Frequent Miler on the Air - Marriott fans rumor flames

Episode Date: September 25, 2021

00:31 Giant Mailbag: The highs and lows of Passing the GUC 10:00 Mattress running the numbers: A Radisson promo that really is mattress-run-worthy. 15:50 Main Event: Marriott fans the rumor flames 45:41 Question of the Week: Could you use US Bank Altitude Reserve points to pay for your Maldives sea plane transfer? Join our email list: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event mariette fans the rumor flames fanning this is one you're going to want to watch on youtube so you can see what what nick fanning looks like but you'll just have to picture it if you're going to want to watch on YouTube so you can see what, what Nick Fanning looks like, but you'll just have to picture it if you're listening on a podcast. Today's giant mailbag comes from none other than me. Oh, mail from Greg. Mail from me. So, so here's the deal.

A little behind the scenes at Frequent Miler on the air is that Nick and I, like minutes before each show, pretty much, we emailed back and forth about what topics we should do for the show. that one. But one of the ones was that we each compile a list of our top five things from our recent adventure traveling together. The top five best things and the top five worst things. What do you mean five? There were five bad things, Greg? What are you talking about? Well, I came up with five, whether or not you agree that there were five bad things. But I actually did the work to compile these 10 things. So I feel like I need to get my money's worth. To share. Okay.

All right. All right. It's sharing time, guys. So it's sharing time. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm going to let you pick. Do you want me to go over my best of or worst of list?

Or I could bounce back and forth. I mean, let's bounce back and forth. Let's get a little bit of kind of even things out. All right. I'm going to start with the lowest, like, because these are sorted. So, so the number five favorite thing from the Guck trip, the global upgrade certificate trip, was flying Emirates first on a daytime flight. Now I'm differentiating. Weates first on a daytime flight now i'm differentiating we flew first on a nighttime flight and i was a little disappointed with that just because my expectations were really high the ground services in dubai weren't no really much of anything to speak of the lounge wasn't too great and all i wanted to do was sleep and they said because it's such a short flight they

weren't going to do bedding and i was like like, oh, come on. So that was a little disappointing, but coming back was great. And, you know, I got the full experience with the champagne and the great food. And we even got great ground services on arrival in Dubai, where they met us right at the gate. So very good. Number five. Worst. I'd say the Formula racetrack heat. It was warm. It was warm in those suits. Right. You know, I have a newfound appreciation for Formula One drivers because I can't imagine how much they must be dripping, pouring in sweat after hours in one of those things in like the daytime summer heat somewhere in Europe, right? Right, right. I mean, in Abu Dhabi that evening, it was probably about

120 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I felt that way. Before you do the feels like. And then you put on this big bulky racing suit and a big helmet. Which you want in case you crash and burn, right? Because that was flame retarded. You want that stuff. You do want that, but boy, that was hot. All right, moving on. Number four. Number four best thing, KLM.

KLM surprised me in a lot of positive ways. First, their seat, especially on our first flight. So we had two KLM flights and the reverse herringbone seat. I was on a 787 for those curious. Thank you. Yep. It was great. I mean, you know, I've been on similar, similarly configured seats a number of times,

but they just got all the little details just right, I thought on this one. And so great of them on that and the service and food was good strongly agree that 787 seat was surprisingly nice i mean like you said i've sat in plenty of seats like it but it was the small details the little shelf the little power thing the way the privacy thing that was that was a great seat i agree i'm very happy with that yeah so that was a big surprise um and the KLM lounge in Amsterdam was spectacular. Oh, wait, did we just get two? Number four is like two different things?

Yeah, just KLM overall. All right. They wowed me. All right. Good. All right. Number four worst, Chef Jeff. Kicking things off at Dulles Airport.

If you're a Washington local, then you know Chef Jeff, I'm sure. And you understand why. We went way out of our way to get a free meal at Chef Jeff. And, you know, we could have just eaten better food in the lounge. Probably. Yeah. Hard to believe we would have eaten worse food in the lounge anyway. So yeah. So yeah, Chef Jeff, if you're passing by it and you've got a priority pass and you want some, some free something to fill your stomach with, it's fine. But I wouldn't walk across the terminal. Okay. Ready?

Okay. Number three, best thing. The Limerick and Maldives service. They just had awesome service from, from start to end. Everything was, was amazing. How good their, their service was. And that was, these are sort of like surprise. Oh, this whole lesson realizing are sort of surprises, right? Like where I was like pleasantly surprised. And, and, um, you know, Limeridian is a, is a upscale chain, but not, not a luxury chain in general, but they definitely run

it like a luxury chain. I really appreciated that. Agreed. If that's only number three, I can't wait to find out what two and one are, because I was very pleasantly surprised. Yes. Number three worst, the zombie fish. I'm already in the old days. Just the pictures. I mean, you look at those pictures. If you don't know what we're talking about, look it up on Instagram and remind yourself that Greg ate that. There was a fish that was put on my plate that Nick described as from the cast of The Walking Dead. And yes, it looked almost as appealing as this.

If you ever watched The Walking Dead and you were like, oh, you know, I'm getting a little nibbly, This was for you. Yes. Yes. All right. Number two favorite. The balloon flight over the desert. That was spectacular.

Just loved every moment of that. Yeah, that was pretty cool. I agree. All right. Number two worst now. Number two worst. Trying to get into Abu Dhabi. Yeah, that was a drain. We lost a good day on that.

Yeah, so not to rehash all that, but just the part of showing up at the border and being told, no, you got to go back a few miles to some like compound. It was just kind of scary and stressful. Agreed, agreed. As was the whole process

of trying to figure it out in advance. The way I feel like we wasted a whole day just trying to figure out if we'd even get into Abu Dhabi. So that was, that was definitely, I agree. If that's number two, then I'm seeing now I'm really wondering, we're at number one. So drum roll, please. You know, I'm a little unsure about my ordering now as we're getting to the top here but um number one best the overwater villa in the maldives you know just stepping in there and just seeing the the ocean view from everywhere in the in the villa that you step and you know showering with just the you know almost 360 view of the ocean and being all stepped down from the dock right into the water and go snorkeling

that whole thing. Unbelievable. I loved it. I can't wait to do an overwater villa again. Top notch. You know, some people say that once you've done it once, you know, you're kind of over it and you don't need to do it again. And I totally don't get that. Not even a little bit. Like I did it and I was like, absolutely want to do that again. Yes. It's sort of like, how do we live like this? Right, right, right. It's like, can we open the frequent miler, you know, middle of the Indian Ocean office? Because I'm happy to take that one. Yeah, yeah. Or if we can move the Indian Ocean closer, that would be much nicer. Okay. All right. So then number one, number one, I have to give a little background.

So after that, we're in the middle of or near the end of an incredible stay, super relaxing at Limerady in Maldives, when we realize that we have no plan for our layover in Dubai on the way back. And just that sinking feeling, realizing, oh, my God, we're going to show up in Dubai around 2 PM and we don't have a flight out till like 2 AM and we can't even hang out in a lounge or anything because of the way the terminals are. That just sinking feeling. It turned out to be fine. It all worked out great, but yeah, so just that sinking feeling. That was a bum bummer. You know, and I just assumed I had in mind we were just going to hang out in a lounge because we were going to be there in a lounge.

I thought so too. Didn't even cross my mind that, no, you got to be able to check in for your flight in order to get to a lounge, right? I mean, duh, obviously. And you couldn't check in that early for a KLM flight in Dubai. There's not going to be anybody at the desk. So yeah, that was a silly, poor mistake. So don't make that mistake folks. All right.

All right. Um, and if you do the Meridian at the airport is not bad. So that was, that was a, yes. Uh, that, that was a really giant, giant mailbag, uh, segment. Really? That was a big one. All right. We could just retire now from the show. You know, speaking of retiring here, we don't have to retire what crazy thing, because do we have a crazy thing? Is there a crazy thing this week? Let's skip it today. Let's skip that one.

Let's skip that one. We did our timer. Okay, sounds good. Mattress running the numbers. We got to talk about Radisson for mattress running the numbers. Yeah, we do. Because Radisson's out with a big promo. And so there's all these points. So, all right, let me tell you about it, Greg. And I want to find out, is it mattress run worthy?

All right. So the new piece of the puzzle that came out this week is Radisson is offering a promo where you can get up to 15,000 points. So you stay one time, you get 3,000 points. You stay twice and you get another 12,000. So you get a total of 15,000 bonus points for Tuesdays. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that's like a category one free night, right?

Well, maybe that's not true. Maybe that's not true. You're probably thinking of this. No, I was thinking what is 15,000 points worth about five bucks. Right, right. Exactly. I know that's what you're thinking. So 15,000 points from that.

But that's not it. That's not all. Because right now they're also doing a promo where you got 7,000 bonus points for every night. Now that's quite a promo. Every night. Every single night. Not just some of them.

I'm not kidding. That's good. I mean, that's really solid. Well, especially if you're getting 15,000 points on the two one-night stays, right right so if you get two one night stays and you get your 15 000 bonus points from the new promo plus the 7 000 bonus points a night from this older existing promo now you're talking about 29 000 bonus points plus what you earn on this day now as a radisson gold member which well i'm gonna assume that if you care about these

promos you probably have the radisson credit card in which case you've got gold status so as a Radisson gold member, which, well, I'm going to assume that if you care about these promos, you probably have the Radisson credit card, in which case you've got gold status. So as a gold member, you'd earn 25 points per dollar spent plus 10 points per dollar spent by using the credit cards. That's 35 Radisson points per dollar spent. All right. So you're going to earn that on top of this 29,000 bonus points. And that's not all Greg. That's not all folks. Yes. What else? If you also have a chase United card, you can go through the mileage plus X app and link up this offer to earn 37 United miles per dollar spent. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. That is pretty crazy. I mean, not on its own 37 miles per dollar spent is already crazy enough. So, so let's run the numbers on this. Let's suppose for a second that you've got a hundred dollars a night Radisson, which, I mean, I feel like that's

doable for most people probably find a cheaper Radisson than that, but, but let's say a hundred dollars a night to keep the math easy. So you're gonna spend $200 to book your stays for this. You'll get your 29,000 bonus points from the two promotions. Okay. Plus based on 35 miles per rather 35 Radisson points per dollar, 25 for gold status, 10 for using your Radisson card, you're going to earn another 7,000 Radisson points. So now we're up to 29,000 bonus points plus the 7,000 Radisson points for using your credit card and having gold status. You're at 36,000 Radisson points. Wow. Plus your United miles. So the 37 United miles per dollar times 200 is another 7,400 United miles.

Yeah. Naturalist Runworthy, what do you think? Wow. So, okay. So 36,000, I think you said, Radisson points, which I'd say is probably worth a little over $100. Well, that's a good guess. Using our reasonable redemption value. Our reasonable redemption value is 0.34 cents per point.

So based on that valuation, it's $122.40 worth of Radisson points. $122. And then the United miles, so 7,000 and change, United miles, let's call that a 1.2, 1.3, reasonable redemption value. So you're getting to around $196.20. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoa. So this is actually adding up.

It is. So you add these up and you're actually getting points worth a bit more than you spent. So even at a hundred bucks a night, and if you find a cheaper Radisson, which you can, right. Then it becomes probably a bit more outsized.

Although, yeah, I mean, it's got a little bit better deal yeah so wow uh so yeah i mean actually and at the hundred dollar rate it's not inconceivable that these are radisons that you actually want to stay at like you know as opposed to just checking in just for the just for the promo so i'd say yeah if if if it would be sort of a treat to stay at these radisons um and you like your Radisson points and your

United points, um, then yeah, this seems, seems good. I, you know, it's, it's the rare time I'm going to give it a thumbs up from, from mattress run. I really is because I mean, altogether that comes out to definitely be more than $200 worth, whereas that two, almost like two 20 ish, uh, worth of points. So, I mean, if you value the points at that level, or, you know, that you'll use them at better value than that eventually down the road. I mean, yeah, this is, this is interesting. And then if you take it a step further, Steven took it a step further in the post. And if you use some of those points also on an awards day right now, you can earn yourself another free night certificate. You

can see the post for more detail on that. There'll be a link in the description. So you could even stretch this a little bit further yet and get even more nights out of the deal. But short version of the long story is not bad, Radisson. Not bad. Right. Yeah. So all of these promos stack up in such a way that if for some reason you enjoy Radisson stays, you can do really well. If for some reason. you know, just last night I was looking for a hotel in a place where there aren't very many options. And sure enough, I came across a Radisson that was 60,000 points per night or $90 a night. $90. That's a great value for your points. But now with these promos, it might make sense.

It could be. I mean, shoot, if you need that stay, that's a great deal. Great deal. All right. So then that brings us, I think, to the main event. Welcome to the main event. Introduce it for us, Greg. Right.

Marriott fans the rumor flame. So in order to understand what we're talking about and why Nick is flapping his hands, you have to understand a post that I wrote a little while ago. There have been, you know, I called it rumors, but it was really, you know, every now and then when credit card companies are working on revising their credit card features, they send out surveys to people and they tell people, you know, you have to agree not to tell anyone what's in this and whatnot. And the information got leaked from one of these surveys. And the reason I took it as more than just a survey that had random questions in it is that it was so specific about the changes they were planning to make to the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card, which is the Amex $450 card. They were so specific about all the details that are changing and asking what you think about them that it seemed to me like far more than just a fishing

exercise to see, should we go this way or that way? I think, and I thought at the time, which is why I wrote the post, that they were basically ready to, or getting ready to roll out these changes and just making sure that the audience would be receptive to them before they finalize it. That was my thinking. And let me quickly go over what is changing if all this stuff is true. And again, this is rumors, right? So before Greg gets into it, this is weird. We don't know this. And this is not the new thing that came out this week.

We'll talk about this week's new offers in a second. These are the rumors that we think could be coming. Go ahead, Greg. Right. And we'll talk about why we think Marriott is fanning these flames. So this is a Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card again. The annual fee, currently 450, would go up to 650,

so $200 more. Statement credits stay the same. You get, in terms of dollar amount, so today you get $300 per year reimbursed that you spend at Marriott hotels. If this change happens, instead you'll get up to $25 a month for dining charges. So very different structure and very different, you know, type of thing that's reimbursed, but still $300 total. The free night award every night, every year that you have the card and you renew it, today you

get a free night certificate worth up to 50,000 points, meaning you could book a room that costs up to 50,000 points. With these proposed changes, it would be 85,000 point certificate, which is very interesting because we've never seen anything like that before. Additionally, they would add another free night that you could get with big spend, which they don't have that today at all with this card. With $50,000 spend, you'd get another 85K certificate each year. But that's not all you get with 50K spend. You would also get your choice of several benefits. And one of those choices is 50,000 points, which is what I think most people would

take. So basically your 50,000 spend gets you another one point per dollar up to that $50,000 if you choose that. And you would get titanium. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Not yet. That's what you get with 50k spend. Elite status. Today, the card automatically gives you gold elite status. The proposed changes, it would give you platinum elite, which is really the sweet spot level with Marriott, where you start to get free lounge access, free breakfast at most, but not all Marriotts. But you can spend your way now, in the old card, you could spend your way to Platinum status with 75k spend. The new one, you could spend your way to Titanium Elite status, uh again with 75k spend annually titanium will add on uh a little bit of benefit with marriott but but really the thing that interests me about it is it gives you

united silver status so if that's meaningful to you that's a reason to chase titanium. Automatic elite knight credits. So almost every Marriott card out there today gives you 15 elite knights automatically towards status. This card would give you 25 elite knights, so an extra 10. So the earnings from spend would all stay the same, meaning things like you get 3X for airfare and restaurants today and 6X at Marriott Hotels, all that would stay the same. So that's the rumor mill. Interesting. And I want your take on whether or not that would be worth it. I don't know. Should we talk about that?

Should we talk about why we think that that rumor is now likely? Why Marriott? Why we think Marriott is kind of, or Amex, whatever it may be, it's kind of fanning the flames. Right, right. Well, I guess let me speak briefly about whether it's worth it. And you could argue with me if you, if you feel the need to. I think for, it's worth it for people willing to prepay for luxury, basically. So those 85k

certificates can potentially get you into any Marriott hotel in the world for one night. And so they could easily save you versus the cash rate of those hotels, way more than the annual fee of this card. And you can make the same argument for why you'd want to spend your way to another free night certificate. Even if the opportunity cost isn't there compared to other cards, that opportunity cost to you, it might be well worth it to be able to get into a luxury overwater villa somewhere that costs more than the La Meridian Maldives, for example. So that's the way I kind of think of it as like pre-paying for this luxury. A lot of people pointed out in my post, and I agree with this, that it almost isn't worth it if you're in one-player mode because we're talking about one free night or maybe two if you do all that spend. But if you want a longer stay, then what do you do?

Because you might not have enough points for the extra night or you have to spend the cash rate. So in two-player mode, though, you would have at least enough for a weekend at a luxury hotel each year, and maybe more if you do the spend. So that's a lot of investment in luxury. So you got to be really committed to pre paying for luxury at a discount, basically, you know, with two cards and a couple. um uh you know and and luxury at marriott properties and that's that's i think the the the gotcha and then a whole nother argument for the card is those who want to spend their way to elite status instead of the old way. Because obviously spending to titanium is much nicer in some ways than spending to platinum the old way.

No, so that's one piece that I feel like you haven't put much value on is the fact that with that rumor, you'll get automatic platinum status. And that's not a slouchy benefit. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, Marriott makes it a little bit frustrating because it's not clear and easy to know all the time where you're going to get breakfast and when you're going to get it. And if there's a lounge,

you're going to get access or not. It is kind of a pain, but at the same time, like a St. Regis property, you know, you're going to get free breakfast, you know, at a number of other high-end brands, you know, you're going to get free breakfast and that's nice. That's a really good benefit that could save you. I mean, darn near the annual fee in one stay if you're staying at that kind of a place. So so I think that that is is hugely, I think, valuable. So I think the card is actually well worth the 650. And I'm kind of surprised to be saying that because I think when you originally wrote this post, my thought was like, my goodness, guys, I've already got enough of cards that cost 455, 56. This is getting a little crazy and ridiculous. How many of these cards can anybody have that isn't a blogger writing about them? So I was put off by the

high annual fee initially. But the more I think about it, I look at like Meridian, for instance, in the Maldives that we recently stayed at. I don't even know. Did we ever find out how much breakfast would cost without any status at all? We didn't find out, but we do know that having the status so that you get free breakfast saves you $30 a day per person off of the package like meal plans. So you could say if you have a five night stay, two people, that's $300 savings. Right. And that's off of the package meal plan deal. And often at resorts like that, I find breakfast is more than $30 a person. So that's not even necessarily the high end of what you could save. So one stay like that a year, and you could have saved a big chunk off of the

annual fee. So I think the automatic platinum status is nice. Of course, you know, on the flip side, you might say, well, why are you going to spend $650 a year for a Marriott card if you're not going to stay at a Marriott often enough to earn yourself status? And that's not a bad argument, a bad stance to take that you probably should only be getting this if you're going to stay enough to take good advantage of the benefits anyway. But still, I'm excited. I would want this because I live within a drive in New York City.

And so I would easily use that free 85K night at the St. Regis or another 85K in New York City. There's the Chottwall, I think, or something like that. The old SPG property looks beautiful. I'd stay there too. I'd be happy to. There's a number of other properties I'd be happy to stay at. And I'd be happy to spend the 50K to get another free night cert. Now, the odd thing is I don't look at those certificates and value them as much as you did in the post. In the post, you said $350 is what you would value them. And I have a hard time doing that because sometimes there are properties available for 350 bucks, not necessarily those two, but I still don't book those because I'm still not going to pay $350 a night. So it's hard for me to value the certificates that much.

But at the same time, there is a value that I can't put a dollar figure on where I'm like, oh, it'd be really nice though to stay at a very nice place when we go to New York. And I see what you're saying. So it's hard because I can't say that it's going to save me $350 a year, but I do feel like it's that valuable sort of, you know what I'm saying? I totally get you. I had a hard time putting a value amount on it for that exact reason. So it's like, well, you can easily, easily find hotels to book that would cost way more than $350, way more.

I mean, your Ritz example, it's usually $1,000 or more a night. So if you book it, I mean, you Ritz example, it's usually a thousand dollars or more a night. So if you, if you book it, I mean, you know, that's huge savings. So valuing it at 350 seems like way undervaluing it. But yeah, if you look at it the other way of like, what I really like, so if you could pre-buy, if you could set up like a subscription to pre-buy a night at the Ritz every year, and you only have to pay $350, but it has to be not peak priced, you know, when you go to redeem it, you know, would you, would you buy that? I mean, I, I don't know. I mean, it's a tough sell. But I can, I'm sure that there are some people that are like, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a tough sell. But I'm sure that there are some people that are like, yeah, absolutely.

I think there's a lot of people that would. And that's fair. That's totally fair. That's not me. But yet still, I value that something beyond whatever it is I would pay for it. Because even if I would only pay 200 bucks for it, I value it more than that. It's just that I'm a cheapskate too. But I look at this and I say, okay, I think it's worth it.

Because the 50,000 spend, now you're talking 150,000 Marriott points and our reasonable redemption value is a good floor value to have in mind for those. But I also know that I usually redeem points beyond that. And of course, Marriott sells them often for eight tenths of a cent. So I'm not going to value them at exactly the redemption value, but I know I'm going to get decent value out of redeeming those. I know I'm going to get decent value out of redeeming those. I know I'm going to get decent value out of 85 K cert since I live close enough to New York where that's going to come in handy at some point when things are not peak price. So, uh, so I, I I'm very enthusiastic

about this. And I think if you do travel often enough to places where you can make good use of those 85 K certs, I feel like it's worth 50 K spend. And I say that, and I'm sure there are at least 23 people out there saying, are you crazy? 50 K spend. And I say that, and I'm sure there are at least 23 people out there saying, are you crazy? 50 K spend, you could earn 19 signup bonuses with that spend. And I mean, you're right. You certainly could, and you could get far more value. Uh, so if you're not, uh, I think I would put the 50 K spend at it from the perspective of if you can find a way to make that spend, uh, without taking away spend that you would ordinarily put on others. I guess so. Although think about it this way,

remember that when you hit 50 K spend, you get to take 50,000 points as a, as a, as a bonus, right? So you're, you're earning at least two points per dollar to begin with. And then you get the 50,000 point bonus. So you're really getting three points per dollar, which makes it equivalent sort of to the old SPG card that we all love. So you're getting that plus you're getting the 85K certificate. So that's actually a pretty darn good return on your 50K spend, I think.

And then whether or not spending the extra 25K to get titanium status, that would be like the sort of question about how much you value the incremental benefits of titanium. And it's tough because United Silver is not bad. I mean, you get yourself a free check bag. So if you're buying flights on United, that's not bad. And also like we just came back from the Maldives and I booked the latest flight because I wasn't sure I would make it through immigration and customs in time for a slightly earlier flight, but I rushed to the gate. Sure enough, I got there and was able to make a free change to the earlier flight. That's worth something and it's not something I pay a lot for, but it was certainly a decent experience. So yeah, I mean, I kind of value

United Silver, but I don't know if I value it enough to put like 75,000 spend on an extra 25,000. It's really, yeah. You really have to think of it as the, as the incremental 25 case. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's where it's questionable. Cause you remember, you're not going to get titanium choice benefits because the choice benefits are based on nights. You still need 50 nights in order to get the 50 night choice benefit and 75 nights to get

a 75 night choice benefit. So you're not going to get that 40 K free night certificate that you might associate with titanium status unless you earn 75 nights. So spending the 75,000 isn't going to do that. It's just going to give you a slightly better chance at an upgrade, I guess. And United silver. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So, all right. So that's all well and good. We're talking about the rumors there. None of that's come true yet, but we think that's come true yet,

but we think that that is more likely, or at least we feel more confident that that's going to happen because this week Marriott has changed the offers. They've changed the game up. They came out with new offers on each of their cards. So here's what's going on. We got the bold card. I'm not even going to talk about. There's points.

You're going to earn points on the bold card, but you shouldn't probably open the bold card. So we're going to skip about there's points you're going to points on the bold card but you shouldn't probably open the bold card so we're going to skip right over that's the one with no annual fee it's probably not worth it for most people so then we've got the marriott boundless card which is the chase marriott card yep that card's going to have now an offer of 125k plus a free night start worth up to 50k points so So a 50 K free night start and 125,000 points after spending your five grand on that card for the welcome bonus. Not bad, not bad. Then things get kicked up a notch yet with the Marriott Bonvoy business Amex card. The business card is 125,000 points plus two 50 K free night certs for the same $5,000 spent. Another extra cert there. So annual fee is like

30 bucks higher, but probably worth $30 more for a second certificate. And then you have, of course, the brilliant card we've been talking about that still has a $450 annual fee for real right now and does not currently come with all those extra things that we just talked about. But the new bonus on that card is what's really kind of fueling the flames here because the new bonus on that card is 150,000 points plus a free night certificate worth up to 85,000 points. So that 85K free night cert is now a thing. Wow. Yeah. So that's the thing that made us look back at this rumor and say, there didn't used to be any such thing as an 85K free night certificate.

This new bonus structure, welcome bonus for the Bonvoy Brilliant card, includes an 85K certificate. So clearly just the existence of that certificate and it being aligned with that same card really fans the flames of this rumor. I mean, it makes it seem like if it's not that accurate, it's got to be close. This has got to be coming. And to be clear, that's just part of the welcome bonus. So you just get one of those as the welcome bonus. The ongoing benefit at this time still is a

free 50K, a free 50K night certificate, a free night certificate worth up to 50K. I don't even know what we call them, a 50K free night certificate. There we go. That's the term I was looking for. So that's still the benefit, the ongoing benefit on the card that happens at anniversary. But the welcome bonus right now is 150K plus an 85 K free night certificate. Like you said, I, that can't be an accident. That can't be a coincidence that all of a sudden they've debuted this new type of free night certificate. I have to think that they're just getting things ready and man, I hope, I hope, I hope that the Ritz card gets an 85 K cert too, though. I kind of doubt it because I don't think Chase is going to increase the annual fee. So I don't know.

What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You know, the Ritz card is a card that's no longer marketed as a new card, but it is possible to get it if you have a Chase consumer Marriott card like the Bonvoy Bold or Bonvoy Boundless. Boundless.

Thank you. like the Bonvoy Bold or Bonvoy Boundless, then you can, after you've had the card for at least a year, call Chase and ask if you can upgrade to the Ritz. And they usually allow that if you have a big enough credit line on your account. And today, the reward structure on that card closely mimics, it's not identical, but it closely mimics in a lot of ways, the, the Amex Bonvoy Brilliant. And so, uh, yes, those of us who have the card, I mean, it would be amazing if it suddenly got these 85K free night certificates instead of 50K. But would that mean they would raise the annual fee if they did that?

That would be, yeah, I don't know. I don't feel like, I mean, has Chase, is there a precedent for that? Have they increased the annual fee on a dead card before? Not that I can think of. It seems unlikely. Seems unlikely to me too. And we've often said in the past that we kind of just wish Chase would forget that the Ritz

card exists and just let us continue to enjoy it without like putting too much focus on it. Cause we don't want them to mess with it or, or say, okay, we're going to sunset this and product change you to something else. So, so hopefully that just stays the way it is. And if it gets an 85 K cert, thanks. That's great. But I don't want to draw too

much attention to that on the chase side. But I think that this new welcome bonus is interesting and I think it's kind of debatable. So the, this new brilliant card bonus of 150 K plus an 85 K free night cert, before we get back into the rumors for a second here, which offer is better? Is that offer better? The brilliant offer, the 150 K and 85 K free night start or the Amex business card, which is 125,000 points to 25,000 fewer points, but two free 50 K night certificates, 50 K. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. If you just, if you just compare them in a vacuum like that, it's difficult to see because you have to understand how you value those certificates. And there's a lot of nuances to the certificates that are not going to be obvious to you if you're not used to them. that in the United States, 50K free night certificates can get you very nice hotels in second-tier cities, but in New York City or anywhere around LA or actually pretty much anywhere in Florida or California, the kind of places that people are anxious to go to,

50K is unlikely to get you into a very nice place. It'll get you a courtyard or a residence in or something like that for the most part in New York City. I'm just looking at this recently for a stay and there's a couple of Renaissance properties that are 50K. There's one autograph collection, I think, but the vast majority of it is courtyard, residence in, town place, whatever. Right, right. So even if you find like, this is what I found over and over. You find like a really nice looking category six Marriott in a place you want to go.

Category six is standard, costs $50,000 a night. But when you want to go, it's peak price. It's $60,000. So you can't use a certificate. And you can't combine the certificate with 10K points. They don't allow that. So that's sort of a frustration in general with certificates that you can't kind of mix and match. And that's why I don't value them anywhere near what I value the equivalent number of points. All right. So all that said, 85 case certificates would literally get you into pretty much well, any hotel worldwide when it's when it's standard price or less.

And I usually find that even the the top tier category eight, I guess it is marriott's in the us anyway usually you can find availability at that standard or even off peak rates um and so i i think you would find them very easy to use for luxury properties the the exception would be like saint. Regis Maldives, you know, is, is priced peak price almost every day, they all winter long. So you'd have to go at, you know those other levels, category one through seven, are peak priced, you'll still be able to use the 85K certs. So, you know, if there's a high demand time, you may find a very valuable use, even if it's not, you know, a use that's worth 85,000 points, it may well be worth five or six or $700. Yeah. You know, I'd be, I'd be totally okay. They're a very nice category seven, you know, very luxurious category seven properties that, uh, peak price costs. I don't know off the top of my head. Um, 70 K I think. Um, and I'd be very happy using one of

these certificates for that. Um, so, you know, I, I wouldn't get hung up on, oh, I have to use it for a hotel that's priced at 85K. I think that would be a world of frustration and make it very difficult to use your certificates if you held out for that. Right. Well, in hindsight, I should have probably used my Marriott 50K free night starts at La Meridian in the Maldives, even though it was only 30,000 points a night. I probably should have used them just because it was a decent value in terms of against the cash rate. And you said before that you wouldn't value the free night certificates anywhere near as many as the points that they represent. So probably selling those certs for the equivalent of 30,000 points a piece would have been a decent trade in hindsight, because I have a couple of those expiring here in January. And so, you know, it's getting closer to crunch time and I've got to find a way to use

them here. So I probably should have in hindsight used them. And that brings me to my point that I'm going to say, I think that the business card offer is pretty compelling, even though the 50K certs in the highly desirable cities are not amazing. Still, even though that's the case, you did an analysis and you found that those 50K free night certs were usually worth about 300 bucks, right? And we've found plenty of situations. I've found plenty of situations where they would be worth about that much towards room rates, especially when you consider tax and all the rest of that, it all adds up. So that's, I think, a fair valuation. Now, the 125,000 points on the business card,

I didn't do the math, but off the top of my head, that should be what? $700 and change based on our reasonable redemption value. I should have done the math before, but I'll do it right now. 125,000 points. Yeah. $775 based on our reasonable redemption value of 0.62 cents per point. So $775 plus $600 for those two certificates, we're talking $1,375 for a $125 annual fee card. That's pretty good. Would you rather have the Brilliant, which I'll remind you is a $450 card. So the Brilliant comes with that $85,000 cert that, like you said, we can get a lot of value out of, but you got to pay $450 for it. I don't know.

Right, right. Which card is a better deal? Yeah, yeah. It's tough, but let me point out something that makes both of them a great deal, which is that Marriott has crazy rules about what kind of credit card, how many of their Marriott credit cards you could get. If you have this one, you can't get that one, blah, blah, blah. And those two Amex cards are ones that you bonuses on both of them. And not only that, you get the, if you have both a business merit card and a consumer one, the knights that elite knights that are awarded with each one stack. So right now that each card gives you 15 elite

knights. So you get 30 elite Knights towards status each year. You only need 20 more elite Knights for platinum each year. So it's really good to have those. If the brilliant gets these changes we've been talking about, you'd also be locking in for a year, the current annual fee, but you'll also get the 25 elite nights instead of the 15. You'll also get, you know, your next anniversary, the 85K cert and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I have a hard time. Yeah, if I was just looking in a vacuum, I think I would pick the business card because it also has the benefit of not adding to your 524 status. So if you want to sign up for chase cards in the future,

it has no impact on that. But looking at a bigger picture, I think people who are into Marriott, it makes sense to have both cards. And so I kind of like either one at this point and then the other one later. So a strategy you might want to consider is go for the business card now, wait and see what happens with the brilliant card. Because if these changes do happen, yes, you'll have to pay the bigger annual fee, but I bet you the welcome bonus will be through the roof.

That's an interesting speculation there because this kind of seems will be through the roof. That's an interesting speculation there because this kind of seems like a through the roof welcome bonus already. It does. But maybe they'll throw another free night's service. Look at what happened with the platinum card. We didn't think it would get any better than where it was before they raised the annual fee.

And that's why, in fact, I had encouraged my wife to sign up like the day before that happened. And then I really regretted it because the welcome bonus got way better. Yeah, that's true. Maybe we have not hit the peak yet in terms of these crazy welcome bonuses, because they have continued to increase and rise. So maybe we just have not peaked yet. And I think that's a compelling argument to maybe wait. I think that's actually a really good point to maybe wait on the Brilliant card.

I think the Business card, though, I think that's a pretty good, a must get. And the Brilliant card is obviously also huge value, just hard to say whether to get it now or later. So lots of value there. Okay, so then, any more on the main event, Craig? Just one last thing is, is I could see why people would pick the chase card. Okay, good. I'm curious about that.

I mean, the offer doesn't look as interesting or anything, but if what you really want is the Ritz card down the road, this is a nice, a really nice signup bonus to get you started. You're later upgrade to the Ritz. Great point. Great point. Great way to get your foot in the door on the Chase side. Good point. So we succeeded in not having a single right answer for this. Not one. And we'll move on. Not one. All right. Post roast, I'm going to skip because I want to do question of the week. And I know that we're running short on time this week. I'll skip to then. So question of the week. I wrote a post this week about ways to save money on the seaplane transfers in the Maldives. And so I wrote about ways or the U.S. Bank option, the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve option for redeeming for those seaplane transfers. So my question of the week is,

did I forget about the Altitude Reserve? I don't have any idea whether you forgot, but you were right in leaving it out because the seaplane transfers are charged in another country. And U.S. Bank real-time mobile rewards only work for U.S. transactions. So, yeah, you can't do that. Can't do that. No, I didn't forget it. I did think about it. And I went to our U.S. Bank real-time mobile rewards guide and saw that it says the term state real-time mobile rewards work only with U.S. merchants. That's highlighted in yellow. Of

course, it goes on to explain that there are a number of different foreign airlines where the U.S. bank real-time mobile rewards does work. So I don't know definitively. I mean, do you know? Yeah, that's true. That's true. We don't know for sure. If the Limerick and Maldives would charge it to sort of Marriott International, maybe it would work. But if they process the charge locally, it definitely would not work. So it's hard to say definitively, but I don't think it would be a good idea for us to promise people that there's a way to make that happen. Well, I agree. I agree. And that's my issue with real-time mobile rewards and the altitude reserve. Not my only issue. One of my issues with it is that it is a little confusing and hard to

know because I had to look it up. I mean, I write about this stuff and I had to look it up to be like, wait, can you use that to pay for the seaplane transit? I'm not sure. And it's hard to remember the rules. We do have a guide for it though. And there'll be a link in the description so you can check that out. Yeah. And things change too. Like Uber Eats used to work to trigger it and then that stopped working. And so it's, it's kind of a pain. All right. Well, if you've enjoyed today's episode and you would like to get our posts in your inbox each day, you can go to frequent miler.com slash subscribe to join our email list, follow us on social media, join our frequent miler insiders, Facebook group, follow us on Instagram. There's been a lot of interesting stuff on Instagram lately with our trip.

Follow us over there too. Thank you guys very, very much. Leave us a comment. Give us a like. We appreciate all those things and we'll see you again next week. Bye everybody.