Originally Posted by
JBord
Interestingly, as I'm sitting at only about 55 nights this year, I'm thinking about switching the majority of my charges to the Marriott Visa in order to get to 75 nights. So for a (relatively) low annual fee, it can serve a useful purpose as a secondary card.
The thing to watch out for is the hidden cost of that $3000 spend. If it's on charges that would earn 3x on the CSR, the UR points could be worth upwards of $150+. Depending on how you value Marriott points these days, maybe you'd only get back $50 of value on that same spend. When I did this analysis for myself, I realized I could do an overnight mattress run at the business Courtyard nearby on their weekend $80 rate and break even, whenever I actually needed the elite night.
More of a pain but something to keep in mind, especially if Chase brings back that targeted offer for 50k points to upgrade to the new Marriott card that doesn't give elite nights.