I’m going to keep this relatively brief. But there are two updates I’d like to share about the Chase Ritz Carlton card:
- The 140,000 point after $3,000 in spending within three months has now expired. The current sign up bonus looks to be one night stay at a collection 1-4 property.
- Chase are tightening what counts for the $300 annual travel credit. I wrote a post on what does and doesn’t count, which can be found here. I’ve gone ahead and updated that with all of the current data points I could find. Travel with Grant has some information on this as well.
- One piece of advice, if you’re trying to get a gift card reimbursed, don’t be stupid and make it for one large amount that is a round number. I’ve seen a lot of people getting denied for a $300 gift card, if you’re a customer service representative does that look like an airline incidental charge? Be creative, look at how much the airline you’re buying a gift card for charges for seat upgrades or baggage and use those amounts instead.
- Another piece of advice, people seem to be having more success by calling rather than sending a secured message. I imagine that this is because it’s easier for representatives to say no via secured message because it’s “faceless” whereas if you call they know you’re a real person and might take pity on you.
I’ve also updated our review on this card with this information as well. In other news Chase has also publicly upped the sign up bonus on the Chase Marriott Premier to 70,000 points after $2,000 in spend. Chase seems to cycle through different offers being higher than the standard bonus, so it probably makes sense that the Ritz Carlton deal has died now the public bonus on the Marriott Premier is now higher.
Because of this post, I just tried a new charge. The language says
>Only the following types of non-ticket Net Purchases qualify for this offer: airline lounge day pass, or towards a yearly lounge membership of your choice; airline seat upgrades; airline baggage fees; in-flight internet/entertainment; in-flight meals; Global Entry fees.
This makes it sound like regular fees aren’t included, but I just had ~66 bucks or so of regular award flight fees from Delta approved over the phone. They didn’t even ask what the charges were – potentially because it was a non-round number that included cents. So my guess is that any fee that is an odd number is going to get approved pretty quickly, regardless of if it is a seat upgrade, regular tax/fee, etc.
Just another data point.
Hey Doc,
I recently tried a 100 dollar AA gift card for reimbursement. Called in and the rep did ask what the charge was, I told her ‘baggage’ and she put it through. Was pretty painless.
I would agree that you should stick with small amounts. I’m not going to push my luck too hard, and by coincidence I do have some actual fees coming up that I can get refunded.
FYI on getting a $300 reimbursement from Delta, this justification worked fine for me:
Per Delta’s website: “For travel outside the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the change fee for Delta-marketed flights is typically $200 to $450, but can vary based on location and type of fare”
Yup, it’s possible but you might as well just break it up into small chunks to reduce risk.
Yes, you will.
I already got the 140k chase Ritz bonus offer. Will I be qualified and eligible for the 70k chasee Marriott offer too? FYI I applied Ritz with my Marriott member number. I want to get 200k points so I can redeem for 5 nights hotel and airlines miles package.