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I posted earlier today about the re-released IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard (£99.00 fee), and wondered at the time if we might see the free version come back again too. I can provide an update (rather sooner than I thought!) that the free IHG Rewards Club credit card is definitely back.

As with the Premium card, it’s definitely good to see the free IHG card back, and nothing really seems to have changed (apart from the issuer is now Creation rather than Barclaycard, which means you can now have the Hilton card which is still issued by Barclaycard, at the same time as an IHG card).

Benefits of the free IHG Rewards Club credit card:

• 10,000 IHG Rewards Club bonus points when you spend £200 in the first 3 months
• Earn 2 IHG Rewards Club points for every £1 you spend at any IHG family of hotels
• Earn 2 IHG Rewards Club points for every £1 you spend abroad
• Earn 1 IHG Rewards Club point for every £1 you spend everywhere else
• Gold Elite Status
• Free supplementary card for your partner or family member
• 0% on Balance Transfers for 12 months

I value IHG Points at about 0.3p-0.4p each, so the signup bonus is worth at least £30.00 to me, but your valuation may be different.

Gold status isn’t worth a great deal to be honest, but any status is better than nothing and it would otherwise take 10 nights to get. I have been upgraded and received free drinks etc quite often with Gold status, but that might have more to do with my other tip for getting upgraded than the status itself.

The standard earning rate of 1 Point per £1.00 (worth ~ 0.3p-0.4p to me) isn’t very impressive, even for a free card.

As someone who would benefit a fair bit from Platinum status and who could definitely hit the £10,000 spend target in order to get a free night, the Premium card is a more attractive option for me, despite the £99.00 fee.

I tend to apply for about 4 cards a year, and like to get at least £150-200 of value from each application, so the 10,000 Points isn’t enough to interest me, but everyone’s situation, Points valuations and priorities are different!

Please note that InsideFlyer is a travel writing site and nothing on it constitutes financial advice.