Annoying quirks with the new IHG and HSBC World Elite credit cards

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• Genghis says:

  1 Aug1 August 06:12

  “On the anniversary of your account opening, so long as your account remains active, you will earn one free night voucher to redeem at any IHG property, provided you make annual Purchases totalling a minimum of £10,000.”

  So anniversary really did mean anniversary.

  Alas

  • Will says:

    1 Aug1 August 06:53

    The existing barclaycard has the same clause, is that new or have they simply tightened a previously relaxed rule?

    • Mr Brown says:

      1 Aug1 August 08:17

      Barclaycard hasn’t changed, they still issue when you hit £10k. Mine arrived just the other week and my anniversary date is January 2nd.

      Waiting till the anniversary date isn’t a big issue for me but I can see why some want it as soon as they have qualified and seems a bit silly that you can’t get it when you have met the criteria anyway.

      I mentioned it on FT as well the other day the biggest issue/concern with Creation is the lack of communication or the lack of it which doesn’t exactly instill me with confidence should there be a problem.

      I’ve already got one IHG which doesn’t seem to have added the correct points on. Hopefully it’s just teething problems with a new product.

• Elaine says:

  1 Aug1 August 06:37

  How annoying re HSBC. When I applied for the card I asked if I can cancel during the 2nd year and get a prorata refund like Amex. The staff on the phone said I would not. I’m hoping I got that wrong

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 09:01

    They didnt get it wrong. No one except Amex gives pro rata refunds and, as they have just been scrapped in the US, may be on the way out here.

• Danksy says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:14

  £40k in one month!!! Wow!

  • nick says:

    1 Aug1 August 16:16

    LOL! You do know some folks out there drop that amount sometimes daily… biggest bill I’ve ever seen on an Amex Plat card was around £850k !

    • Pete Simmons says:

      2 Aug2 August 09:59

      Obviously this is less than 1% of the users its not like the majority of Joe public are dropping these figures and especially not for just personal use.

• Sandgrounder says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:30

  Any issues with the 20k bonus if you recently held the Barclaycard version?

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 09:02

    No, all fine

• Phil says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:43

  Is this an IHG rule or credit card issuer rule re: the free night voucher. E.g. Will barclaycard holders also be punished?

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 09:03

    IHG may have agreed to it but I would be very surprised if it was done deliberately because there is no logic. You can still stop spending at £10k and move on to another card so what does IHG gain from annoying you?

• SteveB says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:49

  I’ve not been hugely impressed with the Creation Premium IHG card so far. They’ve failed to recognise spending at a recent HI stay, and separately, an overseas transaction, for double points. It feels like a less polished experience than with Barclaycard, although they have been quick to points points to be fair.

  • Alan says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:37

    Haha I think you may have just been lucky with Barclaycard if you thought they were polished! I had multiple complaints with them re wrongly calculated points.

    • M says:

      1 Aug1 August 08:56

      At least with Barclaycard there was someone that read these complains. My experience with marriott card is far different. Read the topic on FT regarding the card relaunching under creation. I think it’s just a beginning.

      • Russell says:

        1 Aug1 August 12:42

        I have had a problem with the issue of the double IHG points on my IHG Barclaycard since it (and the Hilton Visa) changed from being non-Barclaycard cards managed by Barclays to fully fledged Barclaycards with IHG or Hilton branding.

        I would guess that 60% of my IHG stays have not initially got the correct number of points on my IHG Barclaycard. The first time it happened I was given a major run-around, with Barclays saying that it was IHG’s fault and IHG saying it was Barclays fault. At one point (phoning from home in the Lake District) someone from IHG said they were putting me through to the correct department and I found my self speaking to a car dealership in Sarasota, FL!!

        Finally I got to deal with someone with a bit more responsibility who apologised profusely and gave me some significant financial compensation.

        The issue continues, though. Over a year later Barclaycard tell me that they still do not know what the problem is, and they refuse to tell me what they are doing about it.

        But each further time it has happened, all that has been necessary has been a secure e-mail, quoting the reference number and name of the person who sorted the mess out the first time and I get the missing points plus enough cash to buy something nice in my account. Five or six times, now, I think.

        As for the the new Creation IHG card, I was expecting the rounding down problem, as I had already experienced it with their Marriott card. Their CS is indeed poor – I asked them for the missing points in the same way as I had with IHG Barclaycard; I got e-mails and letters which at times made diametrically opposing claims, and finally an explanation of the rounding down process. They claimed to have had to check this with Marriott…

        I took out the free Creation IHG card as soon as I saw it mentioned here, and will get the 10 000 points bonus next month – they already appear on my account.

        Because of the rounding down issue and that I can find no way to get them to send out statements in the post the Creation card in now locked in the safe and I continue to use the Barclacard one.

        I suppose that if IHG ends their deal with Barclaycard I shall have to revert to the Creation card.

  • The_Real_A says:

    1 Aug1 August 09:53

    This is a problem with franchise hotels. The credit card terminal needs to be setup in the correct way for any Credit Card operator to recognise that it is indeed an IHG hotel. This is the hotels fault usually as they haven’t complied with the direction from head office.

• Thywillbedone says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:22

  Another slightly annoying aspect of the HSBC card is that it is not contactless, I thought that feature was more or less standard these days.

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 09:04

    The Creation Marriott card is not contacless either, which is a pain.

    • Artem says:

      1 Aug1 August 13:41

      For that reason I switched to paying through Android Pay linked to my HSBC card

• Alan says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:36

  Totally agree with your last para, Rob – I think that would be a fairly secure interpretation. Re rounding down, Amex already do this with MR points as they award them on a per-transaction basis. I think MBNA are more generous in their total spend approach.

  Re voucher issuance – it all depends when you need the voucher. In the case of the Lloyds card I’ve ended up spending £6.5k then stopping spending as I don’t want to trigger the voucher early. With this method I can continue using the card without getting a voucher earlier than I wanted – obviously not so good if you do want it soon! Not quite so bad on an ongoing basis if you know when it’ll come out. Based on how quickly Creation updated/refreshed IHG status I hope it’ll be issued quickly when the anniversary is reached. I haven’t heard anything about expiry date yet though – presumably 12 months, but would be handy to know.

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