Marriott has announced new benefits for the American Express & Chase cards that go into effect today. The deal benefits are as follows:
- Gold elite status
- 7% discount on standard room rate when booking direct
- 4 points per dollar at resturants worldwide
Did some booking searches and AAA rates beat the 7% off standard rate at nearly every hotel in my search area. LTS (long-term stay or 5 nights+) code has better rates too.
unfortunately this card sign up bonus offer is not available to anyone who has or *has had* this card before. 🙁
Well, this saves me from having to get a personal card for status
Any ideas on whether this will count towards lifetime status?
Lifetime Gold Elite status requires 400 qualifying lifetime nights and 7 years of Gold Elite status or higher:
https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/member-benefits/lifetime-status.mi
This card (assuming it’s your only business Marriott card) gives 15 qualifying nights per year, and it gives you Gold Elite status. So if you hold it for 7 years (and if it retains this benefits for 7 years), you’ll have enough years to qualify for lifetime Gold Elite status, but be just over a quarter to your qualifying lifetime nights from the card alone. But you’d need to hold it for 28 years (and it would to retain this benefit for 28 years) for you to get all the required qualifying nights from the card alone.
If you also get a personal card, it’ll give another 15 qualifying nights per year (for a total of 30, which the max you can get no matter how many Marriott cards you have), so if you don’t have many qualifying lifetime nights yet, it’ll get you there twice as fast to have both this business card and a personal card. And just 14 years would get you enough nights from the card alone to qualify for Lifetime Gold Elite status.
And, btw, 30 nights per year is 5 nights more than you need for Gold status, just having had both a business and personal Marriott card would have given you Gold status already anyway, even if they hadn’t added this benefit.
Plus, award stays booked through marriott.com count as qualified stays, so if you have both this card and a personal card, then you’ll have a free night award the second year on from each card, and use of that free night award also counts toward the lifetime qualified stays. So that’s why it’s worth it also have a personal Marriott card that has an annual fee, because you’ll presumably find a use for the free night award each year which is valued more (especially once you factor in taxes) than the annual fee costs you.
However, this card alone won’t help you that much toward Lifetime Platinum status. Lifetime Platinum status requires 10 years at annual Platinum status, and annual Platinum status requires 50 nights a year, which is 20 nights a year on top of the 30 nights a year you earn by having both a personal and business Marriott card. So if you keep both cards for at least 10 years, and use the free night award each year, you’ll need 18 nights more (which includes award stays) a year to qualify for Lifetime Platinum status.
So, yes?
Read the detail above. You have to click on “read more” in green (at the end of the initially-compressed message) to see it redrawn properly formatted.
Since it takes multiple factors to get to lifetime status, and there are multiple lifetime statuses available, it’s not a simple “yes” or “no” answerable question that you posed. That’s why I had to give so much detail above.
If you want a relatively simple answer, it’s “somewhat yes” if you have only this one card, but “much more yes” if you combine it with a personal card that gives another 15 elite nights a year and another annual free night cert.
Or, you could just answer a yes-no question with “yes” or “no.”
Some people clearly find it difficult to do that in less than six paragraphs. Especially when they’re answering a question that wasn’t asked….
I can’t answer yes-no question with just “yes” or “no” if the answer is not as simple as yes or no. And in this case, like I said, it takes multiple factors to get to lifetime status. And so the answer is “yes” for one of those factors but sort of “no” for another of those factors.
But you didn’t break your question up into “does this card help with the years of lifetime status” and/or “does this card help with the lifetime nights of lifetime status”.
So a simple “yes” or “no” answer to the question you posed would actually have been misleading.
And if my only choice is to post a misleading answer, I’m not even going to answer. My point is to provide information.
Then why did you answer?
I answered the question because I always to provide information that I have if I see a question that seems to be asking for information about something I know quite a bit about.
And I know quite a bit about Marriott lifetime status because I pursued it in the past at a time when the requirements were changing almost monthly (during the Marriott-SPG merger).
Seems as if you like to feel important rather than actually help people.
Seems like you like to pester people instead of helping them.
The world is not as simple as your mind.
Yes
Wow. How did you answer in so few words? 😉
Senior discount is far superior to the SMB 7% rate. And, SMB also didn’t appear for lots of properties, when I just did a random search in greater Boston.
Yep still avoiding Marriott. Guess Im sticking with Hilton. This is a god awful. If my P2 remembered to apply for the Chaes Marriot 5 Night deal… smh
Isn’t the AAA discount better? this is laughable
I’ve noticed since 2020 that at most hotels – regardless of brand – AAA rates are the same or worse than any free member rewards rate.
The only thing AAA rates generally have are more flexible cancellation policies, but that wasn’t an issue either during COVID. Maybe now with demand going up, refundable rates will be less common.
AAA rate is not a set discount. In fact, sometimes it’s a little more than the standard “best” rates and sometimes it’s a little less. However in my experience, at 98% of Marriott hotels, the AAA rate gives a way better cancellation policy which makes it much more worth using even if it’s a few dollars more.
Not even a free annual night. This is a hard pass
I don’t know about the Chase card but the Amex Marriott Business card has an annual free night.
The Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Credit Card comes with a 35k free night certificate each year you pay the annual fee and you can top up 15k points, if necessary.
The Chase Marriott business card is not available for new applications anyway. It continues to be available only for people who already have it.
No, it’s not available to those who already have it. I cannot get a second one. 🙄
I didn’t say ADDITIONAL cards are available to those already have it! I simply meant that they’re not forcing the card to be discontinued for existing members. So they let you keep card if you already have it, but once you cancel it, you can’t get it again.
? It gives a FNC, at least for Amex.
The 7% discount ahows up as a seperate rate type under my Bonvoy Account and it is shown as Non Commisionable rate. So no Cashback Portals. Wonder if Non Commisionable rates earn Bonvoy Points, i hope they do.
Cash portals reject AAA rates too.
Was confused on why I got Gold elite status out of nowhere, nice to know it wasn’t a mistake that could be clawed back
You get Gold status automatically if you have both a Marriott personal card and a Marriott business card, because one of each type of Marriott card (personal and business) gives you 15 elite nights a year, for a total of 30, but only 25 a year are needed for Gold status.
So if you have both a personal and business Marriott card, that may be why you got Gold elite status before this benefit was announced.
He got Gold status through this new feature, not through nights 🙄
And you know that how???? Is there another post where he explains that????
I wonder if that 7% would apply to explore rate reservations as well.