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

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• Simon says:

  4 Jul4 July 09:12

  I know that no one will have one yet, but what’s the validity on the free night voucher? Just planning a ski trip in early 2019!

• Alan says:

  4 Jul4 July 09:13

  Glad they finally saw sense/worked out a consistent message. That will have saved them a lot in FOS referral fees!

  Agree it’s a decent card though, I’ll be keeping it.

• D.C. says:

  4 Jul4 July 09:18

  I spoke to a supervisor at Creation this morning about the misinformation coming out of their customer service centre. If anyone was advised that they would still receive the free night even if they cancelled the card before the 1st anniversary, and did so (like me!) go back to them and ask them to revisit the telephone conversation (all calls recorded) for the day you spoke to them, and hopefully they will honour the free night voucher.

  • Talay says:

    4 Jul4 July 09:32

    I have two other creation cards and their customer service simply lies and writes incorrect information on their CRM system after you finish your call.

    I have had to have them pull tapes back to confirm what was offered and even then they tried to squirm out of it.

    Their new card however offers no FX fees at all and trumps the Supercard / LLoyds one as it is fee free.

• ian lipowicz says:

  4 Jul4 July 09:31

  I have a very long family stay planned at Waldorf Astoria Orlando over xmas booked through a Virtuoso agent. Will I get any added benefits if I get the Hilton card and hit spend prior to stay?

  • Rob says:

    4 Jul4 July 10:42

    Not really. I assume Virtuoso gets you free breakfast and in any event, Waldorf-Astoria hotels do not give free breakfast to Gold members (although Conrad hotels do, oddly).

    Hilton status, in general, is also worth far less in the US than it is elsewhere because Hilton showers status on credit card holders. It is even possible to get Diamond via a credit card in the US.

    The only reason to do it would be this. You get the free night voucher and then you cut your existing booking down by 1 night, swapping the last night for the card free night (if your last night is a weekend night). It is 99% certain that the hotel will let you keep the same room, although you’d be paying for breakfast that day.

    • LB says:

      4 Jul4 July 11:52

      Slightly OT but related to Hilton stays – I have 2 reward nights (free night certs) booked at the Doubletree Amsterdam. The first night is in my partners name and the second, mine. At the time of booking neither of us had status with Hilton but I’m now Diamond. Ideally, I’d have booked my night to be the first night and hoped for the upgrade to be continued into the second booking, if I was Diamond when I booked. Any advice as to how to receive “Diamond” benefits…

    • ian says:

      5 Jul5 July 18:36

      thanks-

      yes getting free breakfast. Booked through Emyr…..

• Joseph Heenan says:

  4 Jul4 July 10:00

  I think Creation were already somewhat taking the mickey by making you wait upto 12 months after you hit the spending target to get the free night voucher.

  If I read what Rob has written correctly, it’s now upto 14 months – you need to wait for the anniversary, then 30 days for them to charge you the fee, then ‘a month, give or take’ for you to actually receive it.

  That really seems like a particularly poor way to reward the card holders that actually consider holding the card long term. As others point out, the contrast to the BA AMEX 241 voucher is startlingly and shows Creation in a very bad light.

  • Alan says:

    4 Jul4 July 10:53

    I agree it should be at the 12 month mark (not 14), but I can understand why they don’t issue it immediately – see other comments from many of us that hold back on spend on cards like Lloyds as we don’t want to trigger a voucher. This must generate them a lot more revenue in interchange fees as a result.

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    4 Jul4 July 13:11

    It’s not too different from the Amex Gold though, right (12 months rather than 14 but still)?

• Pangolin says:

  4 Jul4 July 10:12

  I struggle to see the value of Platinum status at IHG, having held it for six months due to owning this card.

  At IC it’s worth nothing – you have to have AMB to see any benefits.
  At HI(X) the rooms are essentially the same, so you can get an enhanced room on a higher floor but that’s really it. Even when I have received a category upgrade I’ve noticed that the room I’ve been upgraded to is essentially identical in size/facilities, with the only difference being an in-room coffee machine, for instance.
  There’s Indigo and Kimpton but neither of those has much of a footprint within the program so they won’t have much impact on a frequent travellers’ experience.
  That only leaves CP – which was the one brand that DID give lip service to status and treated Plats well. Except that now CPs have been told they don’t have to give any lounge access to Plats and user experiences (see forums like FlyerTalk) show that it’s become a lot harder to get lounge access without Spire, even in Asia.

  Even Spire doesn’t have much guaranteed recognition – you’re still at the mercy of individual properties who can withhold any benefits they want apart from the welcome drink/points. Don’t even compare IHG Spire to SPG Plat – it’s a joke in comparison.

  So what you’re really left with is the ability to build up points quicker. And this is the one area where IHG actually works. You can rack up points quickly, especially with the Accelerate programs. So if your main goal is getting award nights then there’s still value in it. Yet unlike the others (e.g. SPG, MR) IHG doesn’t treat reward stays the same as cash booking (OK Marriott is also lousy at recognition for Resort hotels but SPG is untouchable in every respect).

  But don’t take my word for it – read the IHG forums on Flyer Talk for some excellent commentary on how poor the IHG recognition is in comparison to others.

  • Andy says:

    4 Jul4 July 10:38

    Maybe I’m just lucky, but I seem to do okay out of being Spire. If I check into anywhere with someone else I always get 2 drinks vouchers, usually a nice room even if it’s not an upgrade, though I do usually get upgrades, I even got upgraded to a penthouse suite once, though that was for a special occasion. As Spire in China recently I seemed to get F&B credit too, which was most useful in the IC HK where I had about £14 knocked off my £17 cocktail!

    It would be nice if the benefits were more concrete rather than “turn up and hope” but my experience has usually been fairly positive.

    • Alex W says:

      4 Jul4 July 12:04

      Sorry but 2 free drinks and/or a £14 cocktail does not cut it compared to Marriott or Hilton where I always get free breakfast, lounge access where there is one, and usually other extras thrown in too.

      • CV3V says:

        4 Jul4 July 12:55

        +1

• BW says:

  4 Jul4 July 10:56

  I can confirm that after raising this in social media yesterday, BNP Paribas have advised me via email of the exact same information contained in this article.

• Roger says:

  4 Jul4 July 11:57

  Mild OT-IHG

  I haven’t used Q2 Accelerate at all, but is there generally a Q3 (JUL-SEP) Accelerate or other similar promotion?
  Also IIRC current 5000 points reward nights finishes at end of this month. Do we know if this repeats for 1st August onwards?

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jul4 July 13:18

    They don’t really work to Quarters – at least not to the official English or Scottish Quarters.

    The current Accelerate promotion started mid-May and runs until the end of August. There’ll probably be another one from September to December, but you can never be sure until they start.

  • Pangolin says:

    4 Jul4 July 13:27

    The Q1, Q2, etc. is not quite the same as quarters. Generally there are 3 main periods for Accelerate. The current one (known as Q2) runs to August 31. Then there will be a short hiatus and the next one will start (early Sep – mid Dec). Confusingly, this can be referred to as Q3 (and some could even call it Q4). American sites will also call it the ‘Fall Promotion’.

    Of course this is going on what’s happened previously and the Accelerate programme could change at any time but currently you should expect the next program to start in the dates given above.

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