Get ready to stack those IHG elite night credits and unlock a world of travel rewards you never thought possible!
- The IHG One Rewards Premier Select card offers 20 elite night credits annually, while other IHG cards provide 15 or 5.
- Elite night credits can now be stacked from multiple IHG credit cards, contrary to previous misinformation.
- Stacking allows members to achieve higher status levels and earn Milestone Rewards more easily.
- Up to 75 elite night credits annually are possible by holding multiple IHG cards, beneficial for frequent travelers.
- Annual fees for multiple cards can be substantial, leading to careful consideration of value for infrequent users.
When Chase and IHG refreshed the existing suite of IHG credit cards and launched the IHG One Rewards Premier Select credit card a couple of weeks ago, there was some confusion regarding how one of the benefits on all of the cards would work.
The IHG One Rewards Premier Select card comes with 20 elite night credits each year, the IHG One Rewards Premier and IHG One Rewards Business cards both offer 15 elite night credits each year, and the no annual fee IHG One Rewards credit card offers 5 elite night credits per year.
At the time of the refresh/launch, all of the card application pages had terms that stated elite night credits wouldn’t stack, so you’d only earn a maximum of 5, 15, or 20 elite nights per year from card membership, regardless of how many IHG cards you have. Those terms were incorrect though: you can stack elite night credits from multiple IHG credit cards and those terms have now been fixed to remove the wording that stated that stacking wasn’t possible.
For example, the terms on the Premier Select card previously stated the following (my bolding):
Elite Night Credits each year: You, as the primary cardmember, will receive 20 Elite Night Credits (“ENC”) in your IHG One Rewards account within 6-8 weeks upon opening your IHG One Rewards Premier Select Credit Card from Chase®. After that, the 20 ENCs will be deposited into your IHG One Rewards account by February 1 each calendar year. You can only receive 20 ENCs, regardless of the number of IHG One Rewards cards that are linked with a IHG One Rewards account.
That final sentence has now been removed from the Premier Select card terms, as well as similar wording from the terms of the other IHG cards.
When the cards were refreshed/launched, we’d checked with our Chase rep as to whether the elite night credits from two or more cards would stack. They confirmed that they would, but that the wording on the application pages was incorrect and would be fixed. Unfortunately it took Chase more than a week to get that fixed, so there was a lot of confusion and concern in the meantime which no doubt impacted on some people’s willingness to apply for one of the cards straight away. The great news is that the wording has indeed been fixed and elite night credits will stack.
That’s important for two reasons. One is that elite night credits count towards status requirements. Although the IHG cards that award elite nights also come with some level of elite status, those elite night credits will certainly help at least some IHG One Rewards members to attain a higher status level.
Perhaps even more importantly though, elite night credits count towards IHG’s Milestone Rewards feature which was launched a few years ago. As a reminder, here are the various Milestone Rewards levels:
The ability to stack elite night credits means that you can easily attain the second level of Milestone Rewards (30 nights) by having a Premier and Premier Select card, or a Business card and a Premier or Premier Select card, with that latter combo actually earning you 35 elite night credits.
You could do much better than that though, potentially even ending up with 75 elite night credits every year before any stays. To do this, you’d need to apply (and be approved) for the new IHG One Rewards Premier Select card which requires being under 5/24.
To determine your 5/24 status, see: Easy ways to count your 5/24 status. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely.
If you have the old IHG Select card (the one that had a $49 annual fee for the longest time but is now increasing to $99), you could upgrade that to the new Premier Select card. If you also have the IHG Premier card (it was possible for a while to apply for that even if you had the old Select card), you could upgrade that to a Premier Select card too. In this 75 night scenario, you’d also need the IHG Business card.
That would give you three sets of 20 elite night credits from the three Premier Select cards and 15 nights from the Business card for a total of 75 elite nights. That would allow you to pick from the first six sets of Milestone Rewards and so you could end up with, among several additional rewards, four Confirmable Suite Upgrades and a Lounge Membership. Not only that, but 75 elite night credits would be enough for Diamond elite status, with the key benefit at that status level being complimentary breakfast.
That could be overkill for anyone other than true IHG loyalists though! That’s primarily because you’d be looking at total annual fees of $1,250: 3x $350 for three Premier Select cards + $200 for the Business card. It would also mean forgoing the 10% points rebate on award nights that you get on the old IHG Select credit card.
You would also get up to $250 worth of food & beverage rewards (3x $75 + 1x $25) each and every quarter which might be harder to use up if you’re already getting complimentary breakfast courtesy of the Diamond status from all those elite nights. That said, if you travel with a partner and/or kids, it wouldn’t take too many dinners during stays to redeem all those rewards each quarter.
I actually have this dilemma myself, albeit to a lesser extent. I have the old IHG Select card, an IHG Premier card, and an IHG Business card. I’m over 5/24 at the moment, so applying for the new Premier Select card isn’t an option for me right now, but I could upgrade both my old Select card and Premier card to Premier Select cards. That would earn me a total of 55 elite night credits per year (20 + 20 + 15), while the three anniversary free night certificates on those cards would bump that up to 58 once redeemed. I’d therefore only need to stay two additional nights to hit the 60 night Milestone Reward or 12 additional nights to reach both the 60 and 70 night Milestone Rewards levels (of which you can pick two rewards at the latter level) while also attaining Diamond status.
That’s tempting, but the $900 ($350 + $350 + $200) in annual fees is giving me pause, as is the fact that we have so many other free night certificates and Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts® credits to use each year. For our own personal situation, upgrading both my personal cards to Premier Select cards would only be worth it if we were going to spend at least 15 nights per year in IHG properties in order to reach the 70 night Milestone Rewards level. If we weren’t going to spend that many nights at IHG properties, it wouldn’t really seem worth dropping $900 on annual fees each year, especially as we’d likely also get limited usage out of Confirmable Suite Upgrades and a Lounge Membership.
Still, it is very tempting just for the fun of it. I think I’ll hold off on making any changes for now—especially seeing as the first set of elite night credits for existing cardholders won’t post until February 1, 2027 (at the latest) anyway—but if it’s looking like we’ll stay in IHG properties more frequently next year, I might have to reconsider this as an option.
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