Increased 80K Offer plus Waived AF for Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Card

• 5X points for spend at IHG properties
• 2X points for spend on purchases at gas stations, grocery stores & restaurants
• 1X points on everything else.

Features

• Platinum Elite status.
• No foreign exchange fees.
• Free anniversary night at any IHG property
• 10% points rebate on redemptions. (Up to 100K points back per year.)
• $49 annual fee is waived the first year.

Card Review

Both my wife and I have had this card for several years and we have no plans to cancel it. While we like the Platinum elite status and the 10% rebate is nice, the real reason to keep this card long term is for the annual free night. For a $49 annual fee you can routinely stay in $300-$500 hotels. For example, in the past I have used the free night certificate at the Intercontinental Times Square and the Intercontinental Hong Kong.

Bonus Analysis

The highest bonus I have seen on this card is 80K. There used to be zombie links around for that offer, however I haven’t seen any working 80K links for awhile. Once in awhile certain members are targeted with an offer for 80K, but that is rare these days.

This 75K offer is 15K more than the standard 60K offer. Now you can earn 70K for signing up and meeting the minimum spend and they have also added a 5K bonus for adding an authorized user that wasn’t there before. With redemptions as low as 5K for Point Breaks, 10K for the lowest category hotels and up to 60K (following their recent devaluation) for the highest tiers you can get a lot of value out of these points.

Better Offer?

Some people have had success getting an 80K offer with a $50 statement credit to show up by logging into their account, searching for a hotel and going to the booking confirmation screen. (You don’t actually need to complete the booking.) You might also be able to get Chase to match the 80K offer if you’ve applied recently.

5/24 & AUs?

You can’t get approved for some Chase cards if you have opened up 5 or more accounts across all banks during the past 24 months. As far as I know that rule isn’t in place for this card. You may also want to consider if it is a good idea to add a spouse or household member as an AU to your account for the extra bonus considering this may hurt them for future Chase applications, because that additional user card will count towards their number of cards.

Conclusion

This is the best public offer we have seen for the IHG Rewards Club credit card. We have seen higher targeted offers though. In my opinion this is a card worth getting and keeping long term, especially if you do it as a couple where you can align your free nights. I have no issue paying the annual fee, which is pretty reasonable at $49, and plan to keep this card for quite a long time barring any drastic changes.

HT: r/churning