A Look At All SPG/Marriott/Ritz-Carlton Credit Cards – Do They Make Sense With The New Transfer Rates? (1:3 or 3:1)

Marriott have just announced the details of their acquisition of SPG. Part of this is the fact that you can now transfer SPG to Marriott points at a rate of 1:3 and conversely you can transfer Marriott to SPG at a rate of 3:1. They’ll also match your status as well, as follows:

Let’s take a look at all of the SPG/Marriott/Ritz-Carlton credit cards and see if there is any hidden value now.

Ritz-Carlton Credit Card

Link to our full review

This card offers three free nights at any tier 1-4 properties and 10,000 Ritz-Carlton points after you add an authorized user and they make their first purchase. It also comes with a heavy $450 annual fee but with $300 in airline incidental credits. It earns at the following rates:

• 5x points on Ritz-Carlton & partner hotel stays
• 2x points on travel & restaurants
• 1x points on all other purchases

It gives you Gold Elite status in the first year and you can maintain this by spending $10,000 on purchases in the first year and each year thereafter. This can be upgraded to Platinum Elite status with $75,000 in spend each account year.

Because the free night credits can’t be transferred to SPG and the earning rates on this card are relatively low (especially when you consider the 3:1 transfer rate) this card isn’t of particular interest. You would get SPG gold or Platinum status, but that isn’t particularly exciting given the high spend requirement.

Marriott Personal

Link to our review/current offer

The current sign up bonus on this card is 80,000 points after $3,000 in spend within the first three months and 7,500 points for adding an authorized user and them making a first purchase also within three months of account opening. This would leave you with 87,500 points (really at least 90,500 after meeting the minimum spend requirement). That would be worth ~30,000 SPG points.

Downside is that the $85 annual fee is not waived the first year, and the earning rates aren’t great.

• Annual fee of $85 is not waived
• Card earns at the following rates:
  • 5x points per $1 spent at Marriott & Ritz Carlton locations
  • 2x points per $1 spent on airline tickets purchased directly with the Airline, at car rental agencies and at restaurants
  • 1x points per $1 spent on all other purchases
• Anniversary bonus of a free night certificate for a category 1-5 property.
• 15 credits towards Elite membership after approval and every year after account anniversary
• 1 elite credit for every $3,000 spent
• This product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months

Unfortunately the Chase 5/24 rule also applies to this card!

Chase Marriott Business

Update: According to Flyertalk this link is 70k points with the AF waived, but it’s not mentioned on the application page so YMMV.

This offer is currently pretty similar to the Chase Marriott personal card, big differences are the $99 annual fee and the fact that Chase 5/24 doesn’t apply to this card. Unfortunately there is no authorized user bonus either, so you’d end up with 80,000 points after $3,000 in spend (worth about 26,650 SPG points). Previously they’ve had a 100,000 point offer but that has now expired.

• Annual fee of $99 is not waived
• Card earns at the following rates:
  • 5x points per $1 spent at Marriott & Ritz Carlton locations
  • 2x points per $1 spent on airline tickets purchased directly with the Airline, at car rental agencies and at restaurants
  • 1x points per $1 spent on all other purchases
• Anniversary bonus of a free night certificate for a category 1-5 property.
• 15 credits towards Elite membership after approval and every year after account anniversary
• 1 elite credit for every $3,000 spent
• Marriott gold status after $50,000 in spend 
• No foreign transaction fees

SPG Personal

There are currently two offers on this card, you can either get two free nights at any category 1-5 property or 25,000 points after $3,000 in spend by using a referral link (share your referrals here).

Now there are a few big things here, basically this is 75,000 Marriott points with no annual fee (better than the Marriott offers if you ask me). The second is that this card means you can earn 3x Marriott points on all purchases. You’d need to value Marriott points at over 0.67¢ each to get better value than using a 2% card.

SPG Business

Same as personal, there are two different offers. One for two free nights and the other for 25,000 points but both require $5,000 in spend. You can share your referrals here.

• Annual fee of $95 is waived the first year
• No foreign transaction fee
• Boingo internet access for up to four devices
• Premium in room internet at all SPG hotels
• Earn 2x points on all SPG purchases
• Earn 1x points on all other purchases
• Sheraton Club Access

You have the same ability to get 75,000 points and earn 3x on Marriott as with the personal.

Our Verdict

A lot of people will be eyeing the 7 night + miles hotel and flight packages from Marriott. One awesome deal would be 120,000 Southwest miles (these count for the companion pass) and seven nights at a category one to five property. Normally that would set you back 270,000 points but in this case it could be 90,000 SPG points. I’m actually more interested in transferring the other way as I like SPG points quite a lot and have a glut of airline miles. It’s a shame the personal Marriott card is under 5/24 and the business card doesn’t come with the 7,500 authorized user points.

Still that’s a pretty good offer, over 25,000 SPG points but I do eat an annual fee of $99 so will need to think about it some more. Where do you see the value with this new announcement? Let me know in the comments.