Chase IHG card missing?

[wasCB14]

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@Anonymouswrote:
You can't even get a room at Motel 6 for the same price as the $49 IHG Annual Fee, there's no way you found rooms at an IHG property for the $49 or even for a 50% increase ($74).

They definitely aren't going to nerf your free, unrestricted, night for the first year at least.

As other posters pointed out it's waived the first year so there really is no downside to applying for it right now. I wish I could without risking AA.

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You don't get the first free night until you've had the card for about 11 months. It is called, after all, the Anniversary Free Night. So I'm not certain how safe it is.

[Random_idiot]

I hope they don’t restrict the free nights.. that’s literally the only reason why I have this card.. but maybe this is the only way to free up those that hog the bora bora dates

[red259]

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@Anonymouswrote:
You can't even get a room at Motel 6 for the same price as the $49 IHG Annual Fee, there's no way you found rooms at an IHG property for the $49 or even for a 50% increase ($74).

They definitely aren't going to nerf your free, unrestricted, night for the first year at least.

As other posters pointed out it's waived the first year so there really is no downside to applying for it right now. I wish I could without risking AA.

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I never claimed I was trying to redeem with IHG certs. I almost never stay at IHG properties. I was referring to other chase hotel cards. For example marriott that would give a free night but then cap what categories you could use it at, which made it pretty much useless at many major destinations since there were no categories in the lower levels available in the area and at the off-season times I was able to find room rates comparable to the AF at least for the marriott card once you factored in discounts and all. There are caps on both the certs for the marriott and hyatt cards. It seems likely that the IHG card will follow the same trend given the language we are hearing about the new card. You certainly can not say they won't nerf the certificate in the first year. They most certainly can and probably already had the language in the old terms allowing them to do so. People who apply now won't even get their certs until next year, so there is no way to be sure what kinda value those certificates will hold by then. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymouswrote:

As far as nerfing the Free Night for people with the $49 card who just applied for it and haven't hit their Anniversary yet that would be a Bait & Switch which Chase is not i fan of exactly. 

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No such thing since Chase is allowed to change the terms at any time. Bait and switch is a term used for fraud. 

[Anonymous]

I think we would all do well to remember that credit from any lender is a privilege and not a right. We must understand and accept the terms of service, and as consumers we are free to take our business elsewhere if we don’t like those terms be they new, changed, or otherwise. We are all in search of what is best personally and financially for ourselves, and the lenders are in business for profit. The sharing of information on these forums is outstanding and I believe makes us wiser consumers. We share information on lenders as the lenders do on us!

[red259]

Soo glad I did not give in to the panic and waste an app on this card. Chase just devalued the free night. Any certs issued after 5/1/18 can only be used at properties that are available for 40k points or less. So no more top end redemptions.

[MrDisco99]

Yep. I just saw where TPG reported it. So much for my free Bora Bora vacation.

Seriously though, it is a bummer that they are limiting the free night, but at a 40K point max that’s still decent value for the $49 AF. I may keep it anyway.

[red259]

That $49 AF is next on the chopping block. Don't they waive the AF in the first year?

[MAZDA3]

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@red259wrote:
Soo glad I did not give in to the panic and waste an app on this card. Chase just devalued the free night. Any certs issued after 5/1/18 can only be used at properties that are available for 40k points or less. So no more top end redemptions.

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There are still plenty of high-end redemption possibilities. Intercontinental Buenos Aires comes to mind. And the Indigo brand has lots of nice properties under 40k. Indigo Wireless Road in Bangkok is a fantastic hotel. I stay there over the IC which has become dated. IC Santo Domingo is another fantastic hotel. Even the IC Kuala Lumpur is highly underrated. 

Besides, the new card has the fourth night free, so you can easily turn a three day weekend in Europe into four days. Keep the old card for the 10% rebate. 

It does make certain cities like Singapore, Sydney, and Paris a bit more challenging, but 55k points for Indigo Paris Opera isn’t bad (the hotel is spectacular). 

[kdm31091]

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@Anonymouswrote:
MountainDew you took one tiny snippet out of the entirety of my post which makes it seem out of context.

I said it's my opinion that it would be like a Bait and Switch which is something Chase usually doesn't do. I offered a feasible way Chase may go about it instead so that the loads of people that applied in 2018 still do get their Free Night in 2019, even if it's only one time that is a major factor in people signing up as well as keeping the card past the Annual Fee.

Yes, a credit card is a privilege no one is arguing that it is not. But keep in mind that people did sign up under certain terms and expectations and it's very frowned upon, though it is within a lender's ability, to remove a crucial element of a card prior to cardholders ever being able to even use it. My thought, as mentioned before, is that they'll honor it until 1 year from the date that the card gets axed to give new cardholders the opportunity to at least use it once under the terms they signed up for, many people signed up for that benefit alone.

As I said this is solely speculation based on Chase's past trends and Chase may do as they wish within the card's terms.

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Reward benefits (such as the free night) are not protected by the CARD act or anything like that....an issuer is free to change these whenever they wish, with no obligation to grandfather anyone for any amount of time. In practice, many do grandfather users for x amount of time, but there's no requirement.

I understand many people signed up for the free night, but Chase doesn't see it that  way. They presumably expected ongoing spend on the cards, not just people using the free night and otherwise not using the card. So my guess is the benefit was becoming costly and had to be reduced somewhat.