IHG Premier Review
Tl;dr: with a large welcome bonus, elite status and huge points returns on IHG properties, and a free night each year to offset the annual fee, the IHG Premier could be a useful addition to your travel arsenal.
In our ranking of the best cards on the market, the IHG Premier took a podium spot, coming in at #3. IHG isn’t exactly a household name, even though it counts a few—like the Holiday Inn—among its brands, so how does its co-branded credit card rank among the very best in the industry?
Well, it adds a lot to your travel and points strategy. You can book directly with IHG hotels and get big discounts and an elevated experience as a Platinum elite member. The card offers elevated points earning on categories like gas, tolls, and parking that many other top cards leave at the base earning rate. And the card offers unique perks like credits toward flights with United Airlines and a 4th night free on award stays. If you don’t have any other Chase card or any other Mastercard, it also comes with access to Chase Offers and SimplyMiles for savings that you might not otherwise be able to access.
All that for a $99 annual fee which is more than offset by the welcome offer (in year 1) and the free night stay (each year on renewal). Few other cards can offer that kind of up-front and lasting value.
Quick ratings
3️⃣ #3, Best Cards 2024
💎 Elite card
🆓 No net fee
🦥 Lazy
🤓 Points nerd
⬆️ Upgraded travel
🛡️ Travel protections
🔒 Shopping protections
Bonus
140,000 IHG One Rewards points is the standard bonus on this card.
The best we’ve seen is 175,000 points, and the offer has gotten as high as 165k or 5 nights before.
Check out the offer history on Award Wallet. In general, I think this is a great card that is worth having even with the standard offer, and increased offers are rare enough to probably not be worth waiting for, but worth pouncing on when they come around.
Net fee
Annual fee:
$99
Credits and offsets:
Anniversary free night worth up to 40k points ($100-200 value)
$100 credit and 10k points after spending $20,000 (per calendar year)
$50 United TravelBank Cash ($25 January-June, $25 July-December; expires if not used)
Typical net annual fee:
$0 or negative
Earning
Up to* 26x IHG Points per dollar spent at IHG
10x from the card
10x from rewards program membership (available to anyone)
6x from the 60% bonus from Platinum status
*Some properties offer fewer points than the standard 10x.
5x on gas, dining, and travel
3x on all other spending
Perks
IHG Platinum Elite status (60% bonus points, complimentary upgrades, welcome amenity at check–in, early check in and late checkout where available)
Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit every 4 years
4th night free on award stays
Save 20% on rewards points purchases
Protections
Here’s how the IHG Premier stacks up on common consumer protections:
No foreign transaction fees ✅
Trip Delay Insurance 🚫
Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance ✅
Baggage Insurance ✅
Baggage Delay Insurance ✅ ($100/day, up to three days)
Rental Car Insurance ✅
Purchase Protection ✅
Return Protection 🚫
Extended Warranty ✅
Cell Phone Insurance 🚫
Travel Accident Insurance ✅
Chase’s explanation of benefits.
Hacks
Stack your IHG discounts. In addition to the huge haul of IHG points you can earn by using the Premier to book a stay (26x), you can also usually earn 3-10% cash back by booking via Rakuten. On top of that, SimplyMiles often offers AA miles for booking certain properties (like the Holiday Inn Express) with a linked MasterCard like the Premier, and Chase even occasionally offers merchant offers on certain IHG stays. All told, you might be able to get 30% or more back in rewards if your timing is good and you maximize all those opportunities.
Link to SimplyMiles. Speaking of SimplyMiles, be sure to register over there and link your IHG Premier card to earn extra AA miles on things like gas, shopping, hotel stays, and more (activation required).
Look out for spending offers. Chase will occasionally offer additional points for putting more spending on the card. For instance, in January I was offered 5k points if I spent $3,000 in the next 45 days, and in April I was offered 10k points for spending $5,000 in three months. These bonuses could push the Premier’s points returns from “solid” to “excellent.”
Points/Rewards
⭐ (1/5)
Nerdwallet estimates that IHG points are worth .5¢/point, and I think that’s a fairly accurate estimate most of the time. So, unfortunately, IHG points are among the least valuable you can earn. And it will take a lot of them to book a room, with nights in cheaper areas in Europe and Japan often coming in around 15,000 points per night, and hotels in major US cities mostly starting in the 30,000-point range. Points earned with IHG can’t be efficiently transferred elsewhere, so you have limited opportunities to maximize their value (as compared to, say, transferrable bank points), and are at risk of devaluations, as occurred this past summer.
That said, if you travel abroad they can often be stretched fairly efficiently, and card’s 4th night free perk on award stays can help you get more value out of the points.
Laziness rating
🦥🦥🦥🦥 (4/5)
The IHG Premier is a simple card to hold onto. You only need to remember to take advantage of your free night award to break even on the annual fee (unless you use it at a very cheap hotel). You can basically reserve this card only for spending on IHG hotel stays, and it’ll be brilliant in that role. It also earns well on gas and transportation (tolls, parking, and bus/subway fare all fit within Chase’s definition of “travel”), and Chase’s merchant offers create opportunities to get good value on the occasional purchase throughout the year. Redemptions are also pretty straightforward and easy to make on IHG’s app or website.
Of course, to truly make the most of this card you’ll need to be slightly more involved. That requires trying to take advantage of the 4th night free perk as often as possible to stretch points, and checking the value of your points redemptions to make sure you’re redeeming efficiently. You’ll also want to take advantage of shopping portal and merchant offers as much as possible. But even if you skip all these extra steps, the IHG will still be a valuable contributer in your credit card portfolio.
Alternatives
For other cards that offer elite status, a free night each year, and solid earning rates with a specific hotel chain, consider the Choice Privileges Select or the World of Hyatt card. The Choice card offers Platinum status (including 25% bonus points, early check-in and late checkout, a welcome gift, customer service hotline, and room upgrades) and earns 5x Choice points on gas, groceries, home improvement, and phone plans. The Hyatt card comes with Discoverist status (including 10% bonus points, premium internet, bottled water, upgrades to preferred rooms, and late checkout) and earns double points on dining, airline tickets, gym memberships, and commuting expenses.
What I like about the IHG Premier, Choice Privileges Select, and World of Hyatt cards is that they are valuable for even the occasional traveler. The Marriott Boundless and Hilton Surpass, by contrast, are useful cards for certain loyalists of those programs but won’t make much sense for casual travelers. The Marriott card offers no real perks or earning potential outside of Marriott, while the Hilton card requires you to pay for a Hilton at least three times (in three separate fiscal quarters, no less) just to break even on the annual fee.
Card Pairings
The IHG Premier is a great niche roleplayer in a wallet, but the day-to-day spending should generally be left to cards that earn lots of flexible rewards like the Capital One Venture X (2x on all purchases), Amex Gold (4x on dining and groceries), or Bilt Mastercard (3x on dining, 1x on rent).
If you don’t mind paying a net annual fee, the Amex Platinum is the perfect complement to the IHG Premier. With the two cards you can have IHG Platinum status and Hilton & Marriott Gold status. You’ll also get access to premium hotel perks through Amex’s Fine Hotels & Resorts and Hotel Collection offerings. Platinum cardholders have historically been able to use that card’s airline incidental credit to load up their TravelBank balance. That $200 credit combined with the Premier’s $25 TravelBank credit can amount to a free or heavily discounted flight on United each year.
Conclusion
With its free night award each year making it a net-zero (or net-negative) fee card for most consumers, the IHG Premier’s unique collection of perks and discounts on IHG stays, elevated earning rates on key spending categories, and benefits like credits toward United Flights and Global Entry make it an extremely valuable addition to most people’s wallets.
If you are interested in picking up the IHG Premier, consider using our referral link HERE to support us if the offer makes sense.