Since Chase did away with the Chase Marriott Premier card in favor of what is now the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card, they have been targeting people to upgrade by offering bonus Bonvoy points.

Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless vs Marriott Premier

In most ways, the new Boundless card is actually better. It earns more points per dollar across the board and, for just a $10 addition to the annual fee, gives you one free night good for a Bonvoy property of up to 35,000 points a night. The old Premier card gives you only up to a 25,000 point / night room.

There’s one HUGE difference in these credit cards, though.

While the new Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card offers 15 elite night credits each year, they are not

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card

stackable with any other Marriott Bonvoy earning cards, such as the business version of the Chase Marriott card or any of the Amex versions. Once you get 15 elite nights from any of those cards, you won’t get them from any other cards for that year. Even if you have all currently attainable cards, you still just get 15 nights.

The old Marriott Premier card, though, allows you to earn 1 elite night credit for each $3,000 in spend. While not killer for any general spending, for some this method of earning bonus elite nights is pure gold, since Marriott has made it quite difficult to earn more than 25 bonus elite nights a year outside of their own stay promotions (15 for a credit card and another 10 if you hold a Rewarding Event).

The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless upgrade offer

I’m coming back to the Premier in a second, but since I started this post to discuss the upgrade offer, let’s cover that. While previously the offer was points, the current “Second Quarter” promotion is bonus elite nights. The offer we saw was for 10 elite nights. I’m told people are being targeted for 10 or 15 nights (I have no idea what determines your offer). You can check your offer at http://marriottrewards.com/upgrade/

Let me know what you get and if it sways you to upgrade. 

According to the Chase rep I spoke to, these would be in addition to any elite nights you get from another credit card. So if you have an Amex giving you 15 nights and get targeted for 10 to upgrade, you’d get all 25 this year.

Can you Downgrade to the Marriott Premier from the Boundless to get the chance to earn the elite nights for spending?

According to the representative, yes, after holding the Boundless for a full year, you should be

Your Best Credit Cards
Your Best Credit Cards

able to downgrade to the Premier.  If you happen to have the Boundless and it’s been a year, and you’re on the phone with Chase, see if you can downgrade and let us know!

The downside of downgrading, though, aside from the decreased earnings for spend is that your annual free night drops from being worth 35,000 to only 25,000 points – and while a ton of great Marriott’s are Cat 5, good luck on the Cat 4.

The representative did also confirm that you can upgrade to the Ritz Carlton card if you would get more value from that card than from your Boundless card.

What do you think?

How would you play this? Would y0u upgrade for the elite nights? Downgrade for the opportunity to earn elite nights for spend? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.

New to all of this? The “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.

6 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve been targeted for 15 Elite Night credits and I am on the fence on whether or not to upgrade. I really want to but I have a concern.

    Has Marriott confirmed or publicly stated that they are 100% done with migrating folks to lifetime status post merger / Bonvoy? I’m currently listed as a lifetime platinum member when I log into Bonvoy. It shows 10 years of platinum but I don’t know if that is accurate (it could be 8 or 9 years). Because of this I’ve been hanging on to my legacy Marriott Premier card since I’m earning elite nights every month. If I could somehow get confirmation of my lifetime status I would upgrade in a heartbeat. Any recommendations?

  2. My understanding is that they are done. yet the way the transition has gone I’d be the last one to say anything is definitive – even if they publicly said it… Do you have another Bonvoy card as well earning the 15 nights a year? Those do count towards LT as well. How many elite nights a year are you earning on this one?

  3. I currently only have one Marriott card (the old Chase Marriott Premier). Each month I earn 2-3 Elite night credits (roughly 30/year based on spend alone). With that and the original 15 nights I get almost enough nights for Platinum without having to worry about stays.

    Ideally I’d confirm my lifetime Platinum status, upgrade to the new Bonvoy card (and start getting double the points on non-Marriott spend) with it or switch that spend to a different card. But I don’t want to do that until I know my lifetime Platinum status is set. Does that make sense?

  4. Yes, makes sense. It’s a shame that they’ve made it so you can’t even go and get one of the other Marriott cards now as that would have solved the issue… That said, I still think the odds are super low that if it says you are LT Plat that it will “vanish” later. Very unlikely. But with how they handle support when things do go wrong, I hesitate to imply anything is 100%.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here