The Best (and Lamest) New Perks of the New IHG Credit Cards

Chase recently announced that they are replacing the current IHG credit card with two new IHG cards.

The details of the card with the lower fee are:

• 60,000 IHG Rewards point sign-up bonus
• 5X points per dollar spent at IHG properties
• $29 annual fee

The details of the card with the higher annual fee are:

• 80,000 IHG Rewards point sign-up bonus
• 10X points per dollar spent at IHG properties
• 10,000 bonus points after spending $20,000 on the card annually
• 4th night free on award stays
• Anniversary free night at eligible hotels (up to 40,000 points per night)
• Platinum Elite status
• Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit every four years
• 20% discount on point purchases
• $89 annual fee

The $29 annual fee version of the card is not at all interesting to me. The sign-up bonus would maybe make it worth getting, but if you’re still under Chase’s 5/24 rule, there are many better and more valuable cards out there to get.

The $89 annual fee card is intriguing to me, however. The old version of the IHG card only has a $49 annual fee and previously came with a free night certificate that could be used at any IHG hotel in the world, but with the announcement of these new cards the old card’s free night certificate is also getting a 40,000 point cap.

Considering that that benefit is now equal, you’ll be getting a few extra benefits for an extra $40 per year in annual fee with the new version of the card. Here’s what I think about those extra benefits.

• Ability to earn 10,000 bonus points after spending $20,000 on the card annually – This is the lamest of all of the benefits, in my opinion. IHG points don’t hold enough value for me to justify spending on the card at all unless there’s some kind of spending bonus. I definitely would never recommend spending $20,000 on this card for an extra 10,000 IHG points.
• 4th night free on award stays – This benefit is one that I’m pretty excited about. I regularly have one or two 4+ night stays at IHG hotels per year, so this could save me up to 25% on my points! Last year I stayed in Munich for Oktoberfest for four nights at 30,000 points per night. My total stay cost 120,000 points, but would have only cost 90,000 points if I had this card. If you can make use of this benefit once per year it’s probably worth paying an extra $40 for the new version of the card.
• Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit every four years – If I didn’t already have a number of other cards with this benefit, this would be intriguing. However, many premium cards offer this now, and if you don’t have another card that does offer it yet, there are probably better cards to get than this one (my personal recommendation is the Chase Sapphire Reserve). Nevertheless, maybe you have a family member or friend that you could gift it to so that it doesn’t go to waste!
• 20% discount on point purchases – IHG does sometimes offer pretty good deals on purchasing points, but I would not get this card in order to make use of this unless I knew that I would save at least $40 per year.

What am I going to do?

 

I still have the old version of the IHG card and don’t plan on changing anything. However, my boyfriend does not yet have the card, so at some point I will have him apply for the $89 annual fee new version of the IHG card. Whenever we have a stay that makes sense for the 4th night free benefit or if we need to purchase points for something, we can go through his account but we will still be earning one free night (now capped at 40,000 points) at the lower rate of $49 with the old version of the card.

What do you think of Chase’s new IHG cards?