Hoping to get some advice. I will be traveling late next month and we'll be staying at a Marriott's property for 3 weeks with a total cost of around $6,000. I was originally going to put this on to my Chase Sapphire Reserve but while researching I came across the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card which has a bonus of 5 free nights each night award valued up to 50,000 points so a total of 250,000 points. This seems to be significantly better value than my Chase Sapphire reward of 30,000 points. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this or knows of a better offer that I should look into? Thanks in advance for your help

Has anyone seen or done this deal? It seems really good, they're advertising 5 free nights up to 50k points for each night.

Was also wondering if the hotel costs more than 50k points a night if you could just pay for the additional amount out of pocket, or if that just made it ineligible as a whole.

I opened it for the 5 free nights award and am at the point where it is time to renew the $95 annual fee. Is it worth it if I won’t use the card to just get the annual free night?

I will definitely use the free night some time within the year but how much value is there rather than just getting a cheap hotel somewhere and not having the card in the first place. Just wondering what people’s thoughts are.

Hello!

I'm currently at 4/24, and debating between a Chase WOH and the Chase Marriott Boundless since the current offer seems decent.

The current offer is:

Earn 5 Free Night Awards after spending $5,000 on eligible purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.* Each Free Night Award valued up to 50,000 points - that's a total value of up to 250,000 points. Certain hotels have resort fees.

With these 5 free nights I believe you can use 15k points per night to make each night ~65k points - and the nights must be used in the first year.

Are these points terribly easy to use? The other option is to get a Chase WOH card instead (or other options?) but the slightly elevated offer seems like a decent time to get the card for a year and PC it later.

Thoughts? Am I missing anything?

My fiance and I are starting to get more into traveling and I was curious whether the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless would make sense to get with occasional travel. It seems like the annual fee is already covered with the free night given every year. The SUB also seems pretty good with 75k points when you spend $3k in 6 months which I can easily hit. I'm always on the fence with applying for new cards because I'm scared I'll get denied.

FICO Score: 780

Cards: Discover IT (September 2020) Citi Custom Cash (September 2021) Chase Freedom Flex (September 2021) Chase Freedom Unlimited (March 2023)

Oldest Age: 2 years 10 months

Avg Age: 1 year 8 months

Income: $40k

5/24: 3/24

I also have a car lease HP from January 22 and am unsure whether my apartment will pull my credit since I move in in a month and haven't pulled it yet.

We've already stayed in a few Marriotts and have had great experiences so I would like to build points with them. Any advice is appreciated

Looking into getting the Marriott Boundless Card from Chase. The card has a $95 annual fee, and you get 35,000 points every year on your anniversary. A quick google search tells me that Marriott points are worth about 0.8c per point. So if I get the card, I will get about $280 worth of points every year for a $95 fee. Am I missing something here? Seems too good to be true.

I travel quite often for work—about twice a month—and always stay at Marriott properties. I'm thinking of getting a Marriott card and am debating between the Chase and Amex versions.

1. I’ve read some posts suggesting that you should get the Chase card first, since you can later upgrade it to the Ritz-Carlton card, and then wait two years before applying for the Amex version. Can someone explain why this order is recommended? What makes the Ritz-Carlton card so good? I've seen many comments from people who love their RC card, but no one really explains why.

2. Also, is the Brilliant card worth it? The 10 additional elite night credits and $300 annual dining credit (worldwide) seem pretty decent, but I'm not sure if that justifies choosing it over the other cards with much lower annual fees.

Thank you in advance!

I've been using the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card for a couple of years now and I was just looking and apparently I put almost $87k on it last year and so far this year, I've put $30.4k on it. I pay off whatever I spend each Saturday. I originally signed up for the card to get the sign-up Marriott points and accumulate them (I'm lifetime platinum) but after discovering this sub, I'm second-guessing my choice.

My main goals are to use points to pay for travel expenses generally, with hotel being a large portion of that. I've been doing this with each vacation, but would be great if there was a different card that could cover hotel points better. I am not opposed to staying at a different hotel chain, just used Marriott because that's where I have status.

Any suggestions on a better points card - if that's even a better route - so I can continue to accumulate points and use them to pay for hotels? I'm also open to other suggestions if "hotel points" isn't really a good use for a card given my annual spend.

Credit around 810, about 25 year history, have a mortgage, always pay on time, last card opened was my Venture X in 2022. I have only 5 credit cards (VX, Discover, Costco Visa, Banana Republic, and Athleta). This will hopefully be my first Chase card if I get approved. With this history I never for a second thought I would get anything but immediate approval.

I was stupid and didn’t realize I had a “you’re pre-approved” link on my bonvoy account. Applied via the Marriott homepage.

Immediately after applying I got notified I needed to submit proof of address and birthdate, as well as a credit check which pinged on my Experian monitoring.

Any idea why my application is in review and I wasn’t approved as soon as I uploaded the documents (used my Real ID drivers license)? I called and got the 7-10 day message.

Edit: Called again today and got through to a person. It’s approved, and my credit line is more than enough to qualify for the Ritz card next year. But wow, Chase’s call center acts enough like a scammer that I was a little concerned as to whether it was legit. I checked the number I dialed and the header of the email multiple times to confirm. They require your full SSN and they text you a one time PIN that you have to read back to them. Felt super sketchy.

I received an email this morning from Marriott with what initially appeared to be a targeted offer for the Chase Marriott Boundless: five 50,000 point night certificates (FNCs) for $5,000 minimum spend requirement (MSR) in 3 months.

I didn’t see the offer online, so I applied through the email link and was approved. Later this morning, I glanced and saw the offer now posted publicly.

For those thinking about setting up for Ritz Carlton, now may be a great time to pick up Boundless assuming this offer is announced more broadly. [Edit: u/UnlikelyAdventurer had asked me to clarify that this is indeed my plan; I don’t plan to keep Boundless as a long-term hold.]

Chase Marriott Boundless ($95 AF) — Earns Marriott Bonvoy points instead of Ultimate Rewards (UR) points

• 6x Marriott purchases (increased by Marriott status; with Silver Elite, the yield is 17x)

• 3x on the first $6,000 spent in combined purchases annually on gas stations, grocery stores, and dining

• 2x catch-all

• Automatic Marriott Silver Elite status

• 15 elite night credits (ENCs) per year, plus 1 ENC for every $5,000 in spend on the card

• One 35,000 free night award annually after the first year — can be combined with up to 15,000 Marriott Bonvoy points

• Visa Signature

• No FTF

Chase Ritz Carlton ($450 AF) — earns Marriott points instead of UR

• 6x Marriott purchases (increased by Marriott status; with Gold Elite, the yield is 18.5x)

• 3x dining

• 3x car rentals

• 3x airfare booked directly with the airline

• 2x catch-all

• Automatic Marriott Gold Elite status

• 15 elite night credits per year

• One 85,000 free night award annually — can be combined with up to 15,000 Marriott Bonvoy points

• 3 upgrade certificates to the Ritz Carlton club level annually

• $300 airline incidental credit (DPs: https://frequentmiler.com/ritz-fee-credits-what-works/)

• Chase airport lounge access, including Priority Pass Select, including for unlimited guests

• No charge for authorized users

• TSA PreCheck or Global Entry credit

• Primary car rental insurance

• Lost luggage reimbursement

• Trip cancellation/interruption insurance

• Trip delay reimbursement

• Visa Infinite

• No FTF

Note that the RC is not available by direct application. To acquire it, one must apply for any Chase Marriott card, hold it for a year, then request a product change to the RC. For the PC to be granted, you must have at least a $10,000 credit limit on the Marriott card — if applicable, you could request some credit limit shift over from any other Chase consumer card.

Edit: the link above was retrieved from a Google search but doesn’t appear to reflect more generally on the Chase website (yet?).

Edit 2: I now also see the offer on the Marriott website.

Edit 3: DoC now has a post about the offer. DoC says the offer is available via referrals, but I don’t see that yet.

Edit 4: now able to see the offer via referral links, but not yet through the main Chase website itself. In the meantime, you can see the offer through Marriott’s website.

Edit 5: u/ricestocks reports that Chase has finally updated their own website with the offer.

Hi everyone,

Looking at the $95 AF card and the 5 free nights is a nice deal but beyond the SUB, the other benefits seem alright and I am almost positive it would preclude me from any other Marriott cards in the near future. I travel quite a bit for work and would like to maintain plat with the Brilliant (may even pull the trigger on the 95k pts due to upcoming travel & wanting to maintain status) I have got plenty of benefits out of even the “inflated” plat (free breakfast personally, additional pts, marginally better service, late checkout) so do not want to downgrade to silver. Input is greatly appreciated, thanks!

I am planning my wedding overseas, and decided to organize a welcome drinks event at a Marriott rooftop bar, and also booking out a hotel block at the same Marriott hotel…

I figured I should get a Marriott Bonvoy credit card, since I will be spending a lot of $$ at Marriott, may as well maximize points for it.

I got the Chase Marriott Boundless card 150 AF card.

When the time came to pay the 50% deposit for the room block, Marriott sent me an online global payment link for me to settle up.. Was excited to use my MB card for this one, especially because I would also hit my SUB min spend in one go for it (and 14x points)…. But my card was declined!!

I called Chase to enquire and they said that it was flagged as “suspected fraud” because the address entered on the payment link did not match the address they have on file for me.

Marriott said that this does not make sense because they don’t enter an address anywhere on their end for the link.

I tried to see if Marriott could take my card details over the phone and run it offline, but that is not an option because I’d have to be there in person..

Called Chase again asking them to override the fraud prevention because “I’m clearly on the phone requesting this payment to go through” There was nothing they could do.. I then asked for a refund for my annual fee, because I got this credit card for this exact specific reason to use at the Marriott hotel (exactly what it is advertised for), and it is not possible to do so.

They refused to refund my AF. This is completely ridiculous. The fact that I can’t use my Marriott card at a Marriott, and Chase refuses to do anything to help resolve the situation.

I’m extremely disappointed in Chase for this.. Wish I got the AMEX card instead

Hi I travel a good amount for work and always stay at Marriott’s. I was thinking about signing up for the Bonvoy boundless credit card and saw until 7/11/24 they are offering a sign up bonus for 3 free nights up to 50k per night (150k). Is this the typical standard bonus for this card? I did see in the past they offered up to 5 free nights at up to 50k each night.

I know this sign up bonus ends on 7/11 but not sure if this is the standard bonus? I would be upset if I signed up for the card then starting on 7/12 they are offering 5 free nights. Thanks.

Has anyone here downgraded or product changed their Marriott Bonvoy boundless credit card? How did you do it? Did you wait for your free night after the anniversary? Did they refund the whole annual fee? Please advise! Thank you in advance!!

I felt like I wanted to try and save someone like me who is looking into getting a Marriott card to earn more points or free nights awards. I thought I did enough research by reading through reddit and watching YouTube videos but they all seem to skip over a huge limitation of the rewards program.

Marriott points and Free night awards are only redeemable for the cheapest and most basic room that a hotel offers. I rarely travel and when I do I prefer staying in the nicer rooms that are larger and have a balcony. This means the entire Marriott rewards program is completely valueless to me. I understand that this may be common knowledge to some hotel rewards program veterans but somehow this simple fact never came up during my research.

Just try to do a search of a hotel in the Marriott app or website and look at the nicer/premium rooms and then redo the search with the "Book with Points" option selected. With all the hotels I've found you'll see the premium rooms disappear and you can only book the cheapest room with points. This might not matter to people who are fine with the basic rooms, but I like going for the upgraded rooms in mid-tier hotels. The only value might be from booking basic rooms with points/FNA in luxury hotels, which I haven't tried yet and might look into for a future trip.

Update: This is a limitation of the whole Marriott points program that many people won't care about, but it's something I think should be mentioned more often. I plan on keeping the Boundless for at least a year to see if I'll ever find value from it but I just got approved for the Amex Platinum which may work better for me with how I personally use hotels. Ultimately I find the benefits that a card/status gives is more valueable to me than the actual points.

I got the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless ($95 AF) a few months ago with plans to product change to the Ritz-Carlton after a year, mainly for the "prestige" of the card. However, after trying to use the 50K-point free night reward and booking with points in general, I’m seriously reconsidering.

I haven't been able to find a single hotel under 95K points where I can actually use the free night reward, and even then, the best redemption I’ve found is around 0.8 cpp. Most Marriott properties in destinations I’m interested in fall in the 0.3–0.6 cpp range—nowhere near what I’d expect from a solid rewards program.

Compared to Hyatt, I’m struggling to find a reason to stay in the Marriott ecosystem at all. I’d still like to have the Ritz-Carlton card, but does anyone have tips to justify the annual fee? Maybe specific hotels with decent point redemptions? If I could find just one property where I can reliably use the 90K-point credit each year, that might be enough to make it worthwhile.

Would love to hear any insights!

Just connected to the hotel wifi and this offer popped up.

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless - $95 Annual fee

$400 e gift card + 25000 points after $2000 spend in 3 months.

Is this a better offer?

Dont travel much, maybe 2-3 times a year with 3 nights per stay typical.

Not looking to get into marriott system, was just curious!!

I opened it for the 5 free nights last year and I used them. My $95 annual fee is now posted and I know I won’t be using the card because it’s not my main. But for the “free night” is it worth it instead of just booking a hotel somewhere when I need it?

What do you all do?

I suppose to get 17x multiplier on this credit card for using in Marriott property. The hotel manager told me I won’t get a multiplier because hotel wasn’t reserved directly- it was a conference group rate booking. Is this true?? I suppose to get 6x via Chase and 10x via status boost and extra 1x for status as well. Do I lose out on all multipliers??

Fiancee just got a SUB offer for 5 free nights for the Bonvoy Boundless card. I've done zero research on Marriott cards. Is this a good one? Is there a better one? Worth getting for sub at least?

Also, what if the room I want is more than 50k/night? Can I pay the difference in cash or other points or am I truly limited to rooms under 50k to even use the credits?