The Chase IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card has a limited-time promotion where you can get 70,000 bonus IHG points after you spend $1,000 within the first 3 months of account opening. The previous bonus was 60k points. This card also has the annual fee waived for the first year. So the question is what will 70,000 of these lesser-known IHG points get you? Put another way, how much should I value a single IHG point?
Here are the card highlights plus my notes from the fine print:
- Earn 70,000 bonus points after you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months of account opening. “After qualifying, please allow 6 to 8 weeks for bonus points to post to your account. This new cardmember bonus offer is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of this consumer credit card, or (ii) previous cardmembers of this consumer credit card who received a new cardmember bonus for this consumer credit card within the last 24 months.”
- Annual free night award after each year of card membership, valid at any IHG hotel. “Anniversary Free Night is valid at hotels in the IHG® Rewards Club Family of Brands and must be redeemed, and stay must be completed, within 12 months from date of issue. Anniversary Free Night is valid for one standard room night rate and applicable taxes only. Rooms are limited, subject to prior sale and availability of allocated resources and may be unavailable during high demand periods.”
- 10{01de1f41f0433b1b992b12aafb3b1fe281a5c9ee7cd5232385403e933e277ce6} rebate on all points redemptions, up to 100,000 rebated points per year.
- Platinum Elite status as long as you remain a cardmember. Platinum elite is their highest elite tier and usually requires staying 50+ nights a year. Perks include priority check-in, free room upgrades based on availability, and bonus earning on top of base points. Everyone gets free WiFi internet as well.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- $0 introductory annual fee the first year, then $49.
In terms of rewards on purchases, cardmembers will:
- Earn 5 points for each $1 spent at IHG hotels
- Earn 2 points per $1 spent on purchases at gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants
- Earn 1 point for $1 spent on everything else.
IHG stands for Intercontinental Hotel Group which has over 4,700 hotels including the following brands:
- Intercontinental® Hotels & Resorts
- Crowne Plaza®
- Holiday Inn®, Holiday Inn Express
- Staybridge Suites®
- Candlewood Suites®
- Hotel Indigo®
- EVEN Hotels
IHG Point Value Comparisons
IHG Rewards Club puts out a new list of PointBreaks hotels every few months where you can redeem a hotel night for only 5,000 points. That means your 70,000 bonus points from this card could technically earn you 14 free nights! If those hotel rooms would otherwise cost $100 a night including taxes, you’d be getting $1,400 value from 70,000 points. Valuing the hotels at $50 a night including taxes, you’d be getting $700 value from 70,000 points. This is where you can see valuations anywhere between 1.5 cents and 2 cents per IHG point.
But that’s not very realistic. There are some nice hotels on the list, but the locations are very specific and few people are sufficiently flexible with their travel to constantly take advantage of these deals.
I recently spent a week at a Staybridge Suites in Austin with my family and it was great. The room felt like an apartment with a living room, full kitchen, and separate bedroom. Every morning there was a buffet breakfast with eggs, bacon, cereal, bagels, fruit, yogurt, juice, and so on that I could grab and bring back into my suite where the kids could run around. I’ll be returning and willing to pay the going rate again, so how much would it cost me in points?
Here’s an actual rate quote for 9/16 to 9/22 for the same Staybridge Suites:
Keep in mind that the quote doesn’t include taxes, which would make the $148 average nightly rate into $170 with taxes. The 25,000 points per night include taxes, so that would work out to roughly 0.7 cents per point in value. At that rate, 70,000 points would be worth $490.
Also note that with the 25,000 point redemption, you can cancel up until the very last minute (6pm local time the day of check-in), while the $170 rate is a non-refundable advance purchase. The true equivalent refundable room rate is $203, or $233 per night including taxes. That is more like 0.9 cents per IHG point, where 70,000 points would be worth $630.
You can perform the same calculations for hotels that fit your needs. I tried a bunch of other various combinations and always got between 0.6 cents and 1.1 cents per point equivalent value.
In terms of luxury hotel room nights, let’s try the same week at the InterContinental New York Times Square:
You’re looking at $493 a night including taxes for non-refundable advance purchase, or $576 including taxes for refundable. Points would cost 50,000 a night, making it roughly 1 to 1.1 cents per point value. At that rate 70,000 points = $700 to $770.
Recap
While it is certainly possible to get $700+ value out of the 70k point bonus, I would stick with a more conservative estimate of $400 (~0.6 cents a point) and hope to be pleasantly surprised. But it’s an easily achievable $400-$500 value at a wide variety of hotels from budget to luxury (32 IHG hotels in Austin, TX area alone for example) with no blackout dates making it suitable for all types of travelers. The annual fee is waived for the first year, so you can enjoy the other perks of the card like 10{01de1f41f0433b1b992b12aafb3b1fe281a5c9ee7cd5232385403e933e277ce6} point rebate and complimentary Platinum Elite status. After that, you’ll have to decide based on your travel habits if the $49 annual fee is sufficiently offset by the free hotel night perk.
In terms of putting all your spending on this card, since I think an IHG point is often worth less than a cent per point on average, it is not as good an all-around rewards card as many of its competitors. I might put my IHG paid hotel stays on it, but that’s about it.
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Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card Review: What Does 70,000 Points Get You? from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2015.
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