Good news – spend on IHG’s UK hotel credit cards WILL continue to count for status

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• Ian says:

  22 Apr22 April 12:50

  Do IHG/Creation cards actually work anyway? Mine didn’t. Their online ‘security’ was utterly awful and meant that after about a month of having the card, every online transaction I attempted was declined. Then, having pointed out to Creation that the card was useless, it took another three months to get them to close the account.

  • Matty says:

    22 Apr22 April 14:37

    You should have linked it to a Curve card, bought some NS&I bonds and Creation would have closed your account in two months… 🙂

    • Kowalski says:

      22 Apr22 April 17:08

      Hahahahaha

    • Aston100 says:

      22 Apr22 April 17:31

      Excellent outside the box thinking there Matty.

  • RussellH says:

    22 Apr22 April 18:50

    Never had a problem using either the Marriott or the iHG card. Mostly in shops, but also online – mainly Council Tax + Utilities. In shops it often asks for a PIN only after a few contactless transactions, but I see that as +ve.
    My problem is the credit limit. Just been turned down for an increase from the £3850 limit on the Marriott card, so I could put some home improvements on it. [£3850 is fine for routine spending, obviously.]
    The limit on the iHG card is a bit higher, but I do not want to use that card – we have plenty of IHG points anyway!

    I had long had the impression that Creation did not give large credit limits, but since Rob mentions people putting £60,000 per year through the IHG Premium Mastercard, some people must have got much higher credit limits out of them!

    • marks7389 says:

      22 Apr22 April 19:22

      I think I had ~£12K on mine, until Creation decided to cancel it. The irony being I could easily have put a lot more through it than I did in everyday spend rather than using other cards. Yet, seemingly because it was linked to Curve, I was deemed to be an unprofitable / undesirable customer.

      It does seem likely that the cards days are numbered for remaining cardholders. I would advise anyone who has one not to bank on Creation honouring any outstanding points or vouchers when they do finally exit.

    • Rui N. says:

      22 Apr22 April 20:16

      People were putting £60k per week just a few months ago… just need to pay mid-cycle (of course, not very useful for very large purchases)

    • Tim says:

      23 Apr23 April 08:01

      I found out the other week that apparently Creation suspended credit card limit reviews during the last two years of the pandemic. Now wanting to use the card for more of my spending, I had filled out their online credit limit request form and got the acknowledgment email to say I’d get a decision with 5 working days. I heard no more of course and so called them. The agent did say that they were now thinking of resuming limit reviews over the coming months, and she was able to give me a smaller than requested increase there and then.

  • Tim says:

    23 Apr23 April 07:53

    If I’m going to have a problem with a credit card, it will undoubtedly be the IHG/Creation one. The retailer won’t be able to connect to them for an authorisation, sometimes it’s taken ages for the necessary security code to be texted, or they’ll decide to decline it out of security concerns, but are in no rush to reach out to you to verify it was a genuine transaction. And the fact they only work office hours means there’s no 24/7 support. Deep down I hope IHG changes its U.K. card partner at some point.

• Jennifer says:

  22 Apr22 April 21:13

  From those at the bottom of this pile in terms of status – free IHG card/silver elite status – the worry is that if the UK card(s) are likely to be cancelled at some point, what happens to points built up painfully by the odd stay or bought when the bonus offer was good and there were still some ‘sweet spots’ for points-only bookings? Having sold them to you themselves, surely they can’t just void them/expire them and say you no longer have any status to use them?

  • Rob says:

    22 Apr22 April 21:55

    Expiry rules are very lenient. They never expire if you have status, and any activity (doesn’t even need to be a stay) once every 12 months protects points for non-status members.

• @mkcol says:

  22 Apr22 April 22:55

  Hmmmmm…worth buying 60k Marriott points to see PSB? 🤔

• Ruralite says:

  22 Apr22 April 23:07

  Just had latest Creation/IHG statement, which is the first one after the membership status change, and the points have indeed credited my IHG account as elite qualifying

• ashic says:

  23 Apr23 April 06:24

  Any news on new IHG cards for the UK? Chase seems to have entered the UK personal card market, and over in the States, they do the IHG cards. They recently announced some changes to go along with the new IHG rewards programme.

• James W says:

  23 Apr23 April 09:45

  Interesting on the IHG front given the credit card population has probably halved if not more in the last 12 months and no sign of new custom thanks to Creation pulling all cards from the market.

• Jennifer says:

  24 Apr24 April 11:10

  Thank you for clarification on expiring points, Rob – very quick reply and very much appreciated, despite the shameful tardiness of this reply!

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