IHG One Rewards Premier vs Marriott Bonvoy Boundless: A Travel Card Disguised as a Hotel Card

Both are hotel co-brand cards. Only one earns like one.

IHG One Rewards Premier ($150/year since Chase's October 2026 refresh) and Marriott Bonvoy Boundless ($95/year) both promise a mid-tier hotel loyalty upgrade. But their earn structures diverge sharply: IHG Premier's bonus reaches almost everywhere you'd swipe a travel card, while Marriott Boundless keeps its bonus locked to Marriott properties and a short, capped list of everyday categories.

What each card actually bonuses

IHG Premier's 5x isn't limited to IHG-branded travel — it applies to flights, hotel stays at any chain, car rentals, cruises, vacation rentals, and local transit generally (but not sightseeing or attractions), plus dining, gas, and groceries. Chase's terms narrow the travel part for purchases posting after December 31, 2026: from then on, only airline tickets bought directly from the airline and car rental agencies keep 5x, and other travel earns 3x. Until then, that makes it function less like a narrow hotel card and more like a broad travel-and-dining card that happens to also reward IHG stays at 10x. Marriott Boundless takes the opposite approach: its bonus is concentrated almost entirely at Marriott properties (6x), with a modest, capped 3x on groceries/gas/dining/fast food and a plain 2x baseline for everything else, including travel booked elsewhere.

The free-night credits are close, but not equal

Both cards anchor their value proposition on an annual free-night certificate. IHG's certificate covers stays up to 50,000 points; we model it conservatively at $100/year since it's straightforward to redeem without extra spend. Marriott's certificate covers stays up to 35,000 points but typically redeems at higher-value properties, so we model it at $150/year. Both clear our bar for genuinely easy-to-use value. Marriott's night alone is worth more than its card's annual fee; IHG's covers two-thirds of the new $150 fee, and the credits below cover the rest.

Beyond the free night, the two credit lists diverge in reliability. IHG Premier adds a $100 airline statement credit after $250 of flights bought directly from an airline each calendar year through 2027 (modeled at $50/year), a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit (about $30/year), a food-and-beverage voucher of up to $25 a quarter at IHG hotels (modeled at $0), a $50/year United TravelBank credit (applied automatically after a one-time registration at ihg.com/united, but only useful on United, so modeled at $0), and an Instacart credit (modeled at $0), so its modeled credits total about $180/year against the $150 fee. Marriott Boundless lists an airline credit: up to $100/year in airline statement credits, split into two $50 increments each requiring $250 in eligible spend — we model that at $50/year since it's real but requires deliberate spend-splitting to fully capture. It also includes 12 months of complimentary DashPass and $10 off one non-restaurant DoorDash order each quarter, which we model at $0.

Who should pick which

• Frequent traveler with mixed hotel loyalty, or heavy dining/gas/grocery spend — IHG Premier's 5x reaches those categories regardless of which hotel chain you actually book, making it the stronger everyday-spend card of the two.
• Marriott loyalist who books there most of the time — Marriott Boundless's 6x at Marriott properties is its one large bonus, and its free-night credit is modeled at the higher value ($150 against IHG's $100). IHG's 10x at IHG hotels is the larger multiplier: about 5% at our IHG point value (0.5 cent), against 4.2% to 4.8% for Marriott's 6x (hand-calculated at our 0.7 to 0.8 cent Marriott point values).
• Comparing against a broader premium travel card — see how either stacks up against a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred before committing to a hotel-specific annual fee.
• Weighing a Hilton card instead — the same fee-versus-credits question for Hilton's lineup is in Hilton Surpass vs. Hilton Aspire.

Run the optimizer with your real spend to see which credit-and-earn combination nets more for your actual travel pattern.

Updated October 2, 2026: IHG Premier's base rate is 3x, not the 2x this post's table first showed, so it also leads on groceries and everyday spend.

Updated October 7, 2026: Chase's October 2026 refresh raised IHG Premier's fee from $99 to $150 for new applicants (press coverage reports that existing cardholders first pay it in 2027; Chase's card page does not say so), added 5x at grocery stores, replaced the $20,000 spend credit with an airline credit and a quarterly food-and-beverage voucher, and narrows the travel 5x after December 31, 2026. The figures above use the new terms.

Corrected October 10, 2026: an earlier version of this post called Marriott Boundless's 6x the single highest hotel-specific rate between the two cards. IHG Premier's 10x at IHG hotels is a higher multiplier and, at our point values, a higher return.

Corrected October 11, 2026: the table listed activities in IHG Premier's 5x row. Chase's rewards category FAQ excludes sightseeing, excursions and tourist attractions from travel, so the catalog rates them at the card's 3x base rate; the row now lists local transit and vacation rentals, which do earn 5x, and a new row shows tours, sightseeing and attractions at 3x against Marriott Boundless's 2x. The TravelBank credit's registration step is also corrected. No other figure changes.

Data verified as of October 7, 2026.

Want the live numbers side by side? See the IHG One Rewards Premier vs. Marriott Bonvoy Boundless comparison page — it renders current rates and fees straight from our verified card data.