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The Marriott Bonvoy BoundlessTM Credit Card offer to earn 5 free nights worth 250,000 points. This is richest ever for this card by far, and one of the richest card offers, period. We saw it once before, in 2020 when very few people were traveling. I didn’t think we’d ever see it again.
These free nights, which new cardmembers can earn after $5000 in purchases within the first 3 months after account opening, are each valid on rooms that would cost up to 50,000 points apiece. So if you use them at the top-priced places you’ll get 250,000 points’ worth of free stays from a single credit card bonus. That’s unheard of. (I usually see limited-time offers for this card at 100,000 points.) At my arguably very conservative last published points valuation 250,000 points are worth $1500.
50,000 point free night awards are what I receive each year with my premium $450 Marriott American Express card, and this card is offering 5 (which you earn as the initial bonus) with an annual fee of just $95. Each certificate is valid for a year from the time that it’s earned.
St. Regis Abu Dhabi
Features Of This Card
Other features of this card: return on unbonused spend doubled compared to the old card Chase offered before the Marriott and Starwood programs were combined, so it’s as strong on spending as Marriott’s American Express cards.
- 6 points per dollar at Marriott hotels
- 3 points per dollar on the first $6,000 spent in combined purchases each year on grocery stores, gas stations, and dining
- 2 points per dollar everywhere else
The card comes with automatic Silver elite status. Spending $35,000 in purchases on the card in an account year earns Gold status. And you receive 15 elite nights towards status each year you have the card as well. Plus earn 1 Elite Night Credit towards Elite Status for every $5,000 you spend.
You also receive a Free Night Award every year after your account anniversary, valid for a one-night stay whose redemption value is up to 35,000 points.
Eligibility For The Card
Chase will generally only approve you for a new card if you’ve had fewer than 5 new cards in the last 24 months (“5/24”).
This specific card isn’t available to you if you are a current Marriott personal card cardmember or received a bonus for one in the last 24 months, or you received a bonus on a Marriott American Express card in the past 24 months.
Otherwise it’s an offer that’s too good to pass up.
Totally Worth It
A bonus worth 250,000 Marriott points isn’t something you see every day (or every month). But there are a couple of drawbacks to note. The initial bonus on this card comes in the form of free night certificates.
- You have to use them to get value from them, you can’t just save them in your account for years into the future
- You can’t use them for all hotels, just those where awards are priced at 50,000 points or less (actually, up to 65,000 points since you can top off certificates up to 15,000 points per night with additional points in your account).
If you want to be technical about it there’s another edge case where these certificates are worth more like 200,000 point rather than 250,000 – if you were going to use them on a 5 night stay (as opposed to splitting them up into two or more shorter stays) then Marriott Bonvoy gives you ‘5th night free’ on points redemptions and that wouldn’t apply here. Whether you use 4 or 5 certificates at a 50,000 point per night hotel, you’re getting a stay that would have cost ‘just’ 200,000 points. That situation doesn’t apply to a 3- and 2-night stay, two 2- and a one-night stay, a 4- and 1-night stay, etc.
My view is this is one of the really great initial bonuses we’ve seen if you have plans to travel in the next year. Meanwhile the annual free night (which I value more than the card’s $95 annual fee) gives the card a long-term place in your wallet — and doubly so if you’re working towards Marriott status because of the annual elite nights as well. This is a limited-time offer.
