[Confirmed] American Express & Chase To Team Up & Limit Marriott/SPG Bonuses

Update: Full details here.

Updated post July 26, 2018: Chase has added the following language on the Premier Plus credit card:

Effective 08/26/2018:

Eligibility for the new cardmember bonus: The bonus is not available to you if you:

  • are a current cardmember, or were a previous cardmember within the last 30 days, of the Starwood Preferred Guest® credit card;
  • are a current or previous cardmember of either the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business or the Starwood Preferred Guest® Luxury credit card, and received a new cardmember bonus or upgrade bonus in the last 24 months; or
  • applied and were approved for the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card, Starwood Preferred Guest Business credit card, or Starwood Preferred Guest Luxury credit card within the last 90 days.

Hat tip to US Credit Card Guide

Original post on June 26th, 2018: American Express will launch the SPG Luxury card on August 1st, we don’t know what the sign up bonus will be (although we have made some educated guesses). Unfortunately it looks like most readers will be ineligible as American Express plans to exclude anybody who has received a sign up or upgrade bonus on any Ritz-Carlton/Marriott credit card in the past 24 months (including Marriott business). You will also be excluded if you currently hold or have recently held the Ritz-Carlton card.  Interestingly they won’t look at whether you’ve had an SPG personal/business card.  American Express already limits you to receiving the sign up bonus on each card once per lifetime and they recently added a new restriction where they can deny you the sign up bonus even if you’ve never received the bonus on that card before (although they do at least warn you before you apply) based on the cards you’ve opened/closed. What’s really interesting about this is that American Express plans to deny people the sign up bonus based on cards you have with another issuer and they are also using language that mentions 24 months, something that American Express doesn’t usually do but Chase does. This leads me to believe that Chase will introduce a similar rule on Marriott cards as well and this could actually be lead by Marriott (or something both card issuers pushed for in the new contract). At this stage this is just a rumor, but I’m 90% confident this will happen (that is on American Express’ end, no idea what Chase will do). The other possibility is that Marriott just passes American Express this information instead (Marriott shows points activity for 24 months as well). I imagine Chase would have to at least consent to this, but it also opens the possibility of Chase not being involved at all.  It’s really annoying that it includes upgrade bonuses, as lots of people will have recently done upgrade offers to the Marriott Premier Plus card.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

95 Comments
newest
oldest most voted

JoJo
JoJo (@guest_622521)
July 26, 2018 22:42

Seems if you are Ritz card memeber you can still get the Marriott one?

Tom
Tom (@guest_622519)
July 26, 2018 22:36

Right before you original post on this a few weeks ago I upgraded my Marriott Personal Card. (Now if I were only to have actually received the points they promised I’d receive….) I guess this makes it easy. No SPG Luxe card until I’’m eligible for the bonus… when and if it happens. I assume AMEX will have the little pop up that tells people that they’re not eligible. One less card to have to pull out of the sock drawer with the new “enhanced” earnings.

DaveC
DaveC (@guest_622516)
July 26, 2018 22:31

So to be sure— I have the AMEX SPG Business card, applies in 2015 and still have it. If I cancel it now and apply after 1 month, I should be eligible for the new SPG/Marriott cards, correct?

shulem92
shulem92 (@guest_622512)
July 26, 2018 22:20

it is probably something that the marriott spg contract said, that in order for chase and amex to both continue offering cards it has to be limited somehow. so they just took the worst of both worlds. i just hope this doesnt give amex or chase any ideas for the future

Chris
Chris (@guest_622510)
July 26, 2018 22:19

Worth noting it says “Effective 8/26/1208”

P
P (@guest_622485)
July 26, 2018 21:56

Meh. It doesn’t affect me much since I can’t get that card due to 5/24 anyway and I’ve already had the Marriott Biz, SPG Biz, and SPG personal. I’ll wait what language they have for the luxury card.

david
david (@guest_622499)
July 26, 2018 22:06
  P

First they came for the socialists…

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_622482)
July 26, 2018 21:51

get read for the freedom sapphire line to do exactly this…

Hunter
Hunter (@guest_611558)
July 2, 2018 08:55

I had the Amex Hilton Surpass card for years, before it was recently changed to the Ascend card. Amex invited me to upgrade to their new, luxury Aspire card, which is very similar to the new SPG luxury card being introduced on August 1st. However, they do not offer any bonus for the upgrade from Ascend to Aspire. I would think that the same thing is going to happen for existing Amex SPG Personal and Business cardholders. Amex will invite these existing cardholders to upgrade to the new SPG Luxury card, but will not offer them any sign-up bonus. I could be wrong, but I think the precedent they created for Hilton upgrades from Surpass/Ascend to Aspire will carry over to the new SPG luxury card. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Sam
Sam (@guest_611348)
July 1, 2018 19:24

Yoh heard any rumors that Amex will go to 5/24 in the future?

Amy
Amy (@guest_610208)
June 29, 2018 06:48

I have not upgraded my personal Marriott card yet but just got Marriott Biz two weeks ago. I have not met minimum spend. If I don’t meet the spend requirement until after August 1, will I be able to apply for the SPG luxury card and receive the bonus? Thanks!