Best credit card for IHG stays
Cards that pay a bonus on IHG stays, ranked by what a dollar spent is actually worth back. A IHG card prints the biggest number at IHG, but in IHG One Rewards points, so every rate is multiplied by our value for the currency it pays before anything is ranked.
Wells Fargo Autograph Journey leads at 5.0¢ back per dollar at IHG — 5x, against a $95 annual fee. IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card follows at 5.0¢.
Updated 2026-09-16
Cards with a bonus that applies at IHG
Ranked by real value — the printed rate multiplied by our conservative value for the currency it pays, so a big multiplier in a weak currency can't win on the number alone. The "what the rate covers" column is the issuer's own printed wording, because that is what decides whether the bonus reaches this merchant at all.
| # | Card | Value | Rate | What the rate covers | Cap | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Wells Fargo |
5.0¢/$ | 5x | Booked directly with hotels | uncapped | $95 |
| 2 | IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card Chase · business |
5.0¢/$ | 10x | IHG only: at IHG One Rewards hotels; card multiplier only — combined with IHG member/status earning, Chase… | uncapped | $99 |
| 3 | IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card Chase |
5.0¢/$ | 10x | IHG only: IHG Hotels & Resorts; total up to 26x when combined with up to 10x IHG One Rewards membership bonus and… | uncapped | $99 |
| 4 | Sapphire Reserve for Business Chase · business |
5.0¢/$ | 4x | Hotels booked direct with the property | uncapped | $795 |
| 5 | Chase Sapphire Reserve Chase |
5.0¢/$ | 4x | Hotels booked direct with the property | uncapped | $795 |
| 6 | U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card U.S. Bank |
4.0¢/$ | 4x | travel category purchases made directly with airlines, hotels, car rentals, taxis, limos, trains, cruise lines | uncapped | $0 |
| 7 | U.S. Bank Business Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card U.S. Bank · business |
4.0¢/$ | 4x | combined travel category purchases (airfare, hotels, car rentals, taxis, limos, trains, cruise lines) AND gas… | first $37,500/quarter | $95 |
| 8 | Navy Federal Flagship Premier Visa Signature Navy Federal |
4.0¢/$ | 4x | All travel: airlines, hotels, cruises, vacation rentals, campgrounds, car rentals, ridesharing, parking, tolls and… | uncapped | $95 |
| 9 | Royal ONE Plus Visa Signature Bank of America |
4.0¢/$ | 4x | Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises purchases | uncapped | $99 |
| 10 | Travel Rewards+ (Elan) Elan Financial Services |
4.0¢/$ | 4x | Travel | uncapped | $99 |
| 11 | Chase Ink Business Preferred Chase · business |
3.8¢/$ | 3x | Shares one combined $150,000/account-anniversary-year cap with shipping, internet/cable/phone, and social… | first $150,000/year | $95 |
| 12 | Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card American Express · business |
3.5¢/$ | 3x | purchases made directly with hotels | uncapped | $350 |
If you don't hold one of those: the best flat-rate cards
General-purpose cards ranked by the real value of the rate they pay on everything — what IHG earns when no bonus category applies. Store cards and single-retailer cobrands are excluded here: rewards you can only spend at one chain can't answer "what should the rest of my spending go on?"
| # | Card | Base value | Base rate | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capital One Venture Business Capital One · business |
2.6¢/$ | 2x | $95 |
| 2 | Capital One Venture Rewards Capital One |
2.6¢/$ | 2x | $95 |
| 3 | Capital One Venture X Business Capital One · business |
2.6¢/$ | 2x | $395 |
| 4 | Capital One Venture X Capital One |
2.6¢/$ | 2x | $395 |
| 5 | Citi Double Cash® Card Citi |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $0 |
| 6 | U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card U.S. Bank |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $0 |
| 7 | Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature Elan Financial Services |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $0 |
| 8 | Wells Fargo Active Cash Wells Fargo |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $0 |
| 9 | Apple Card Goldman Sachs |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $0 |
| 10 | Capital One Spark Cash (Spark 2% Cash) Capital One · business |
2.0¢/$ | 2% | $95 |
A big multiplier in a lower-value point
Hotel points are usually worth a fraction of a cent each, so a double-digit multiplier at IHG can be worth less per dollar than a smaller rate in a flexible bank program. The value column is the fair comparison.
Free nights and status aren't counted
Several hotel cards include an annual free night or elite status. Those aren't priced here. Each card's own page lists what it includes, and the app can remind you before a free night expires.
The honest caveat
Merchant coding is set by the payment networks, not by us: a store can change how it codes, a franchise can code differently from a corporate location, and an issuer can revise its exclusions without announcing it. Everything above comes from the printed terms in our maintained database, valued at our conservative point values — but the only way to know what a specific card pays on your charges is to score them. That is exactly what the optimizer does.
Which card should this spending actually be on? The demo re-scores a year of realistic spending against every card in a wallet — free, no signup. See it on sample data →
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