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IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card (See rates and fees)
Chase has an offer to earn 165,000 Bonus Points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening and the offer ends soon though I don’t yet have the specific day it’ll be pulled.
You’ll receive an Anniversary Free Night at IHG Hotels & Resorts. Plus, enjoy a fourth reward night free when you redeem points for a consecutive four-night IHG® hotel stay. And cardmembers receive status in the program.
- Status: Cardmembers receive automatic Platinum Elite status as long as you remain a Premier cardmember. Diamond status if you spend $40,000 or more on the card in a calendar year.
- Expedited security and/or immigration: There’s a Global Entry, TSA PreCheck® or NEXUS Statement Credit of up to $120 every 4 years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to your card.
- Annual fee: $99
- Earning for spend: 10x at IHG properties (plus base earn and elite bonus); 5x on travel, gas stations and dining; 3x on other purchases. (And there are no foreign transaction fees.)
- Spend threshold bonus: Earn a $100 statement credit and 10,000 bonus points after $20,000 spend in a calendar year.
- Anniversary free night on or about your account anniversary you receive a free night certificate, valid at any property up to 40,000 points per night and you can top off that with additional points if needed.
- Fourth Night Free On Redemptions: as a cardmember benefit. Redeem points only for the first 3 nights of a 4+ night stay. That’s more attractive than other programs offering fifth night free.
- $50 in Annual United Airlines Credit: $25 United TravelBank Cash deposited around January 1, and another credit deposited around July 1 (registration required).
Are you eligible for the new cardmember offer? Those who currently have a consumer IHG card are excluded (though having the business card should not itself be disqualifying). And it’s also not available to those who received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months.
The card seems clearly worth getting for the up front bonus, and worth keeping for the annual free night, fourth night free on redemptions, and elite status. It’s not a card I’d use for ongoing spend.
It’s a keeper card, so long as you use the free night each year. I opened with a 185K bonus, and some prefer the 5 free night certificates offer, but you’d really need to map that out to use well.
@Gene — When we going to the InterContinental Kabul? (Never!) Jokes aside, lotta decent IHG properties out there. Like, it’s not just Holiday Inns (nothing wrong there either); they got Six Senses these days. Oh lala…
Oh, dear self, from mid-September 2025, how young and idealistic you were… for it is not even mid-October, yet we live in such different times… alas, we lost legendary commenter @Gene in Kabul, apparently… *salute*
FYI @Gary the link you give says:
“Apply by 10/22/25”
It makes since for me. I get 5X points as I essentially use the only two IHG chains that don’t have 10X. So, an extra 10X is nice. And, yes, the annual free night (for the locations at our below 40,000 points) for the $99 fee is, in itself, a fine trade. I just don’t know if I want another card.
The best IHG P credit card offer was a bit better than this, as it included IHG Diamond status for approval for the remainder of the calendar year. Unfortunately, that offer hasn’t been back since I took advantage of it in 2023.
My experience with Chase customer service & their IHG cards… We just came back from touring France. Went to Lyon, booked an Intercontinental with Ambassador status. No problem, used my Chase biz IHG card for incidentals. On through to Marseille, staying at another IHG. Using the same card. Now of course when you check in they check your passport, photo ID, etc. No way to use a stolen card. We go to pay the bill after calling an Uber to go to the airport and when checking out, and Chase declines the IHG card I have been using at IHG’s all along. They declined it twice, quite humiliating, so the tab went on another card ($1700+, should have yielded 17-20K IHG points lost.) Later on I get an email from Chase claiming they determined it was fraud on my card. I get back to the US, call the CSC, they plead ignorance, dump me to the fraud department, who claimed my bill looked like fraud. So I asked if they were going to decline the cobranded card every time I try to us it at the co branded hotel for which it was designed. Again I hear the BS about fraud, then they told me I should call them before I use the card to make sure it doesn’t happen again. At that point I am losing my temper. What good is an IHG card If you decline it at an IHG who checks your photo on the passport, etc? Then I ask what they can do to rectify the damage they caused, at least get me the points I lost. Can’t do that. They then dump me to another CSR. I ask at least for some of the points I lost. Nope. can’t do that. CSR claims they can do nothing about it, no solution. Tough stuff, we don’t care. I said if I can’t use an IHG card at an IHG hotel I don’t need it. I was asked if I wanted to drop the card. I was thinking of dumping the card, but instead it may be better to just use it for an award night and never spend anything on it. Screw Chase. Amex gets all my hotel business now.
@Chris. Right now my only Chase card is the Amazon Prime card. No fees and 5% off on Amazon and Whole Foods. Free money. However, I’ve had the issue occur at international hotels at checkin (I tend to use places that require no prepayment, but full (or partial payment on longer stays). Since I have the app for each card I have, all I ever had to do is open the app, respond to the “was that you” question, and retry to card. It has worked every time.
If Chase one of those cards that wants you to register travel?
@This comes to mind — Look at Mr. Woke-y Woke now, shoppin’ at Whole Foods Market. Mhm… (just messin’). By the way, you do know Amex has that 6% up to $6,000 spend on groceries, 1% above Prime at WF, if you spend at least $3,000 per year on food. Also, you are correct about the fraud questions via the Chase app; haven’t had any issues when doing that and retrying.
@This comes to mind – I don’t have the Chase app , maybe I will add it if I ever decide to use that card again. The real problem here was not so much the denial, which did suck, but the horrible attitude towards customers the Chase reps have. They made it clear that the customer is garbage in their eyes, and your issues are simply a waste of their precious time. That would never have happened if I used Amex.