Your $99 IHG Card Is Going to $150. The New Perks Come in $25 Coupons That Expire Every Quarter.

If you carry the IHG One Rewards Premier card, your annual fee is going from $99 to $150. Not today. The first time your fee comes due in 2027.

You have a few months to decide whether the new version is worth $51 more. Here’s the math.

Chase and IHG announced the change on October 1, alongside a new $350 card called the Premier Select. The headline was the shiny new card. The part that touches the most wallets was the fee increase on the old one.

In exchange for the extra $51, the Premier card gets three new things. Up to $100 a year in IHG food and beverage rewards. A $100 airline statement credit. And a bigger anniversary free night, capped at 50,000 points instead of 40,000.

Here’s the catch on the first one. The $100 isn’t $100. It’s four separate $25 vouchers, issued at the start of each quarter, and each one expires when the quarter ends, per MilesTalk’s read of the terms. To collect all of it, you need to eat or drink at an IHG hotel in January, April, July, and October. Stay twice a year and you’re getting $50. Stay once and it’s $25.

The airline credit has a hoop too. It pays on one flight purchase of more than $250, bought directly from the airline. Book through an online travel site and it doesn’t count.

And something leaves. The card’s automatic Platinum Elite status drops to Gold. Getting Platinum back takes $15,000 a year in spending on the card.

Translation: the fee went up in cash. The perks went up in coupons. That’s the bank’s bet: a credit you have to remember four times a year is a credit that’s easy to miss once.

So who comes out ahead? Run your own year through it.

If the card sits in a drawer and you use it for the free night, the honest answer is close to a wash. The certificate cap rises 10,000 points. The Points Guy values IHG points at 0.6 cents each, which makes that extra room worth about $60, against $51 in added fee. But only if you actually book hotels that cost more than 40,000 points a night. Redeem at a 30,000-point highway hotel and the bigger cap buys you nothing. The fee still goes up.

If you buy one airline ticket over $250 a year directly from the carrier, add $100. If you stay at IHG properties in at least two different quarters, add $50 or more. A traveler who does both is ahead. A drawer card that redeems below the cap is $51 worse off and lost Platinum.

Your call. But make it with your own numbers, not the press release’s.

Check your statement for the month your $99 fee posted. That’s your 2027 renewal month. Put it on your calendar now.

Between now and then, count. How many quarters will you actually be at an IHG hotel? Did your last free night go to a hotel above 40,000 points? Do you buy flights direct?

When the renewal notice arrives, read it. Federal Regulation Z requires Chase to tell you how and when you can close the account to avoid the renewal fee, and the CFPB’s official interpretation says the fee has to be reversed if you close in time. If the math doesn’t work, call before that window closes and ask to switch to the no-fee IHG card instead of closing. Just know the no-fee card’s fourth-night-free perk now requires $5,000 a year in spending on it, per View from the Wing.

Comparing other travel cards? Our best travel cards page and the credit cards hub are the place to start. Our verdict on this one: keep it if IHG stays are already on your calendar or your free night goes to a hotel above 40,000 points. Otherwise, take the exit the renewal notice gives you.

The free night got bigger. The coupons got smaller. Count the quarters before you pay for them.

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