Frequent Miler on the Air - 5 free Marriott nights | Coffee Break Ep01 | 2-20-24

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

We love talking about points and miles all day, every day. That's why we've decided - in addition to our full-length Frequent Miler on the Air podcast episodes, we're going to share a little something to enjoy during your Tuesday coffee break too. Not a full hour of discussion and analysis like you'll find on the full episodes, but a mini version with a single topic of focus. On this "Coffee Break" mini episode, Greg and Nick chat about a pair of Marriott offers for 5, 50K free night certs (and who this opportunity may be good for.) (02:24) - The consumer card has a lower spend requirement...but does that mean it's the better option?  Check out the Marriott consumer card here, and the Marriott business card here. (03:26) - What is the Marriott "matrix of doom" and why are business cards easier for navigating the matrix? (Read this post to find out which Marriott cards you're eligible for.) (06:13) - The business card is the only option for stacking. (06:36) - Is this a good offer (regardless of whether you get the business or consumer version?) (08:38) - What are the drawbacks of free night certs? (10:50) - How does using a cert impact the fifth night free benefit? (14:23) - Let's review...is this a smokin' hot deal for everyone?  Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don't forget to like and follow us on social media. Music Credit - Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads

Here we go. This is not your usual Frequent Miler on the Air episode. This is a standalone segment we're calling Coffee Break. Each Coffee Break segment will cover a single topic related to miles and points. And each Coffee Break is limited to 20 minutes or your money back. Enjoy. Today's coffee break is about the Marriott Bonvoy offer for five 50K free nights. Let's get into it. So Nick, there is a business Marriott card out with an offer for five free nights. Now, in this case, it's after $8,000 spend. And at the

same time, there's a consumer Marriott card that also is offering five free nights, but that one only requires 5K spend. What do you think of these offers? Well, they sound really good. So five free nights, we should probably also specify these are five free nights, each worth up to 50,000 points. So you get five free night certificates that can each cover a single night that costs up to 50,000 points. And then you can also top off the certificates with up to 15,000 more points. So you could get a night that costs up to 65,000 points with each one of these certificates, but each one's only good for one night. So I mean, both the consumer and business offers are really pretty good here because our value for 50K free night certificates is pretty high, right? I mean, you could do well with one of those. Yeah. I mean, it's not at all unusual to find a hotel costing 400, 500, 600, $700 a night. You know, that's bookable with

50K certificates. Sometimes you have to throw in some extra points. These certificates, you're allowed to add up to 15,000 points for each one. So you can book up to a 65,000 point per night property, but the cert will cover just the first fifty thousand points of that. Oh, between the two, you have the consumer card offer that only requires five thousand dollars spent and the business card offer that requires eight thousand dollars spent. So at first glance, it seems like the consumer card offer must be better, right? Yeah, it seems like it, but I actually like the business card offer better. So there's a few reasons. I mean, yes, it requires more spend, but one reason is that there are no

524 concerns around it at all. So with the Chase consumer card, if you've opened five or more consumer cards in the past 24 months, Chase is not going to let you get this card. Also, and with the Amex card, obviously, that's not an issue, but it also doesn't hurt your 524 standing. So if you sign up for this card, it doesn't count as another card against your total. So it doesn't make it hard to sign up for more chase cards in the future because it's a business card and doesn't go on your credit report. So it won't hurt you there. There's a couple other reasons i like this card better the the this card uh is easier to get through to navigate through marriott's matrix of doom that's a great name for it the matrix of doom because you do you need to consult like this complicated matrix to figure out whether or not you're eligible for a new marriott card. I mean, like, who would ever know? I don't know. I mean, I read about this stuff for a living, and I have to check the chart.

Right. Me too. And I wrote, I created the chart, and I have to consult the chart. Yeah, basically the way Marriott works, Marriott has cards that are both issued by Chase and Amex and has a very, very complicated set of rules about if you want this card, this Marriott card, you may or may not be able to get it depending on which other Marriott cards you've had before or that you currently have or that you looked at fondly. And all of that, it's not that this business card isn't subject to some of that doom, but there are just

fewer constraints. You're more likely to qualify for this one than the Marriott one. So that's a nice thing. I mean, that's definitely a nice thing. It's a lot easier to qualify for this one. In fact, we've got it in my household for that reason, because it was one that we could actually qualify for. And all the other reasons that you said, I mean, there certainly is more spend required, but not counting against your 524 status is worth something to me. And, you know, so I think it's worth the extra spend.

And then obviously the easier to get aspect is nice. Yeah. So also one other thing, the business card has a really nice feature, which has all the Marriott cards offer you automatic like 15 or in one case, 25 elite nights per year. These are nights that get you closer to elite status each year, also get you closer to lifetime status if you're after that.

And what's unique about the business card one is that it stacks with the consumer ones. So if you have any Marriott consumer card, then you either already have 15 nights a year, or you might have 25 nights a year because of the Bonvoy Brilliant card. But if you get this card as well, then you have 15 more nights. So you have 30 or 40 nights automatic every year. And then you're really close to the 50 nights required each year for platinum status so that you'll get free breakfast at a handful of properties around the world. A large handful, a large handful in fairness, but there's another matrix for that to figure

out whether or not you'll get free breakfast. There's a matrix of breakfast doom you have to worry about there. You need a second cup of coffee for that. So we'll talk about that some other time. But the consumer cards, if you have multiple consumer cards, the Elite Knights don't stack. You only get 15 or, like you said, with the one consumer card, you get 25. But you only get that no matter how many consumer cards you have. You're only going to get that bonus once. So the business card is the only option to stack more elite nights with a second Marriott card. So

yeah, that's the other part of the reason why we have the business card in my household. So okay, all right. So we say maybe the business card is better if you can get the business card. And if you don't think you have a business, you probably do. We've talked about that before. And we've got resources on the site about that. There's lots of ways to qualify for business cards. But either way, whether you're going to get the business or the consumer, is this a good offer? So the free night certificates, like you said, can be very valuable. I often find situations where I can get one cent per point or so out of Marriott points. So a 50K certificate, at least theoretically, should be worth like 500 bucks. So five of those, that sounds like $2,500. That sounds like a pretty hot offer, right?

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I'll give you a real example. I just looked this up before we recorded. In at Bay Harbor, which is a really nice Marriott that I enjoy going to in Northern Michigan, I found five free nights available in June of this year, which is kind of a miracle in itself. So don't expect to find that when you go looking, but five nights were available to book with either points or free night certificates. Each night cost 54,000 points. So you would be able to use these certificates there as long as you have 4,000 five so 20 000 marriott points to add on top which you'd have by the time you well you have most of that by the time you by the time you uh meet the minimum spend requirement on on the card um so so that seems pretty good stay at this

really nice marriott uh for up to five nights with these five certs. And the cash price after taxes, $2,665. So you're getting over $2,500 in value, basically, if you value that hotel at face value with this signup bonus. That's great. Yeah. So I think you definitely can do quite well. I've booked a number. I've used my 35K free night certificates in general to really good value over the last few years. So 50K free night certificates, even better. So yeah, I think you could do very well with this, but there are some drawbacks, right? So first of all, free nights expire. And so they're only valid for a year from the date they're issued. So this isn't something you can have and hold forever and ever. And while Marriott used to

be good about extending free night certificates one time, they don't really anymore. So that's not going to be an option. You're going to have that one year and that's it. Use them or lose them. And that sometimes creates all sorts of potentials for breakage, right? Because you might hold on to it early in the year thinking, oh, maybe I'll find a better use later on. And then you get crunched at the end of the year. So there's definitely some limitations there. Yeah. And I think that to me is the biggest thing, that if you don't have a pretty either concrete plan for how you're going to use it or know that you travel so often that you're going to find good uses for these certificates within a year from when they're issued to you, then I don't think this offer makes sense.

I wouldn't go after it. Even though the upside is so high, the chances are really good. If you don't go in with a plan, you're going to end up, you know, booking that cheap like airport hotel just as some way to get some value before this thing expires. And that would be a shame. It would be. It would be. Although, you know, those cheap airport hotels these days, I just recently stayed at JFK. Not so cheap anymore. Yeah, I mean, I was glad to use a certificate on a recent stay by JFK because the prices were just insane. So, but, you know, obviously, that's going to vary from person to person. The point is a really good one. I've often said that, you know, when you use miles and points, you have to be ready to be flexible in different ways. And I think one of the ways to get good value out of something like this is you got to kind of be willing to plan a trip around using these certificates. And if that sounds like a bad idea to you, then it's probably not a good, you know, a good offer for you if you're not ready to say, okay, well, now I have these five certificates. So I am going to do trip A. It doesn't matter what I had in mind. I'm going to do trip A here because I have a good chance to maximize the certs. And so if that's cool with you, then I think this could be a great offer. I've definitely seen a lot of opportunities to do well with it. But it's not the only drawback, the expiration.

The other drawback is that you can't get the fifth night free when you're using certificates. Marriott normally offers, well, we call it the fifth night free. I think they call it pay four and get one. You get the cheapest night out of five free. So if you use points entirely to cover a stay, like the stay that Greg just mentioned at the Amett Bay Harbor. So if you were to cover that entirely with points, you would only pay for four of those nights. So you'd pay, what, 216,000 total points, even though the nights are 54,000 points per night because you'd get one free. So you can't do that with certificates. You can't mix four certificates and say, oh, well, but don't I get the fifth night free? You don't. You have to pay for it. Right. And so you might conclude from that, therefore, this offer is not worth the equivalent of 250,000 points. But if you weren't going to stay five

nights in a row anyway, then it really could be used for hotels that would have cost 50,000 points over five nights spread out. Right. So it depends how you use it as to whether that fifth night free restriction is going to hurt you. Because if you're not staying five nights in a Marriott hotel anyway, then it doesn't matter. Anyway, exactly. And truthfully, very few of my Marriott stays end up being for five nights. So that actually wouldn't be a downside to me. I'm a perfect use case where I'd be like, ah, that really doesn't matter because I'm probably not going to stay five nights a single place anyway. So yeah, but it depends. If you are somebody who would stay

the five nights, then yeah, it's a little bit less valuable than it seems at first anyway. What other downsides do we have? Yeah. Well, so historically, the 50K certificates have not been a sweet spot in Marriott's program. Like, so what you have are, and I'm saying historically because this changes over time. They don't have an award chart. So things change. In fact, the Inn at Bay Harbor used to routinely be 35,000 or 40,000 points per night. Now we're seeing it above 50,000. So it's become like a sweet spot because it's become more expensive. But historically, what you often found were desirable hotels that topped out around 35K or 40k points per night and then the higher level hotels topping out

more like 70k or higher which would be out of range of these certificates because you're only allowed to add up to 15 000 points and so it was like this this you know unfortunate middle ground that that made these harder to use um for for top value and in mind, when you use a 50k cert for a 40k night, you're not getting back 10k points. Those extra 10k points are gone. Yeah. So then you got to value your certificate a little bit lower, right? Because if it's only replacing 40,000 points, then it's obviously not as valuable for you. On the flip side, of course, you know, if it saves you a few hundred dollars for the night, then maybe it won't really make a big difference to you that you sacrificed a little bit of the point value because you got

good cash value. So, you know, which way you're going to go on that, I think it's going to vary person to person. But I think it's a great point that there just aren't that many great properties now that are in that range. Like you said, I frequently see places that are 40,000 points that would be a good deal with this. But then if you're looking for a 50K or above, they're often more than 65,000 points these days. So it's going to limit your options for totally maximizing the deal. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap this up then. What do you think overall? Is this a smoking hot deal? I mean, I think it is for anybody who can maximize the certs. And I

think it's smoking hot is hard to say. Yeah. I mean, I think it is a smoking hot deal. Whether or not it's a smoking hot deal that's good for you. That's, I think, the question you have to ask yourself, because not every smoking hot deal is good for every person. So I think this would be a smoking hot deal if I could qualify for it. If I could qualify for it, I would probably hop on it because I have the flexibility to plan a trip around using my five free night certificates. So it might work for me, but I know a lot of people that that wouldn't work at all for. So you really have to ask yourself, does this fit my travel patterns? Right, right. I would even go a little further and say, yes, it's a smoking hot deal. As you, as Nick said, for anyone who is confident that they can use the certs to, to decent value,

even if you use them for 40 K nights, you know, overall, that's a great deal. Um, but, uh, I think there's, I think there's just a lot of people out there that are at risk, whether you know it or not, of getting to the end of the year and saying, oh, shoot, I've got a month left. I haven't used these certificates yet. What am I going to do? And then you're going to be stuck booking something suboptimal maybe, or maybe not. I've, my wife and I have had some great trips where we were forced to go somewhere because we had free nights that were about to expire. And so maybe it'll force you out of the house and to somewhere great, but. And yet, but you have to have the flexibility to be able to do that. And so if you might have

the flexibility to be able to do that, then great. And if you know, you're not that type of flexible, then yeah, I think Greg's right. You have to question this offer. All right. Very good. All right. So if you enjoyed this, don't forget to give it a like. Leave us some feedback.

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