Get your initial perks and then get out.
You'll quickly find ( as you’ve probably gathered) that any kind of contact with the morons at Creation is a mind numbingly frustrating experience!

If you want Platinum or Spire status quickly, this may be a far better option;

https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/de...b/instantspire

Try Spire Elite for 90 days as soon as you join or register.
Simply stay a few nights to keep your Spire Elite status:

Stay 10 nights (instead of 75) in 90 days and keep Spire Elite status.

Stay 5 nights (instead of 40) in 90 days and keep Platinum Elite status.

For all the distractors, there is a reality to be faced here in the U.K. this is the very best loyalty credit card offering outside the AMEX world. AMEX points are of course very good, it’s points are valuable and convertible, it also has the BA and SPG Card, both of which are well worthwhile if you’re a BA flyer or a, um, Bonvoy’er (is that even a word?) but AMEX is by no means universally accepted here in the U.K. I have a SPG AMEX and regularly find when presenting the card the machine bleeps “card not read” which is a machines way of saying “we don’t take AMEX”. Unlike America, you can’t pay everywhere with AMEX. And outside the AMEX world the IHG Mastercard represents the very best pointgrinder. My £10,000 spent gets me an annual “anywhere” hotel e-cert that I always manage to redeem at least £200, 22,000 points that are easily redeemable for £100 and as those points are qualifying I then make Spire via a total of 75,000 qualifying points gaining me another 25,000 points worth another £120. So that’s a £100 annual fee that makes at least £400 returns annually. In reality last year my redemptions ran at 0.7p per point and the e-cert saved me £300 meaning my rebate was £630.

Yes, sometimes the double points doesn’t go through, posting dates are all over the place but it could be far worse. I remember my relief when Creation took over Marriotts credit card from Halifax who repeatedly rejected transactions and point-shorted. And I was no Chrism who’s plaguing of Barclays over shortcomings in its iteration of the IHG card remains the stuff of legends!

In short, even with its shortcomings this is a darn good card for the U.K. market and should be in the wallet of any serious IHG pointshound.

I agree with the last few comments above.

It is a worthwhile card to have and I definitely get my use out of it. To me it’s certainly worth the £99 annual fee and as someone said above if you use your free night on an expensive stay (I’ve used this years on IC in NYC which was about $350) then along with the additional points etc it’s worth it in my opinion.

admittedly, creation do have their faults and are certainly not the best company to deal with. Try reading their reviews on Trustpilot, that makes interesting reading! I’ve had issues with points not posting etc but it’s usually sorted out either by them or the IHG call centre. I did have a complaint where I ended up having to escalate it to the financial ombudsman as creation were clearly in the wrong but were adamant they weren’t. The ombudsman agreed with me though so in the end Creation had to cough up. Despite that though, the rewards outweigh the issues in my view.