3 Great Reasons To Keep The IHG Credit Card

With the expected enforcement coming soon on getting approved for new chase cards, many have been wondering and asking about what to do with the cards they already have. Since you likely won’t be able to even get the card, forget about the bonus, should you keep the ones you have? Let’s take a look at the IHG credit card and 3 great reasons why you may want to keep it. (See this post for an analysis if you should keep your United MileagePlus Explorer card)

3 Great Reasons To Keep The IHG Credit Card

The Current Offers

• IHG Credit Card 60,000 points + $50 credit

This card has had a fantastic public offer in the past – 80,000 points + $50 statement credit – but that has not been available as a public application for a while (the landing page is there but no application). There is a way where you can still get the 80,000 points and that is by contacting Chase by secure message (through your account) after you get the card and ask to be matched to that offer. You will have to give up the $50 statement credit on the offer above but I think trading 20,000 points for $50 is a good deal.

The Annual Free Night

This is by far the best continual feature on any hotel credit card – a free annual night (well, it is free with the payment of the $49 annual fee) at any IHG hotel. With the recent hike on some high-end IHG hotels, that is like getting up to 60,000 points for use at a single hotel. That is equivalent to the sign-up bonus!

This is a fantastic benefit and one that will let you easily get your annual fee’s worth out of the card each and every year. If you have the IHG credit card, this perk alone should encourage you to keep it forever.

Two Great Options & Reviews: The InterContinental Willard & The InterContinental Sydney

Bonus: Not only is this perk amazing, but it also comes with a great annual fee. I know we don’t think of annual fees as “great” but this one is only $49 per year. That is the cheapest fee for a hotel card with meaningful benefits.

The 10% Rebate On Points

This is another huge one. With the great promos that IHG has had over the last couple of years, many of you are probably swimming in IHG points. With this perk, you are going to stretch those points out even further.

The IHG credit card gives you a 10% rebate on all points redeemed – up to 100,000 points back per calendar year! That would mean you would have to spend 1 million points in a year to max out this rebate so chances are good you will not max it out!

To put this in perspective for the IHG program, if you redeem for a hotel that costs 50,000 points or more per night, you will receive a rebate of 5,000 points for every night you stay. That means for every night at a high category hotel, you will get a free night at any IHG PointBreak hotel should you choose to redeem them for that. That is pretty great!

The Platinum Status

As top-tier hotel status goes, the IHG Platinum status was pretty weak (it was the top before they added the Spire status). It does not really give you anything of great value but it does have an interesting value to it from a competitive standpoint. When you match to other hotels, the IHG Platinum status has worked for some great matches. There were many people who matched to Hilton Diamond with it and even some that matched to Hyatt Diamond with it – all for simply holding the credit card!

So while the status may not get you that much with IHG, it can be useful to get you some status with some other brand with a status match.

Summary

With the looming rules that seem to be almost certainly coming from Chase, it is good to take inventory of the Chase cards you have and what you would be willing to keep or lose. The IHG credit card is definitely a card I would keep. I think it offers some of the strongest benefits of any hotel card – and it does it at the lowest annual fee.