 40k or less points.” Today that’s true.
Bye bye Maldives 🙁
If enough people complain, maybe they’ll change the terms and allow those who have the card to get one last free-night this year, even if the AF is after May 1st. Remember when Southwest sent out a notice saying that Marriott points transferred to SW would no longer count towards the CP? Then, enough people contacted them about it that they reversed their decision? Perhaps we can make that happen again.
Husband has had card over a year, he got this letter today. I have had it since October, I did not receive this letter and hope i do not.
[…] news that the IHG card’s annual free night is being devalued (see: BUMMER: IHG Free night capped for everyone) has led to an interesting situation. If you applied for the IHG card recently under the […]
Well, that’s a bummer. I have one uncapped free night in my account right now (issued Oct 2017) but I was hoping to make a two-night stay once a second night hits my account. Guess I’ll have to replan this now. We all knew this benefit was too good to be true, but I do wish they’d given us more notice. I tend to plan my travel far ahead of time. Then again, maybe a lot of people will be cancelling after this and it’ll lead to better retention offers.
It definitely could’ve been handled better, one more uncapped anniversary night before the downgrade. I would complain to Chase. In Canada, when Chase left, they gave everyone a free cat 1-5 marriott certificate, something could’ve been done here.
My wife and I just signed up for this card in the past year. If they don’t honor it for at least the first year, I will be quite angry. It is one thing to change a product, it is another to eliminate a benefit which caused us to sign up for the card in the first place before we even used that benefit even once. My business account is with Chase. Our joint checking is with Chase and my wife puts most of a considerable amount of spending (reimbursed business travel and expenses) on Chase cards. Would they even notice if I closed these accounts and moved all this business elsewhere?
Exactly- I applied specifically (july 2017) to have that award to use on late 2018 trip. Having the ihg card DID prevent me from being approved for the Marriott hotel care. I certainly expect them to honor the terms under which I applied!!
you didn’t pay an annual fee and will still get a free night for decent value, get over yourself
This finally convinced me to cancel this card….not right away but before the next fee hits. I’ll see if enough outrage prompts a solid retention offer.
I’ve never understood the appeal of just one night in a fancy hotel, but at least it was convenient. Now I can’t use it in many big cities. I could find value in a 40k hotel, but some locations have none…..and it’s getting worse with award categories creeping up every year.
You might as well wait until the 40K free night posts to your account and then cancel.
They don’t take it away if you cancel right away? That’s good to know. I wasn’t in a hurry anyway 🙂
This is what I’m thinking of doing. I’ve had the card since Feb 2016 so I still have an unrestricted free night for this year. My wife just signed up for her own card in Feb of this year so that going forward we’d have two free nights per year. But the restriction makes it much less appealing to keep these cards and pay $98 in AF for free nights we may not end up being able to use. I’ll wait until our 40K free night certs post next year, then cancel before the AF hits.