Well, I guess I forgot about this benefit or I never knew of it – but Chase Priority Club Visa cardholders receive a 10% rebate on points used for award stays! I didn’t realize this until I logged into my IHG account yesterday – when I was surprised to find out I had received 20,000 points after my stay at the Intercontinental Thalasso (and Jess received a 10,000 points rebate for the nights we redeemed from her account). Here’s what I’ve learned since then!
So, it’s right there in the offer details, but I totally forgot. But here’s what Chase says about the 10% points rebate on redemptions:
“10% Rebate
Please allow 4 to 6 weeks after Reward Night stay for rebated points to be deposited into your account, and 4 to 6 weeks after date of redemption for all other (non-Reward Night) redemption items. Maximum number of points to be rebated not to exceed 100,000 points in a calendar year. IHG® Rewards Club reserves the right to reverse rebated points when redemption item has been returned. In order to receive points for redemption rebates, you must be a U.S. IHG® Rewards Club Select Card holder and your IHG® Rewards Club account must be in good standing. Chase is not responsible for offer fulfillment. The 10% rewards rebate does not apply to redemption of the annual free night benefit.”
So, that is pretty excellent. Here are a couple of ramifications of the 10% rebate:
1. When you “buy” IHG Points for 0.7 cents per point, it’s actually cheaper than that (provided you use them)
It’s relatively simple to “buy” IHG points for 0.8 cents per point. I won’t go into detail here, but the short version is you do a cash and points booking. The cash you pay gets converted to points, but once you cancel the booking the points remain in your account (you don’t get the cash back). However, provided you actually use the points, you’re actually getting the points for 0.64 cents per point – a better deal. Excellent.
2. The IHG Points rebate counts towards elite status.
As you can see in my image, the 20,000 points I was rebated counted towards my IHG Elite status. So instead of being 60,000 points away from Platinum, I’m only 40,000. Now I’m planning to hold on to the card and it comes with automatic IHG Platinum status, so I don’t need those elite points, but if I were to cancel the card this year I’d be well on my way to re-earning Platinum status without the card anyway.
Anyway, this is a short post, but it is nice when I find out about a benefit of a credit card that I had already forgotten about. I was already planning on keeping my card (with $49 annual fee) because of the free night I’d receive at any IHG hotel (including Intercontinental), but this points rebate is just an extra bonus. By the way, now is a good time to remind everyone to sign up as an IHG Rewards member, it’s free and it gets you free internet worldwide.