Does the stay for the 2025 credit have to happen in 2025 or do I just need to book in 2025?

You get the credit when you make a prepaid booking.

Meaning you need to book and pay in 2025 to get the credit but your stay can happen in 2026.

I used up my $250/2 night credit for the Edit. I thought about booking Edit for 2 nights again just to get rid of some other credit and for the perks. This is tokyo so easy to move around to a new hotel. I read it is per booking not per stay. So stay in 2 different hotels, 1 night each or book 2 reservations at 1 hotel and ask the front desk not to merge them? This is to get the $100 property credit twice? Thank you

Whether you "merge" or not, the hotels may treat a back-to-back stay as one continuous stay and deny you the benefit.

This has been "abused" so much that Amex specifically prohibits that. So if the hotel is also participating in Amex FHR they are probably used to and prepared to deny you that $100 credit for back-to-back stays.

I can’t find many reasonably priced Edits hotels…way better AMEX hotels…but I have found some in Singapore and this could work well as you essentially could book 2 nights in 2025 and 4 more nights in 2026, assuming you are willing to move hotels every two nights!

Is this any IHG hotel? Like a Holiday Inn express would qualify? That would be very easy to get value out of I’d think…as opposed to the Edits where finding reasonably priced hotels takes some effort.

No, it's not just any hotel that participates in IHG. As noted it's for certain hotels and that post goes on to list them in the quote from Chase.

You could book the same hotel for all 6 nights and not have to switch but you may not (probably won't) get the $100 property credit more than one time.

Chase travel specialist no help explaining $100 property credit. She said each hotel listing should have terms and conditions what the property credit can be used for. Nothing listed. Also this reddit user stating must wait 24 hours between hotel booking. She couldn't validate this either. So 2 different hotels, expect $100 property credit each? Dont try staying in same hotel 2 nights with 2 separate reservations and try to get $100 property credit each as hotel will probably just merge reservation?

where in this announcement does it say certain IHG hotels? Don’t get me wrong I think Chase has made this hard to figure out and I’ll definitely close the account when the fee increases, but I have a year at the old fee so might as well get the most out of it.

Starting January 1, 2026, get up to $250 in statement credits through December 31, 2026 on prepaid Chase Travel hotel bookings for stays with IHG® Hotels & Resorts, Montage Hotels & Resorts, Pendry Hotels & Resorts, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Virgin Hotels, Minor Hotels, and Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts. Two night minimum required. Purchases that qualify will not earn points.

I agree that this notice is rather ambiguous but I believe when it goes live it will show you in the search results which hotels qualify for this credit so we need to wait until 1/1/26 to gain more clarity on this. The actual announcement on the Chase site, uses the word "select" rather than certain: "Coming soon $250 credit for select Chase Travel hotels" and it then continues with the above statement that you've quoted.

https://account.chase.com/sapphire/reserve/benefits

I read this to mean a subset of the hotels which can be booked through Chase Travel, and that the listed brands are the selection.

So in that case it would include all properties that are under IHG hotels and resorts? Meaning as happy10345 questioned, that Holiday Inn Express (and other budget brands) would be eligible for the credit as well? That would certainly be very cool and more than welcome, but I was thinking in terms of them giving this credit for more luxury/upper class hotels.

I agree with everything you say…based on everything else connected to this updated card, I’d think it would be only high end hotels. However the announcement seems to imply all IHG hotels, which would then include holiday inn express if booked through them.