Chase and IHG Hotels & Resorts are giving their hotel credit card lineup a major overhaul, including the launch of a new premium card that will cost travelers $350 a year.
The companies announced the new IHG One Rewards Premier Select World Elite Mastercard on Monday, alongside significant changes to three existing IHG cards.
There are new food and beverage credits, airline credits, and shortcuts to perks within the IHG One Rewards loyalty program. There are also some pretty substantial annual fee increases.
Chase says the idea is to have something for everyone, whether you stay at an IHG hotel once or twice a year or practically live in one.
“Everybody travels differently, and there’s different use cases,” Chris Cracchiolo, president of cobranded cards at JPMorgan Chase, said during a press briefing about the changes. “There’s the occasional leisure traveler. There’s the heavy business traveler. There’s the elite member, and there’s people just getting to know the IHG rewards status and brand. We want to serve them all, and we feel like we did that with the card lineup.”
IHG now has a $350 credit card
The biggest addition is the IHG One Rewards Premier Select World Elite Mastercard, a new premium card with a $350 annual fee.
That puts it well above IHG’s existing cards, but it also comes with a lengthy list of credits designed to help frequent travelers make up that cost.
There’s up to $300 a year in Food & Beverage Rewards that can be used at IHG properties, doled out as $75 in credits each quarter. The card also comes with a $200 annual statement credit on qualifying airline purchases and up to $50 in United TravelBank Cash. However, there’s a catch with that airline credit: You need to make a direct airline purchase of at least $250 to trigger it.
The card’s Anniversary Free Night can be used for a room costing up to 60,000 IHG One Rewards points. If your hotel costs more, you can add points from your own account to make up the difference.
On the earning side, travelers get up to 28x total points on IHG stays, 6x points on dining and other travel, including rideshare, and 3x points on other purchases.
But one of the more interesting perks has less to do with spending points and more to do with earning status.
The card comes with automatic Platinum Elite status and 20 Elite Night Credits every calendar year. IHG’s Milestone Rewards program starts at 20 qualifying nights, so simply having the card essentially drops you onto the first rung of the Milestone ladder without spending 20 nights in hotels.
IHG introduced Milestone Rewards as part of its loyalty program overhaul in 2022. Members get another reward choice every 10 qualifying nights beginning at 20 nights, with options that can include bonus points, Food & Beverage Rewards, and Confirmable Suite Upgrades.
“One of the things that we wanted to do with this product was create more opportunities for those frequent travelers to progress through our IHG1 Rewards program,” Anuja Stites, vice president of loyalty performance and partnerships at IHG Hotels & Resorts, said during the briefing. And those 20 credits aren’t just a head start toward something later.
“They’re going to unlock a milestone reward as soon as that happens, where they can choose between bonus points, food and beverage rewards, or confirmable speed upgrades,” Stites said.
IHG isn’t hiding who it expects to sign up for the card, either. “At the $350 annual fee, this Premier Select product is really built for our card members who consistently choose IHG; it delivers recognition, value, rewards for these most engaged members,” Stites said. “They love status, they love premium perks, and they actually want these benefits to reflect how they travel.”
Big spenders can push those perks even further. Stites said Premier Select cardholders can unlock Diamond Elite status after $25,000 in spending and another free-night award after spending $40,000.
The $99 Premier card is jumping to $150
You don’t have to sign up for the new card to see some big changes. IHG and Chase are also revamping the existing IHG One Rewards Premier World Elite Mastercard, which currently costs $99 a year. Its new annual fee will be $150.
For that extra $51, cardholders are getting some new credits. There’s up to $100 annually in Food & Beverage Rewards, distributed as four $25 quarterly credits, as well as a $100 airline statement credit. Like the premium card, you’ll need to make a direct airline purchase of at least $250 to trigger that airline credit.
The card’s Anniversary Free Night is getting an upgrade, too. Instead of being capped at 40,000 points, it will be redeemable for a night costing up to 50,000 points. You’ll still be able to add your own IHG points if you have your eye on something pricier.
The earning structure is changing as well. The revamped card earns up to 24x total points on IHG stays, 5x points on flights booked directly, car rentals, dining, gas and grocery purchases, and 3x points on everything else.
There are a few trade-offs buried in the changes. The current Premier earns 5x across a broader travel category. Now, that rate will apply only to flights booked directly with airlines and car rentals rather than travel purchases more broadly.
Automatic status is also changing with the refresh. The existing IHG card comes with Platinum Elite status, while the revamped version starts you at Gold Elite. However, you’ll get 15 Elite Night Credits every calendar year, plus two more for every $5,000 you spend, giving you a way to work your way higher.
Chase knows the $51 fee hike is likely to get some attention.
“We know that fee increases matter to card members, and that’s why the added value that you get from the cards goes well beyond the annual fee,” Lisa DeRosa, managing director and head of the IHG card portfolio at Chase, said. “In fact, the airline statement credit and the new food and beverage rewards offset the annual fee altogether.”
That’s true on paper. Whether it works out that way for you depends on whether you would actually use those credits. It’s also the second fee increase for longtime Premier cardholders in a few years. IHG and Chase raised the annual fee from $89 to $99 in 2022 during the last big revamp of the loyalty program.
Don’t want an annual fee? There’s still an IHG card for that
IHG isn’t abandoning travelers who don’t want to pay for a hotel credit card. The IHG One Rewards Traveler Card is being renamed the IHG One Rewards Credit Card and will continue to have no annual fee.
The revamped card earns up to 17x total points on IHG stays, 3x points on dining, gas and groceries, and 2x points on everything else. It also comes with automatic Silver Elite status and five Elite Night Credits each year.
But this card has a couple of notable catches. Right now, Traveler cardholders get the fourth night free when redeeming points for four consecutive nights. That’s an automatic perk with no spending requirement. Under the new setup, you’ll have to spend $5,000 on the card during a calendar year before you can use it.
Streaming is also disappearing as a bonus category. The current Traveler earns 3x points on select streaming services. Under the new earning structure, those purchases will fall into the 2x catchall category instead.
“The card continues to deliver strong value at no annual fee, with benefits like automatic silver elite status, five elite night credits, and points on every stay and purchase,” DeRosa said.
So the card is still free to carry. You’ll just have to do a little more work to unlock one of its most useful hotel perks.
The business card is getting a $101 price hike
Business cardholders aren’t escaping the overhaul. The IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card is becoming the IHG One Rewards Business Credit Card, and its annual fee is jumping from $99 to $200.
In return, the revamped card comes with up to $100 a year in Food & Beverage Rewards, a $100 airline statement credit, and up to $100 in statement credits toward Expensify purchases.
It also includes an Anniversary Free Night worth up to 50,000 points, automatic Platinum Elite status, and 15 Elite Night Credits each year. Cardholders can earn up to 26x total points on IHG stays, 5x points across several business and travel spending categories, and 3x points on other purchases.
One perk is going away, though. The United Airlines TravelBank benefit currently offered on the business card will disappear beginning in January, Chase confirmed during the briefing.
Across the lineup, those Elite Night Credits are a big part of what IHG is trying to accomplish with the new cards.
“This gives these card members a head start on earning elevated IHG status and unlocking those milestone rewards I mentioned earlier, and they can accelerate that status even more through spending,” Stites said.
The welcome bonuses are huge
If all of that sounds appealing, Chase and IHG are also dangling some hefty welcome bonuses at launch. Through November 18, new Premier Select cardholders can earn 200,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 in the first three months.
The revamped Premier comes with 180,000 points after spending $3,000 in three months. The no-annual-fee card offers 125,000 points after $2,000 in spending, while new business cardholders can earn 190,000 points after spending $5,000 during their first three months.
Those offers are considerably larger than what Chase was advertising immediately before the overhaul. The $99 Premier card was offering 140,000 points after $3,000 in spending, while the Traveler offered 80,000 points after spending $2,000.
IHG says those points can be redeemed across more than 7,000 hotels spanning 21 brands worldwide. Its loyalty program has more than 160 million members.
What happens if you already have an IHG card?
Existing cardholders don’t need to do anything immediately. Chase says customers will receive details in October explaining their new benefits and when the changes kick in. The higher annual fees on existing cards won’t take effect until 2027, when each cardholder’s annual fee comes due.
And that’s when things get interesting. There is considerably more value packed into some of these cards than before, particularly if you regularly stay at IHG properties and can use the new food and beverage credits. The Elite Night Credits could also be particularly useful for travelers chasing status or Milestone Rewards.
But these aren’t straight upgrades. Some earning categories are narrowing, some perks are disappearing, and the Premier and Business cards are getting substantially more expensive. Chase and IHG argue that the new credits can more than make up for those higher fees. For some travelers, they probably will. For others, it might be time to pull out the calculator before that next annual fee hits.
