IHG credit card sign-up bonuses no longer count for status

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• avidsaver says:

  21 Jun21 June 05:41

  For those of us who have recently achieved status with the recent sign up bonus on the paid for and free card (Platinum/Gold) Do you know if this will remain unchanged for as long as we hold onto the cards?

• James67 says:

  21 Jun21 June 06:38

  Curious to see what will happen to premium card too. If platinum becomes worthless, which seems very likely, then Barclays will need to boost standard signup bonus and even earning rate otherwise card will die. What I am hoping is that it may still be a route to the highest status, even if they have to increase the fee. However, I have my doubts the new Diamond status will be anything to get excited about.

  • Kai says:

    21 Jun21 June 10:11

    Why ‘becomes’? Platinum is already useless and I guess no changes of its benefits are being planned?

    • Rob says:

      21 Jun21 June 11:50

      Depends on property, it varies from useless to quite good! Got a Kit Kat and 500 points in a Holiday Inn last week but also get club lounge upgrade at a CP recently and my wife got specific Plat benefits at IC Le Grand in Paris last year.

    • James67 says:

      21 Jun21 June 19:10

      I got a few upgrades along the way including CP The City, Aberdeen HI ECC, HI Wembley, HI Patong Beach Resort and Indigo Kensington being those I recall. Raffles lucky to get a Kit Kat though, been disappointed to see them missing from rooms of late where I had come to expect them. Hot chocolate disappearing too, I guess I’ll need to start staying Indigos more often.

• RIccati says:

  21 Jun21 June 07:11

  It looks like they have read about your plans Raffles on cancelling IHG cards and re-applying to use bonus to qualify for the new status.

  Guarding the status that has no guaranteed benefits, the way to go IHG!

• Boi says:

  21 Jun21 June 07:43

  I keep hearing about paying HMRC via cards etc. is this company cards? Does it not create problems if paying from personal accounts?
  The reason I ask is my accountant keeps saying I MUST make payments from the business account directly to hmrc. I Have just paid our corporation tax that way and wished I had other options like many here. We have a limited company if that makes any difference?

  • Tom C says:

    21 Jun21 June 09:15

    I’ve never paid for anything on HMRC with a card, as the 1.4% fee doesn’t result in a decent ROI for me, but I did enquire with my accountant and he didn’t think there was any issue in using a personal card. I can’t see why it would, as a huge amount of people use their personal cards for expenses, then claim it back and this is no different. In paying your tax, as long as you provide all the correct references, I cannot see why they’d care where the money came from. Perhaps someone who has done it can verify with certainty for you.

  • Will says:

    21 Jun21 June 11:27

    I have done, and continue to use a personal card for business expenses. I document everything with receipts (as you would a coporate card any way) and my accountant has no issues with it.

    One thing I am now careful of to avoid any ambiguity is not to put personal spending on said card.

    • Will says:

      21 Jun21 June 11:29

      To clarify its a ltd company and I pay the business expenses off directly from the company account – so no transfer to my personal account first as some people may term “expenses”.

  • Rob says:

    21 Jun21 June 11:55

    With a limited company you should probably, technically, put in an expense claim to yourself to create a paper trail but it can certainly be done.

    The only thing that matters at the end of the day is whether there is a clear paper trail of what was paid to who so that it can be clearly identified as a business expense.

    • Dynamo says:

      21 Jun21 June 15:22

      Way off topic but can anyone recommend a good start up business accountant and/or a good website with info on creating a ltd company?

      • Winston says:

        22 Jun22 June 01:22

        Dynamo – you can easily create a Ltd Company using Companies House and pay a small admin fee (£15) last time I checked.

        You will have to fill out annual returns (£13 a year) and submit company accounts though.

    • RICO says:

      22 Jun22 June 12:00

      Speaking as someone that has prepared sets of small business accounts for other people keeping your business and personal expenditure seperate is hugely useful to your accountant. That said having a seperate personal credit card with a seperate statement fort business expenses is quite manageable. If you are VAT registered don’t forget that credit card receipts are often insufficient to reclaim VAT.

• Danksy says:

  21 Jun21 June 07:44

  I’m not sure I agree about the ability to earn points. With the setyoursights promo I picked up 50,000 easily and in the other similar promo the same (for about £250) of expenditure each time!

  • Brian says:

    21 Jun21 June 08:01

    Yes, but those bonus points don’t count towards status. Rob is talking about earning status points – these can only be gained by staying at hotels (status points) or credit card spend.

    • Kai says:

      21 Jun21 June 10:13

      Or e-rewards, although you may not be interested in answering loads of suveys.

    • Danksy says:

      21 Jun21 June 10:58

      I stand corrected ! 😀

• Will says:

  21 Jun21 June 11:31

  The recent Qatar sales have made tier point running from the UK easier than ever IMHO.

  • thunderbirds says:

    21 Jun21 June 11:47

    Not sure what your point is here. I earn avios to fly I don’t fly to earn status. My emphasis was on cc as a means to earn avios. I agree that if you fly enough then buying flights outside of a sale is painful but I fly twice a year long haul and haven’t needed to so far.

    • Calchas says:

      22 Jun22 June 07:14

      “outside of a sale”?? When was this? :p

• Nathan says:

  21 Jun21 June 13:49

  I was invited to dinner with the directors of the IC Osaka a few weeks ago and they are under the impression the new tier will push ambassador members up to royal ambassadors which will be a significant benefit!
  Hopefully that’s true

  • James67 says:

    21 Jun21 June 19:15

    .ow there’s a dilemna, should we purchase ambassador status this week? Need to think about that.

    • Nathan says:

      21 Jun21 June 20:50

      Well I’m a plat ambassador and I have found it a great program for IC hotels.
      The upgrade is nice but for me the 4pm late checkout is a godsend!
      The free night pretty much absorbs most of the cost too

  • Chris says:

    21 Jun21 June 21:01

    I’ll eat my hat if normal paid for AMBs will all suddenly become RA.

    Double upgrades and a free mini bar for a year for £200?

    And that’s before the other RA benefits are costed into this.

  • Rob says:

    21 Jun21 June 21:10

    You mean that an Ambassador who became Diamond gets upgraded to RA? The only thing that is odd about that idea is that you ‘only’ need £5,000 of spend to hit Diamond and you could do that with about 20 InterContinental nights which would effectively lower the RA threshold hugely.

    • Nathan says:

      23 Jun23 June 00:35

      True. Although the published stays to earn RA could be done for not much more than £5,000 if you used point stays etc too so actually, it’s not that far off the current expected stays for a RA.

• Chris says:

  21 Jun21 June 21:52

  On the subject of the bonus not counting as EQ if the new level actually brings some significant benefits come January of next year I don’t particularly fall out with it.

  If there is no significant change it’s a pointless exercise and uptake of the card will surely decline as the new level (In theory) would take priority so the benefits of platinum become even more sporadic than before. That would leave the free night the only real benefit of the card.

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