At the start of April Chase announced negative changes to the free night certificate on the IHG Select card, especially all free night certificates issued after May 1st, 2018 would be restricted to properties that costed 40,000 points or less per night. They then stated that if you signed up between 1/1/18 and 4/5/18 then you’d received an unrestricted night certificate on your next card anniversary. This left some cardholders not being able to take advantage of the unrestricted free night certificate at least (those who signed up May 1st 2017 until December 31st, 2018).
Well I have some good news to share for a change, all free night certificates issued before May 1st, 2019 will be unrestricted!
@Chase @ChaseSupport @IHG @ihgrewardsclub heard rumor that all Chase free night certificates issued before May 1, 2019 will be unrestricted. Can you confirm this info?
— Andy (@adp5x7) May 4, 2018
Great to see Chase & IHG do the right thing in this case. This also shows the power of calling these corporations out and putting pressure on them to act fairly.
Thanks to adp5x7 for sharing this positive news with us
After checking this website, I’ve contacted their LIVE CHAT and they said: ” Anniversary Free Nights issued after May 1, 2018, can be redeemed only at hotels that have a Reward Night point requirement less than or equal to 40,000 points.”
It’s sad I will have my first-anniversary free night soon, but cannot stay where I want. It was one of the reasons I made this card. Now I am considering to cancel the credit card now.
Does this apply to all three IHG cards (the old one, and the two new ones)?
I think only the old one
The new ones were always advertised with a free night capped at 40k pts.
Yay! Glad to hear this cause I got my card Oct. of 2017.
Can one apply now and get the unrestricted free night certificate or it’s too late now?
I hope Marriott would also change its policy and delay devaluing benefits to gold members until Aug 2019.
HUGE deal for my SO and I because my renewal is in mid-April. So I was barely safe for this year but knowing we’ll get this deal for yet another year is definitely great news.
first of all, nobody should be THAT excited about one night being of higher value vs before. i guess that works for some, but i always want more than just one night at a super lux place. so this is a major win for people with multiple IHG.
but the huge importance of this announcement actually has nothing to do with IHG. it has to do with chase and their leadership team. i cant deny that they did the right thing here and has potential implications on the BS United CC announcement from earlier. i just hope they dont start killing off the old cards like the fairmont. TBD.
AWESOME!! Both my wife and I have the $49 cards and we get our free nights each February. Have both banked right now and it looks like we get one more round thanks to this change. Since we really only use them to stay at the Intercontinental Clement, this is fantastic news.
That’s great and If you have both cards (like me) you get two free nights for $138 plus 4th night free, 10% back on redemptions, 10x points at IHG.
Dope! Beautiful, I’m gonna get a free night unrestricted sometime in Nov 2018!