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NEW: Get a VERY rare increased points bonus on the free IHG Rewards Club Mastercard credit card

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For the first time in a long time (ever?) IHG Rewards Club is running an enhanced bonus on the FREE IHG Rewards Club Mastercard.

Until 31st March, you will receive 20,000 IHG Rewards Club points for signing up and spending £500 within three months.

The usual bonus is just 10,000 points.

20,000 IHG points converts into 4,000 Avios or other airline miles, or you can put them towards a free hotel room.

This means that BOTH cards – the free one and the £99 Premium version – now have the same sign-up bonus.  Nothing has changed on the Premium card.

Which is the best IHG Rewards Club Mastercard?  My answer is normally simple (get the Premium version) but does this higher bonus make the free card more attractive?

It’s weird saying you possibly shouldn’t get a free card with a doubled bonus, but ….

This is a tricky call to make.

I think the £99 IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard – which is not the one we’re talking about in this article – is a fantastic product.  That’s why we gave it an ‘Editor’s Choice’ award in the Head for Points 2019 Travel & Loyalty Awards.  Here is the IHG and Creation team collecting it at our winner’s dinner:

IHG CC HFP Awards 2019

I am NOT so excited by the free version, but only because I think the Premium version is better.  To my mind, why bother with the free card when the £99 Premium card offers such great benefits?

This is what I recommend you do:

if you don’t want the credit card for long term use, feel free to sign up for the free IHG Rewards Club Mastercard and get your 20,000 bonus points.  The points are worth around £80 of free hotel nights based on my 0.4p per point valuation, or convert them to 4,000 Avios.

if you are an active IHG Rewards Club member, I would ignore this offer and go for the Premium card at £99 with the standard bonus of 20,000 points.  The additional benefits are well worth the fee.

How do the two IHG credit cards differ?

The card issuer is Creation Financial Services.  The name may not be familiar to you but they issue a number of co-branded and own-brand credit and store cards, including ASDA Money and the now-closed-to-new-applicants Marriott Mastercard.  The company is owned by French bank BNP Paribas.

Which is the best IHG Rewards Club Mastercard?

The free version – IHG Rewards Club Mastercard

The headline features of this card are:

No annual fee

20,000 IHG Rewards Club points for joining and spending £500 in the first three months – these are worth about £80 of free hotel room or transferable to 4,000 Avios points or other airline miles (this is a special offer which runs until 30th March – the standard bonus is 10,000 points)

If you don’t hit £500 of spending (very unlikely!) in three months but do spend over £200 then you will receive the standard bonus of 10,000 points

Gold Elite status in IHG Rewards Club for as long as you hold the card.  You won’t get much, frankly, for being Gold Elite – usually a few hundred bonus points or a free drink.  However, if you do a few Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza or Indigo stays then it is certainly better than nothing.

1 IHG Rewards Club point per £1 spent.  I value IHG points at 0.4p so this is a 0.4% return.

2 IHG Rewards Club points per £1 when you pay at IHG hotels.  This would be roughly a 0.8% return which is good.

2 IHG Rewards Club points per £1 when you use the card abroad.  As the card has a 2.99% FX fee you would be better off using a card without FX fees instead.  You do NOT get 4 points per £1 if you use the card in an IHG hotel abroad – you are capped at 2 per £1.

Representative APR is 22.9% variable

It is important to note that points from day-to-day spend count towards IHG elite status.  The sign-up bonus does NOT count towards elite status.

The application link for the free IHG Rewards Club credit card is here.

Which is the best IHG Rewards Club Mastercard?

The paid-for version – IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard

The headline features of this card are:

£99 annual fee

20,000 IHG Rewards Club points for joining and spending £200 in the first three months – these are worth about £80 of free hotel rooms or transferable to 4,000 Avios points or other airline miles

Platinum Elite status in IHG Rewards Club for as long as you hold the card.  This is mid-tier, with Spire Elite being the top level.  However, if you do a few Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza or Indigo stays then it is worth having.  It is occasionally enough for a Club room upgrade at a Crowne Plaza.

2 IHG Rewards Club point per £1 spent.  I value IHG points at 0.4p so this is a 0.8% return.

4 IHG Rewards Club points per £1 when you pay at IHG hotels.  This would be roughly a 1.6% return which is very good.

4 IHG Rewards Club points per £1 when you use the card abroad.  As the card has a 2.99% FX fee you would be better off using a card without FX fees instead.  The only reason to use the card abroad would be to work towards your free night voucher or earn additional IHG elite status points.

A free night voucher for any IHG hotel for spending £10,000.  Use it at the InterContinental Paris, London, New York etc and you could be looking at £250 of value.

Representative APR is 45.1% variable including the £99 fee, based on a notional £1200 credit limit

As with the free card, it is important to note that points from day-to-day spend count towards elite status.  The sign-up bonus does NOT count towards elite status.  A heavy spender could get Spire Elite status – requiring 75,000 points – simply by putting £37,500 of spending through this card.

Note that the free night voucher only appears at the end of your card year, irrespective of how quickly you spend £10,000.  If you want to cancel the card without paying for a 2nd year, you need to ensure that NO transactions are made on the card between your anniversary date and the date the voucher appears.  You can then call Creation to cancel and the £99 fee will be waived.

There are two minor restrictions on the free night voucher – it can’t be used at the handful of Regent hotels and it can’t be used at the Las Vegas or Macau casino InterContinental Alliance properties.

I like the Premium card, even though the bonus is unchanged

For long term spending Premium is a very good card. 

Imagine spending £10,000 on the card in a year.  You would get:

20,000 IHG Rewards Club points, worth £80 or so, assuming all spend is in the UK and not at IHG hotels

Those points count towards status, which could be important if you are pushing for Spire Elite

Your free night voucher, worth say £250 if used at an expensive InterContinental

You are getting £330 of benefits for an annual fee of £99.  That is a gain of £231 or 2.31% of a £10,000 spend, which is excellent.

You also need to add in whatever value you ascribe to Platinum Elite status in IHG Rewards Club.

I would NOT necessarily recommend Premium if you will not spend £10,000 to earn the free night.  For low spenders, the higher earnings rate does not justify the £99 fee compared to the free IHG Rewards Club Mastercard – especially as both cards now have the same 20,000 points bonus.

The only exception is if you stay enough at IHG hotels to benefit from Platinum Elite status but you don’t stay enough to actually earn it from your stays.

You can apply for the IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard here.

Conclusion

You can pick up an easy 20,000 IHG Rewards Club points (which converts into 4,000 Avios even if you don’t use them for hotel stays) by getting the free IHG Rewards Club Mastercard before 30th March.  Remember that you need to spend £500 within three months.

I don’t blame you for jumping in on this if your credit record is in good shape.

However, if you are a regular IHG guest and can easily spend £10,000 per year on the card – and remember it is a Mastercard, so easier than spending £10,000 on an Amex – I think the Premium version has a lot more to offer.  Forget the fact that the bonus is unchanged, because in the long run you will be better off.

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Category

IHG One Rewards

Comments (198)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • j says:
    5 Feb5 February 10:29

    I have Hilton Barclaycard, any thoughts on whether it is worth getting this? I could probably hit 10k on both cards to get the free night on IHG and keep Hilton Gold – but obviously would then split points across 2 schemes. And I only have the odd mostly leisure stays, often using Hilton (Amex offers on Hilton pretty frequent too). Good experiences with Hilton, not much experience of IHG.

    • Peter K says:
      5 Feb5 February 10:49

      Free night at 10k spend is only on the £99 fee IHG card. All yourself if one night at a top hotel is worth the effort. The points earned+bonus on the paid card on 10k spend is only 40k so not enough for a 2nd free night at top hotels, only middling to decent ones. You don’t get breakfast free at IHG either unlike Hilton Gold.

  • Ed says:
    5 Feb5 February 10:37

    Looked at the T&Cs but can’t see anything about whether you can hold both? i.e. if you already have the premium version, can you take out the free version too?

    Although I note they do say “If your IHG Rewards Club Credit Card account is closed within the first 6 months of opening, IHG reserves the right to deduct the 10,000 bonus Rewards points from your IHG Rewards Club account.”

    • Stephen C says:
      5 Feb5 February 12:07

      I ditched the free one and got the premium one a couple of years ago and they auto-closed the free one. Annoyingly I couldn’t add the new card to my existing online access so had to create a new online account with a different username

    • The Urbanite says:
      5 Feb5 February 15:58

      I have both and they coexist happily. White card comes into use when I’m out of credit on the black card.

      • rams1981 says:
        5 Feb5 February 16:26

        Why not pay off the black card and earn more points? Unless there are cashflow issues that would make more sense.

  • kumar says:
    5 Feb5 February 10:47

    O/T. I am aware of the cash advance fee for Virgin Atlantic for Revolut top up.Is it the same for Barclaycard Hilton Visa card and HSBC premier credit card ( mastercard ).Can someone please advise.

    • RK says:
      5 Feb5 February 10:51

      There are fees on MasterCard since Revolut changed the MCC, not sure about Visa.

      • Andrew L says:
        5 Feb5 February 14:32

        Although Creation have been charging interest on Revolut depisits at a rate of 2.071% per month they have not been adding cash advance fees like Barclays and Virgin Money.

    • barney says:
      5 Feb5 February 16:26

      yea, visa is fine

      • Andrew L says:
        5 Feb5 February 18:48

        Clearly not if Barclaycard are imposing cash advance fees on the Hilton Honors card as this is a Visa card!

  • Pierre says:
    5 Feb5 February 11:09

    Re the Premium version of this card – while I agree that it is decent value and we have always had good value redemptions with the free night voucher, it is worth pointing out that getting hold of our vouchers has never been straightforward.
    Every time one of us has had this card, the free night voucher has not credited automatically, and we have had to deal with Creation’s customer service, which is woeful.

    • Rob says:
      5 Feb5 February 11:26

      Weird. Of all the gripes about Creation I have never heard of anyone having trouble getting the voucher credited.

    • Kai says:
      5 Feb5 February 11:46

      Happened to me. Phone them and in a few days got an email and the free night was credited to my account, not too much trouble.

    • Sprout7 says:
      5 Feb5 February 12:03

      Ditto.
      I was on live chat with them this morning, 5 weeks after cancelling the card and following the correct procedure for avoiding the year 2 fee.
      Upshot was, that it “takes 8 weeks and come back to them again if it is not there in the first week in March”

  • Nick says:
    5 Feb5 February 11:30

    O/T – I made a stay at IHG 30/1-31/1 (one night), I was on the 4x bonus from the last promotion but as the stay credited on 2/2/20 I didn’t get the 4x points I got no bonus. Should I have gotten them as the stay was within the promotional period?

  • William Kerr says:
    5 Feb5 February 11:44

    thanks for the intro. Rob – certainly worth the free card for me as I can tranfer the 20.000 points to 4.000 Avios… the application process was simple … as have dogs and always holiday with them have found Wyndham Rewards a good option – (Days Inn, – realise a bit “rough and ready” fo the average HFP reader, but if you have a dog(s) – they take up to two dogs in a room – ) and Wyndham Rewards offer generous and easily acquired free night(s) on points-based earning system with great opportunities in US and Euope too – higher echelon hotels within Wyndham for the more discerning…

    • Freddy says:
      5 Feb5 February 18:23

      Is it worth taking out a new credit card for £40 in avios points. I’m not really inclined even for £80 in hotel points

      • Shoestring says:
        5 Feb5 February 18:28

        I wouldn’t exaggerate the downside, any ding/ credit search will disappear in a couple of months

        so yes, it’s 4000 free Avios, or if there are more than 1 of you, 8000/ 12000 etc – for no more work than a 5 minute application & only £500 spend requirement

      • Rob says:
        5 Feb5 February 19:19

        When Tesco offered 2,400 Avios on their free credit card in 2018 over 500 readers applied ….

        • Freddy says:
          5 Feb5 February 20:15

          That’s the allure of points working it’s magic, if it was a £25 rebate through a CB site it wouldn’t prompt much interest

      • Genghis says:
        5 Feb5 February 19:57

        I used to have a minimum of £100 benefit for each “ding” of the file. Now times are a bit tougher I’d do it for £80. Applied again today (had it before) but no instant decision.

  • Mr S says:
    5 Feb5 February 13:55

    Some advice please re questions around booking rewards nights with IHG, the conditions state ‘Points + Cash bookings are charged immediately in USD, and cancellations are refunded in points only’ so if a Standard Room is 50,000 points or 30,000+ £101, If I book the latter and then cancel, what happens? Do I get the £101 refunded and 30k points credited? Thanks

    • Peter K says:
      5 Feb5 February 14:04

      You get no money refunded. You get some points in lieu of the cash, I forget how many.

      • Genghis says:
        5 Feb5 February 14:09

        Mr S would get 50k points back, in effect he’s bought 20k points for £101.

        • Mr S says:
          5 Feb5 February 14:35

          Thanks, so if it was say 30,000 points + £50 then better to get some extra bookings in.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            5 Feb5 February 17:04

            Yep if you can find hotels with good rates. IHG regularly run 100% bonus on buying points.

        • Genghis says:
          5 Feb5 February 14:40

          It can be a good way of picking up some reasonably priced points.

          • Lady London says:
            7 Feb7 February 12:52

            Can also be a way to keep your account active. Just be careful to calculate what the points you will get back are actually worth as compared to cash rates for the night in question. Value can be ok or bad.

    • Kai says:
      5 Feb5 February 14:08

      You are essentially just buying the 20k points. No refund.

  • dragonfly says:
    5 Feb5 February 15:38

    Maybe OTP and a silly question. We have the creation IHG premium card (annual fee £99) which is due for renewal in 2 months time (and thinking to ditch and go for the Ambassador). The premium card gives Platinum status with IHG. However, from time to time HfP has recommended paying for the Ambassador which cost USD 200 – also get a one night weekend certificate, as well as Platinum status.
    Question is that given the choice of the two, which one would you do? We are not big spenders so not going to hit the £10K spending for a free night with the creation card. We did pay for the Ambassador before, but found the one night weekend certificate difficult to use.
    Thanks in advance.

    • rams1981 says:
      5 Feb5 February 16:22

      if you won’t spend £10k on the card not sure the premium is worth it as you won’t earn enough points through spend to have enough points for rewards nights.
      If you can’t use the free night certificate, Ambassador may still be worth it if you have quite a few stays where you need the late check out and get a decent upgrade. You also get 20k points for renewing Ambassador.

      • Genghis says:
        5 Feb5 February 19:59

        I didn’t use my BOGOF voucher last year but still got lots of benefit from the 10% back on redemptions (renewals only).

        • dragonfly says:
          5 Feb5 February 20:21

          Many Thanks to both for your replies. I am thinking of cancelling the IHG premium card (£99 annual fee) and buying the IHG ambassador (US$200) – both give Platinum status, but the benefits under the ambassador appear to be better.

    • Alex W says:
      11 Feb11 February 12:43

      Unless you’re a student I would have thought 99% of people could easily put 10k through a MasterCard in a year. Curve can be used where only debit cards are accepted.
      With hindsight I would avoid cancelling the IHG Premium Credit card as once you have cancelled it you cannot get it back – all re-applications seem to be rejected.
      The ambassador “free” night is a bit of a con, it never saves as much money as you think and obviously is restricted to InterContinentals.
      If you’re only chasing status, don’t bother with IHG as the benefits are so poor.

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