Update: It looks like the 5 night packages are being restricted to timeshare owners only, so looks like you’ll be stuck with the seven night packages.
Chase has two offers on their Marriott cards worth considering:
- Chase Marriott Card Back Up To 80,000 Points (+7,500 For Authorized User, AF Not Waived)
- Chase Marriott Business Card 100,000 Point Offer – Publicly Available
If you meet the minimum spend requirements ($3,000 for personal & $5,000 for business) on both cards you’d earn a total of 195,500 Marriott points (this would also require you adding the authorized user on the personal card). You would also need to pay annual fees of $184 ($85 for personal and $99 for business). Now you could just use those Marriott points for Marriott stays, but one of the nice things about Marriott is their Flight + Hotel packages.
Flight + Hotel Packages
Normally you’d need a minimum of 200,000 Marriott points to book any flight and hotel packages, but these packages all come with seven nights. Frequent Miler found out about five night packages, they are supposed to only be for Vacation Club owners but people have had success booking without being one of these (keep in mind this risk when following this strategy). The ‘award chart’ for this looks like this:
Rewards Category | 5 Nights + 50k Miles | 5 Nights + 70k Miles | 5 Nights + 100k Miles | 5 Nights + 120k Miles |
Category 1-5 | 165k | 185k | 215k | 235k |
Category 6 | 180k | 200k | 230k | 250k |
Category 7 | 200k | 220k | 250k | 270k |
Category 8 | 230k | 250k | 280k | 300k |
Category 9 | 275k | 295k | 325k | 345k |
If you redeem for United miles, you also get an additional 10% bonus. You can redeem for miles with the following programs:
- American Airlines
- Delta
- Southwest (points count towards companion pass)
- Aeromexico
- Air Canada
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
- Copa Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- GOL/Varig
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Iberia Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
If you had both cards then you’d have enough points for 5 nights + 50k miles and up to category 6 or 5 nights, 70k miles & up category 5. To be honest though, the real value is in the packages with 120,000 miles. For example you need an additional 70,000 Marriott points to score an additional 70,000 miles if you move from the lowest amount of miles to the highest (even better if you convert to United then it’s an additional 77,000 miles), that’s fantastic value. I would convert Marriott points to airline miles all day long at a 1:1 or better ratio. [Little update: In fact as you move up you’re always getting that extra 1 mile per 1 Marriott point, this is the same with the seven night packages as well]
Chasing Bigger Awards
You could achieve these better redemption by sharing points. According to Marriott, here are the rules:
A limit of 50,000 points per year may be transferred into or out of a member’s account. Members who are transferring points in order to satisfy a specific award may exceed the 50,000 limit up to the amount needed to satisfy the reservation.
There is a fee of $10USD (Gold and Platinum Elite members transfer for free). You need to contact Marriott Rewards Customer Support at 1-801-468-4000. Obviously this would require more credit card pulls and more paying annual fees, but it’s an option none the less.
Final Thoughts
By no means are these amazing deals that everybody should jump on immediately, there are a lot of issues (relatively high spend requirements, annual fees not waived, uncertainty about 5 night packages etc etc) surrounding this tactic but it is something I think merits thinking about at the very least.
I mean a 120,000 Southwest miles, Southwest companion pass and five nights at a category seven property for three hard pulls + annual fees doesn’t sound like a terrible deal to me. Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments, what else am I missing?
Also, I’m trying to write more about redeeming rewards. Are posts like these interesting (and useful) to readers? Let me know.
These posts are definitely useful
Yes, I’m very interested on these post.
As a side note I really love this blog from DOC.
Agree on the benefit of articles about redeeming… I feel like DOC does a great job with topics on earning rewards, but the redeeming sometimes can get tricky for newbies IMO.
Yes, please keep these types of posts coming.
I find these posts very useful. I find myself jumping on deals sometimes and then later trying to figure out what to do with the points, instead of having ideas in mind beforehand. Keep it up!
Love this post – very relevant and great coming from one of the few sources I trust.
JDDTx, What are the other sources you trust?
@Chris: I am skeptical by nature (given that I am a corporate lawyer by training – I used to help big companies write fine print that intentionally left out what they wanted to while giving a certain impression to the contrary) so other than DOC I have found almost nobody else that I truly trust (I like a person called Wandering Aramean – but his content is only occasionally relevant for me). I sometimes wish DOC would create a newsletter with all these titbits he alludes to sometimes (example – something about supercharging some Target/Ebay GC strategy) – and charge $120/year. I would definitely try it out – even 1 great tip a month would likely make it worth it. Maybe that would destroy the model that built the trust – which is not to push anything and be brutally honest in the OUR VERDICT section – but I can wish. I would certainly be glad to be parted from that $$ for DOC. /JB (Twitter: Jay_Bhat_TX)
We usually share most tips in the newsletter for free, I don’t feel comfortable sharing some stuff because readers shared it with my in confidence. I also don’t really feel comfortable asking readers for money since this site is supposed to help them save money/get more money.
Recent comments of Frequent Miler suggests that 5 nights packages are no more available for non-Vacation Club owners
A second backup to this comment. I called and inquired about this and was completely shut down. I saw another post online where somebody who was Marriott PLATINUM who called multiple times couldn’t get it done.
This was a little known loophole that was sometimes allowed – once it got released publicly it appears it was shutdown quickly. That said – the 7 day packages are still a good deal.
Updated post, thanks. Missed that.
I think the only issue signing up for both would be Chase’s rather stringent rules on applications/cards. The companion pass alone would be worth it.