Your final answer to the IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard free night question

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• Marco says:

  4 Jul4 July 05:13

  This is a positive step but there is still the significant problem of the delay in posting the free night to the IHG account. The delay compared to the Barclaycard system is excessive. What reason do Creation give for this?

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jul4 July 05:43

    How do you know there’s a delay?

    • Genghis says:

      4 Jul4 July 05:44

      Oh you mean actually anniversary v spend date? It is written in the T&Cs, though not exactly crystal.

      • Rob says:

        4 Jul4 July 08:05

        Commercial decision, I assume. Virgin gives the upgrade vouchers at year end, HSBC is giving the 2nd half of the bonus at year end ….. it is not exactly unique.

• RIcatti says:

  4 Jul4 July 05:58

  –The free night voucher should be added to your IHG Rewards Club account within a month, give or take, of the £99 fee being charged.

  This still postulates that the fee has to be charged first.

  It is unclear how the mechanics will work in situation of account being after the anniversary date and closed before the fee/12th month statement generated.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jul4 July 08:05

    As lojg as you cancel after the card anniversary date you get the voucher.

• Lee says:

  4 Jul4 July 06:10

  Can you get the spire level by transferring points in from Amex? Seem to recall reading that you can. If yes, how many?

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jul4 July 06:35

    Amex -> Virgin -> IHG but a bit of a waste IMO as only getting 0.4-0.5p / Amex. The maths could work if you’re only a bit short of SE (as it triggers the 25k bonus).

    • Genghis says:

      4 Jul4 July 06:35

      … and you’re towards the calendar year end with no more qualifying opportunities available.

• Paul says:

  4 Jul4 July 06:25

  I held the old IHG card issued by Barclaycard. Life was so much easier then in the old days!
  Whilst it’s great to get clarity I have to say that creation have made an industry out of this. Issue. The voucher should be issued as soon as the target is met and quickly. Good god, even BA manage to issue the 241 within a few days and not a month later.
  I did not take out the new card first due to this rediculous issue with the voucher and secondly because IHG don’t offer any benefits to Spire members let alone platinum that have worth. Hilton on the other do and Barclaycard still manage the credit card. I have just had the new voucher issued.
  IHG have some great hotels and good promotions but recognition is poor and the credit card is not great.

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jul4 July 06:40

    I disagree with quite a lot you say here. I think the message is inconsistency with IHG status. I’ve had upgrades, lounge access, SE helped get 10k IHGs from a £39 stay as compo, the extra 50% points etc as SE gained primarily from a card that is for earning opportunities the best widely available non-Amex card in the UK market.

    • Genghis says:

      4 Jul4 July 06:52

      … so as long as you can hit the £10k spend

      • Rob says:

        4 Jul4 July 08:07

        I got the Presidential Suite at the Kimoton in Amsterdam last week, and free lunch when my room wasn’t ready. The other 20 people waiting for rooms were not getting free lunch.

        • Genghis says:

          4 Jul4 July 08:32

          So it wasn’t “Hi, I’m Rob from Head for Points, a very successful travel and points blog in the UK”…? 🙂

        • Rob says:

          4 Jul4 July 08:54

          Nah … I’d booked a (junior) suite for cash and had a Spire Ambassador card, what choice did they have? Tell me to sit on the floor for an hour with the American tourists?

      • Leo says:

        4 Jul4 July 09:21

        Even with my own SE card you’ve put me right off the Kimpton!

  • Scallder says:

    4 Jul4 July 07:52

    There is also the issue with timing of the voucher and it’s expiry. Some people (including myself on a few occasions) were finding themselves stopping spend part way through the year to make sure the voucher wasn’t triggered. As a result you’re missing out on points.

    Knowing you get it at anniversary actually means that you can keep putting spend through and plan around the anniversary date in advance

    • Scallder says:

      4 Jul4 July 07:52

      Should say that I’ve halted spending on both the IHG card and the BA Alex for this reason in the past

      • Rob says:

        4 Jul4 July 08:07

        …… whicjnis probably part of the reasoning.

  • Alan says:

    4 Jul4 July 10:39

    I actually prefer knowing each year when I’ll receive the voucher – I find the Lloyds card annoying in that it issues the voucher bang on the £7k spend, therefore I end up having to stay below that to stop the voucher triggering. I end up with the card sitting in my drawer much of the year. By comparison with this Creation IHG card I’ve put almost £20k through it as there was no reason to hold off going over the £10k limit. I imagine that’s the kind of thing that made Creation switch to this method.

    I still think they should have been much clearer up front about a plan for the voucher and no-quibble refund of 2nd card year fee if unused, but they were certainly clear about when ther voucher would be issued.

• James says:

  4 Jul4 July 06:45

  I have the free IHG white at the moment, does anyone know if you can ‘upgrade’ to the £99 black card and still get the sign up bonus?

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jul4 July 06:46

    A separate application is possible

    • Alexander says:

      4 Jul4 July 07:46

      Can I have both IHG back and white cards at the same time or I need to cancel IHG white first in order to apply for black and get a sign up bonus? Thank you

      • Gareth says:

        4 Jul4 July 07:49

        Both at same time is allowed

        • Alan says:

          4 Jul4 July 10:41

          Indeed – have now got my 20k IHG from the promo offer and will be closing the White card soon 😛

        • Genghis says:

          4 Jul4 July 10:45

          Didn’t someone say that you have to wait 6 months before cancellation as it’s written in the T&Cs that if you cancel before then the bonus points can be clawed back?

        • Alan says:

          4 Jul4 July 10:57

          @Genghis – excellent point, forgot all about that! From T&Cs – “The 10,000 bonus Rewards points will be awarded upon generation of your first IHG Rewards Club Credit Card Statement after the Qualifying Spend. 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.” I’ll just get credit limit reduced instead (am wanting to take out AA card before 22nd August). Will close VS White once it posts bonus points as no minimum time to have it open.

• MWood says:

  4 Jul4 July 06:49

  Glad you’ve spoken to Creation as actually speaking to someone there is a long and tiresome process for often very little reward in terms of customer service.

  I’ve had the white card since launch but am yet to see either a spend point or bonus credited to my account. There’s loads of examples of issues people have with applying (check out Creation on TrustPilot). Creation just don’t seem well equipped to have this contract and it could be a bit of a stain on IHG for choosing to partner with them.

  • Sam wardill says:

    4 Jul4 July 06:56

    Totally with you on this. I was about to say the same. I lost my card and was hanging on for 45 mins to cancel. Creation also has no Apple Pay and no online PIN reminders. Not exactly an effective card issuer

    • Brighton Belle says:

      4 Jul4 July 09:32

      My moan about the Creation card is when I analyse my expenses a CSV file into excel is useful. I have yet to find a way to export transaction history. I asked Creation customer services how to do it and they said they’d ask technical support. It seems they are still trying to figure it out. Compared to the functionality in the Barclaycard version the statement functionality is pre historic.

• mark2 says:

  4 Jul4 July 06:49

  I would normally agree about the lack of recognition for Spire Elite, but last month we stayed for one night at the Holiday Inn in Vancouver BC. On check in my status was recognised and we were upgraded to an enormous suite on the top floor, albeit with a surprisingly small bathroom. No free breakfast of course, just the usual poor but expensive choice.
  This is probably the exception that proves the rule since most HI do not have suites and this hotel was definitely a cut above the average, except for food. I intend to use my last 30,000 points for two nights in Telford where I do not expect the experience to be repeated.

  • Liz says:

    4 Jul4 July 08:05

    We get great value out of IHG in the USA. Our recent trip had about 11 different bookings. One was a HI in St Louis. On arrival my name was printed on an award on the checkin desk as Guest Award of the day. They couldn’t offer us an upgraded room as the hotel was full due to a convention but we got free breakfast for 2 days, free drinks and huge bowl of fresh nachos and dips and $30 of free parking and 1000 welcome pts. Our final 3 nights in a Crown Plaza we got free exec lounge access for free breakfast and evening drinks and nibbles, upgraded to a huge beach view suite, free drinks voucher at the bar and 600 pts. All but one hotel gave us something for our status of SE and Platinum. I am keeping the card and will manage to hit SE for next year within the next couple of months.

    • Alan says:

      4 Jul4 July 10:43

      Nice result 😀 I had excellent treatment as HH Diamond in the States recently, but good to know IHG were doing a decent job too!

• rams1981 says:

  4 Jul4 July 07:27

  My wife lost her supplementary card on a weekend. Creation weren’t open but have a third party covering. We reported it stolen/lost and asked for card to be cancelled. Through this 3rd party you can’t ask for a replacement card so have to call back during the week when Creation are back.

  We forgot to do this until a week later. When my wife called they had no record of the stolen/lost card! They failed to link the card to my account despite taking down my card number so it should have been simple. The person on the phone line took down my name incorrectly and so they were unable to link the cards. Instead of calling me to clarify they left it.

  In the end it wasn’t an issue as there was no fraudulent spend but it highlights how amateurish they are.

  • Greg says:

    8 Jul8 July 01:59

    I had absolutely the same thing happened to me few month ago. I thought it just me …
    Unbelievable,it wouldn’t happen with Barclaycard!

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