chrism20

I echo most of what @adobbing has said in his post.

They are without doubt the worst financial institution I have ever come across.

I had had been quite lucky and had no issues until mid-summer when there were several high spend transactions went through my account within days of each other. Two of these transactions were stays and the other was the payment for my summer holidays. The transactions for the stays were showing as cleared on my account and the properties had processed the transaction using the pre-authorised funds (The auto numbers and everything matched), however Creation in their wisdom processed them as separate transactions with the pre-authorised amounts still ringfenced and not available.

This is resulted in me standing in the petrol station one Monday morning with a declined transaction. I phoned them and they told me I was over the limit when I wasn’t. What followed that was a seven hour telephone call where I was given no less than nine different explanations for this.

Thankfully i I didn’t have to resort to contacting the ombudsman but it was a battle of wills and was eventually resolved to my satisfaction after I contacted the person who is in charge of the day to day management of the card.

My advice is also to never contact them by email. Always call and use a call recording system for your own records telling them at the start of the call that it may be recorded.

adobbing

Bet you never thought you’d say that!

Barclaycard have only just celebrated the closure of the dedicated “Chrism20 compensation” processing team!

chrism20

Yes, a year ago I'd have baulked at the thought of saying that but regardless of everything at least Barclaycard were honest and acknowledged their system wasn't working properly this lot seem incapable of admitting that its poor.

I am still a Barclaycard customer actually - I've got the HH card and another with them but sadly at the moment they seem to be behaving themselves.

Thankfully my hotel stays are less eventful. I thought I was going to get through 2017 without having cause for complaint but sadly it all went wrong last Tuesday at a Doubletree.

My hope for 2018 is that Creation upgrade their online system to something that doesn't look and operate like it belongs In 2010

Raffles

Word on the street is that Creation got its sums wrong with these cards and is not having a good time. That said, once you cannot pay tax with a Visa or MC post 13 January my charges will drop 90% and their losses should reduce. I reckon there are 8 figures worth of tax payments going through the Premium card in January and July.

Saral

I have both cards, black card with £11k limit and the white card with a £900 limit, what's the best/easiest way to ditch the black card but to get the limit raised on the white card?

adobbing

Saral

I was worried them understanding anything! Thanks, I'll try that

Faethepit

Just tried to make an online payment for a holiday and Premium IHG Card was denied. Phoned customer services, if that's what they call themselves, to be told that card had been blocked due to suspected fraudulent activity and was asked if a payment of £X had gone through on Xmas Day to which I answered NO. Turns out that the payment was correct but did not include Creation's exchange fee hence a higher figure appearing on my account and having cleared and the booking had been made 2 days earlier.. The laughable thing about this payment is that it was for an IHG Hotel and against an IHG credit card. Asked if card could be unblocked to which the adviser said he would try (Seemingly "Security" don't work weekends and unavailable to unlock card which doesn't give much comfort in the event of a real incidence of fraudulent activity). Tried again after the phone call and guess what?..........card is still blocked.

In his day and age, if Creation believed there was fraudulent activity then why did they not text me like Barclaycard to confirm if the transaction was valid rather than blocking my account and processing the payment?

Hopefully there is an IHG Lurker on this board who will convey to IHG Management how poor Creation Financial Services are.

Bring back Barclaycard.

Smythmeister

So we're back to the time of year where the first of us that signed up to Creation are hitting the second anniversary.

Has anyone had their statement yet and how on the ball are they with the free night cert this year? Last year it was a bit of a shambles.

I'm due to get mine before Monday so I'll let you know my experiences.

adobbing

The whole setup was a shambles and as a result I’m no longer a cardholder!

i wonder how many other people have put up with there shambolic service for a second year?

Smythmeister

Can't disagree with your assessment there! I've thought a number of times about jacking it in with them but it's rare I have to deal with them now.

We'll see how they handle this second anniversary cert.

adobbing

Dealing with Creation is an experience I’d rather forget, they were incapable of correctly allocating points and even the most basic of queries seemed way beyond their capability.

I’m still haunted by the legacy of Accelerate offers targeting its use even though I ditched it a year ago!

chrism20

My annual fee is due at the start of July. My free night landed in my account on July 30th last year and I’m pretty sure I was one of the first to post on here that they had landed

I’m done with Creation though. I’m expecting my travel to drop significantly next year as I’m no longer field bases so next year it’s Burn baby burn.

Raffles

My wife got her voucher pretty quickly after her renewal a few months ago.

Weirdly I have never had an issue with either my Marriott or IHG Creation cards apart from the fact they don't seem to get on with Curve.

This is the future of loyalty credit cards though. The big boys won't play ball on these sort of margins. Virgin Money, New Day, Creation etc are the only ones who will do them.

And if BA dumps Amex and goes 100% all-in with Lloyds, as seems likely, then you will be begging for Creation to come in and save you. That is a proper shambles.

adobbing

I see what you’re saying, however I really don’t foresee me “begging for Creation to come in and save me”.