If you actually knew me, you would know that I am anything but a Marxist...

As to a $650 card for IHG Diamond?

Fugeddabout it!

That will never happen.

However, a card that conveys Diamond status and perks from the Ambassador program for that amount? Perhaps....

I was thinking more along the lines of the HHonors Aspire card, whose annual fee has now been raised to $550, but for that price, it also contains in addition to an uncapped Free night, a $200 ($50 quarterly) airline credit and a twice yearly $200 resort credit and the major grabbers.

Moreover, IHG has demonstrated in the past that it is eager to get into the credit card market -- it has 2 current and if you include the former IHG Select card, 3 extant credit card products in the US market.

So, let's consider the history of IHG involvement in same.

It needed to make its entrance into the market dramatic, so it underpriced all other hotel credit cards by providing and uncapped award night -- if memory serves me -- for the princely sum of ... $49.00

You might also remember that the card also rebates 10% of all points used by the cardholder back to their account, in addition to conveying Platinum status, that has to be earned in other parts of the world?

In addition, another more recent IHG card product also provides for those cardholders to receive a 4th night free on a reward stay, something that none of its major competitors -- Hilton and Marriott -- provide to their membership, with those 2 chains offering a free night if one stays 5 consecutive nights.

To say that IHG has not launched enticing card products for the US market based on the above would be devoid of fact and the above also demonstrates its keen desire to further tap that market like its' competitors have.

To this day, those that hold this card still pay that sum for what is now, a capped free night topping out at 40,000 points -- which I might add, my spouse will allocate to an upcoming stay at the often mentioned here with baited breath, the Intercontinental Vienna which will be going for better than $250/night when we stay there.

Add to that, that the present head of IHG began in the America's division -- thus he is intimately familiar with that segment of the market -- and which today, it probably still has the largest footprint of IHG hotels world wide -- and as I have cited above, he has specifically mentioned obtaining a greater return from the credit card market, like the other major hotel player have done.

He likely knows that introducing a new card product -- like Marriott and Hilton before the former have done as redounded to the benefit of the card issuers as well as those companies.

Moreover, many of you have come to the conclusion that it was the bloggers who killed the sub silentio carryover of Diamond status when one re-ups for Ambassador status.

This is a potentially persuasive hypothesis, but could now a contributing factor have been that IHG noticed that the ranks of Ambassadors swelled when Diamond status and thus complimentary breakfast was a feature of same??

Especially when the ranks of Diamond elites swelled when anyone could sign up for either the status or a trial for same??

No, I think the timing of Malouf's statements concerning his identifying credit cards as being a profit center for IHG that has not been developed to the fullest is spot on, and along those lines of diversifying the IHG revenue stream, I would not be surprised that the withdrawal of the sub-silentio breakfast benefit from Diamond Ambassadors pre-sages the INTRODUCTION OF A NEW CREDIT CARD PRODUCT THAT PROMISES DIAMOND STATUS.

I think that can also be a potential reason why they ended this carryover -- because IHG hopes to tap a new revenue stream for those seeking Diamond status and its accompanying breakfast benefit.

Finally, let us also take note that there are currently 3 rewards programs run by IHG -- IHG ONE Rewards, Intercontinental Ambassador, and Kimpton In Kind(?), would it not save a great deal of learning/training time, as well as considerable revenue savings to fold all of those into one program -- like every other hotel chain does?

Would it not also give true meaning to a rewards program meant to cover every facet of the full panoply of IHG hotels under its corporate umbrella for the Rewards program to truly be IHG ONE REWARDS???