The reason why you haven’t been able to apply for the Priority Club credit cards

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For the last couple of weeks, the application page for the Priority Club (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental) credit cards has been ‘temporarily unavailable’.

We now know why.

On June 23rd, the Priority Club cards are – finally – being relaunched as IHG Rewards Club credit cards.

Intercontinental hotel Los Angeles Downtown

From the minimal amount of detail released to date, nothing will change. Although, if that was the case, I don’t know why the existing cards were not simply rebranded.

This is what existing cardholders have been told:

On 23 June, your Priority Club Visa (or Priority Club Black Visa) will become an IHG Rewards Club Visa (or IHG Rewards Club Black Visa)

There is no change to the current earnings rate

The cards will still be issued by Barclays and will, for the first time, be part of the ‘My Barclaycard’ platform. (There was also some wording about how, if you have a Barclaycard in default, this may now lead to your IHG card being placed in default.)

The new cards will be contactless

All of this is for EXISTING cardholders. There is no mention of what the offer will be for new cardholders or whether new cardholders will be offered a combined Amex / Visa package (existing cardholders do not, but that would require a new card agreement).

None of this answers one very obvious question. A lot of ‘Big Win’ targets involved taking out an IHG credit card in order to trigger the maximum bonus. Not only has the card not been available for two weeks, it now looks like it will not be available again until June! What now happens to all of these ‘Big Win’ participants?

IHG Rewards update – December 2021:

Get bonus points: You can earn up to triple IHG Rewards base points with IHG’s new Autumn promotion. It runs from 1st October to 31st December. You can register here and our full article on the offer is here.

New to IHG Rewards? Read our overview of IHG Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG Rewards points, you can buy them here.

You will get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG Rewards points by 4th January 2022. Click here to buy or learn more.

Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Category

IHG Rewards

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Stu says:

15 Apr15 April 11:42

So are Barclaycard classing this as a ‘new’ product? I cancelled my Priority Rewards VISA about 6 months ago and am wondering if I would be eligable for any potential signup bonus in June.
- Rob says:
  
  15 Apr15 April 12:33
  
  Good question. It would have been a lot clearer if they had switched issuer.
  - Luke says:
    
    15 Apr15 April 19:03
    
    From previous experience I would say yes, although it was with my non-amex cash back backup.
    
    I had an egg WE cash back card that became a barclaycard. When I applied for the High 5 card I got the sign up of bonus they had at the time (£30 and no annual fee)
  - Chris says:
    
    15 Apr15 April 22:43
    
    If the new one comes out with Visa & Amex combined would existing cardholders be able to get this or would we be stuck with Visa only?
    - Rob says:
      
      16 Apr16 April 04:58
      
      I’m sure they would let you upgrade, albeit probably not letting you have another bonus.
Tom says:

15 Apr15 April 23:37

re: Big Win promo – it is bad enough setting a credit card as a qualification item…but then suspending applications. That is beyond belief! I just wrote to IHG..
- Rob says:
  
  18 Apr18 April 17:17
  
  What did they say?
  - Tom says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 20:03
    
    Much to my surprise, they paid out the 10k points for the card sign-up and spend, + 38k for completing the big win. They applied both manually.
    - Rich says:
      
      20 Apr20 April 17:50
      
      Same here, although it was 20K and 51K
      - Rob says:
        
        21 Apr21 April 16:08
        
        I will contact them too. Did you just email ihg rewards Europe?
      - Rich says:
        
        23 Apr23 April 06:45
        
        Had to call them. When I emailed, I got a stock response from a US agent telling me to contact the card issuer. Called IHG and they sorted it in 5 mins.
Jac says:

23 Apr23 April 10:57

My big win target was to apply for the standard Visa card. i applied (using the link in the email), got accepted but then the next email showed i had to get the black card. in the end i got the bonus points for using the standard card. But when i logged in today, i noticed a bar tracking my spenditure saying that I can get a free night for spending 10,000 GBP. So it looks that also the free card offers a free night for spending 10K. i was not aware. anybody can confirm this?
In this case the difference between the free card and the paid card is only
platinum vs gold status and an additional 10,000 IHG points (double vs single earning for spending 10K £)…
- Rob says:
  
  23 Apr23 April 12:19
  
  No, the free card does not offer a voucher for spending £10k! Unless this changes after 23rd June ….
  - Jac says:
    
    23 Apr23 April 17:28
    
    But it would be strange to add a bar showing the progress “how close you are…”
    Your current spend xx and £10K “qualify for your free night”…
    And then dont offer the free night.
    The bar was not there when i checked last time so it could be that this is an improvement as part of the rebranding.
    Adding the voucher would make the card much more attractive…
Nigel says:

23 Apr23 April 15:40

What number did you call (from UK) to get the points re the non availability of the credit card?