InterContinental Hotels: Priority Club & Inter-Continental Ambassador - UK Priority Club Rewards Visa card - a lousy deal!

Can they be serious? ONE PC point per pound, with no bonus for use at IC group hotels?

What a joke! The way exchange rates look that's around half a PC point per dollar - compared with a whole point per dollar with the US Visa card (which is not exactly generous).

OK, there's a 10,000 first use bonus, but I can't see much regular use being made of the UK Visa card.

I'm intending to get the card for that reason only. I also note that you get nothing for using the card at an IC Group hotel. In fact, pound for pound I get a far better deal by spending on my Amex charge card and exchanging the MR points for PC points.

We often get a raw deal here in the UK when it comes to airline affinity cards too (noteable exception is again Amex who do a BA product)!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Internaut:
[B]I'm intending to get the card for that reason only.

Yup! Confirmation letter arrived today...sign and return and the card is yours.

10,000 points (aka 2,500 BA miles) will shortly be heading towards JtheJ's account...for free.

Careful use of the 0% balance transfer for 6 months can also earn you a few pennies.

As Granny always told me...a £ saved is a £ made!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Roger:
OK, there's a 10,000 first use bonus, but I can't see much regular use being made of the UK Visa card.</font>
I take it you don't have anything like iDine in the UK?

Here in the US, a no-annual-fee card that earns you ANYTHING you can use can be useful if you belong to several FF airline programs but don't want to pay for the high-annual fee cards specific to those airlines, because:

iDine is a miles-for-dining program where they can credit it to a different program depending on which credit card you pay with. And many restaurants only let you earn miles for one visit per month PER PROGRAM. So if you use iDine in several FF programs -- via several no-fee Visa / MC cards you can make several miles-earning visits to the same restaurants each month. And meanwhile, since you want several no-fee Visa / MC cards for this purpose, why not get some that earn you something, ANYTHING, that you can use (even hotel points at a poor rate), rather than nothing at all.

(And since iDine earns you 2.5x to 20x the amount of miles you'd get from not using iDine but paying with an airline FF card, what you earn on the card you iDine with is very secondary to just having another card to iDine with. But still it's nice to earn SOMETHING on the card itself, as long as it's free.)

But until I started using iDine this way, I admit I had no use for extra no-fee credit cards that earned me poorly. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Stefan Daystrom:
Originally posted by Roger:
OK, there's a 10,000 first use bonus, but I can't see much regular use being made of the UK Visa card.</font>
I take it you don't have anything like iDine in the UK?



Not officially, so far as I know, though it is possible to sign up with I-Dine with a non-US card. I'd like to sign up for BA Miles as BA is an I-Dine partner, but only US members qualify.

We used to have an Air Miles (BA) dining offer, but I haven't seen that for a while.

I think we're luckier with no-fee cards in the UK even if the earning ratio is lower.

Off the cuff, apart from the PCR card, I can think of the Hilton MC and Marriott Visa cards, both offering points. For miles, there is the UA Visa (1 mile per £), BD MC (1.5 miles per £, double with BD online) and Virgin MC (1 mile per £).

My BA AmEx (1.5 miles per £, double with BA) has a £0 fee as I am an existing AmEx customer.

All of these offer better results than the PCR card (ignoring interest rates).

FYI:
I applied for this card mid January
Got it in early February
First Transaction: 06th Feb
First Month's transaction points posted to PC account: 25th Feb
Two phone calls to MBNA between then and yesterday about the missing 10000 intro bonus.
Intro Bonus of 10000 posted today. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

So time to put this PC Visa card at the back of the shelf, and start using the AMEX again!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I finally got my 10,000 points posted yesterday after first using the card on May 29th - I need to chase their help desk 3 times and provide all the usual info like priority card no, visa card no, name address, date of stay - but I got there in the end

They claim they have had difficulties.

Good luck

Can they be serious? ONE PC point per pound, with no bonus for use at IC group hotels?

What a joke! The way exchange rates look that's around half a PC point per dollar - compared with a whole point per dollar with the US Visa card (which is not exactly generous).

OK, there's a 10,000 first use bonus, but I can't see much regular use being made of the UK Visa card.

O.K., I agree ... but it's all free! I got a Netbank account and another 10,000 points (after some phone calls :mad:) for a free night! :D