The Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card is far from a favorite card of mine. Back in the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) days, the co-branded card offered 1 point per dollar everywhere, the equivalent of 3X points everywhere in the new program.
The card offers an annual 35K free night award certificate that makes the annual fee of $95 worthwhile, and it also confers 15 elite nights (combinable with a business Bonvoy card for 30 elite nights yearly, total). Plus, soon we’ll be able to “top off” a Bonvoy certificate with points for a better award.
These two features alone make the card worth having but not really worth spending on outside of Marriott brand stays that earn 6X points.
Add to that next month’s upcoming massive devaluation of the Bonvoy program and you can see why it’s not my go to card.
Chase has made some improvements to the card effective today (along with a fresh 100,000 point bonus offer if you don’t already have the card).
The improvements are:
- Earn 3X points total on gas, dining, and groceries with a $6,000 annual cap.
- Earn 1 elite night for every $5,000 spent.
So, do those changes move the needle for me?
Just a little.
I value Marriott points at 0.6 cents each (and that is likely to fall further once the devaluation takes hold next month).
On these categories I would rather use:
- A Citi Custom Cash for 5X back on gas (up to $500 a month). I value Citi ThankYou points at 1.6 cents making this worth 8% back (vs 1.8% on the Boundless). These are the best credit cards for gas stations.
- An Amex Gold for groceries (4X). I value Amex Membership Rewards at 1.7 cents each, making this worth 68.% back vs. the 1.8% on the Boundless). These are the best credit cards for groceries.
- An Amex Gold for dining (4X). These are the best credit cards for dining.
What about the elite night per $5,000 spent?
Undeniably an improvement, though you would get 2 elite nights for the same spend on a World of Hyatt credit card. This is a feature the old Chase card had, so it’s great to bring back. In a pinch, you could use this way to get over a threshold for status. Let’s say you have a personal and business Bonvoy credit card giving you 30 nights off the bat,. You stay 46 nights. You could spend $20k to get the rest.
But on balance, that is a LOT of spend at a very poor earn rate just to get 1 elite night at a time. So I rate this as nice, but not game changing in terms of picking up the card.
And as I mentioned, if you don’t already have it, the new bonus is 100,000 points when you spend $5,000 within 3 months.
Thoughts?
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You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
