rasheed

I feel very confident that Chase/Marriott will be issuing cards in 2019 and forward. I can't back that up with evidence as yet sadly for various reasons, but Chase co-branded will be around. Now, will Amex continue? I don't know. Will it be like AA (Citi and Barclays) or like Hilton/Costco? And even with AA, I would say that Citi is just running on autopilot whereas Barclays is putting media advertising and benefits everywhere.

Rasheed

mikesyr18

I see Chase throwing more money at their card holders than AMEX would.
Marriott would probably like that too since it makes their card more marketable.
Triple the points earnings categories, add a $300 travel credit, $200 hotel credit, and primary rental insurance, then charge $450/year for the card, and give it a 150,000 points/6k/3 months sign up bonus, AMEX is too lazy to match that.

I don't see an AMEX Marriott card in the future just because they used to have the rights to SPG.

crimsona

Chase has no presence outside the US. AmEx could easily hold the contract for Canada, Japan etc.

mikesyr18

???

I'm not understanding you. Chase likely has a bigger presence outside of the U.S than AMEX ever would. AMEX is very unpopular overseas.

GUWonder

Last I had heard, Chase wasn't legally authorized to sell credit cards to retail customers in even a quarter of the countries where Amex is present selling credit cards to retail customers.

That Chase has a very high dollar volume of international business transactions outside of the US is a different matter.

Magic Pickles

Chase issues Canadian-based Marriott and Amazon Visa cards.

https://www.chase.com/content/chasec...cts.touch.html

mhdena

I'm pulling for Amex to win outright or at least be a co-brand!

UA Fan

I prefer co-brand so they compete with each other like Citi and Barclay's do with AA.

krazykanuck

You do realize you just desribed the forthcoming premium Amex Hilton card, right? They're clearly not "too lazy" to do that for Hilton, I don't see why they wouldn't do it for a revised SPG/Marriott premium card.


I don't think this is as easy win for Chase as some people on this thread think. Amex lost/let go of Costco because Citi and Visa managed to concoct a crazy generous reward scheme, and Amex seems pretty sure on not chasing top line growth if they view it to be unprofitable. Also Amex has a new CEO that might see things differently then Chenault did, so that's an unknown.

The other thing I think (while I don't know this for a fact)... I'd guess that the SPG card portfolio is probably more valuable than the Chase Marriott/Ritz portfolio from both a cardholder base and spend viewpoint. SPG (the hotel chain) elites are rather loyal and valuable to Marriott, hence why SPG elites came out very well vs the Marriott elites in the merger and status matching. I think they would not want to offer a new card any worse than what Amex already had. Also anecdotally, from a popularity standpoint, in my circle of young professionals who travel frequently, many of them have SPG Amex card and I've seen use it. I can't say the same about the Marriott card, and I've literally never seen anybody in real life with a Ritz card (besides FTers, who pretty clearly aren't the definition of a normal CC customer )

IMO the only tangible benefits for Chase are that they have deeper pockets and can afford to pay more for the contract than Amex might be willing to, and second, Marriott acquired SPG, not the other way around, so Marriott might want to stick with their existing provider.

All that said, as a selfish points maximizing FTer, I'd like Citi to swoop in and take the whole damn thing. At least they don't have lifetime bonus restrictions or 5/24 to deal with.

UA Fan

They could start that. Everyone seems to be cracking down.

sdsearch

There are two big reasons that people use SPG Amex card a lot, and without one of those things changing and the other staying the same, it's very hard to tell which is more important:

1. It's an Amex card.
2.. Its a card for a program that earns 1 point which transfers to 1+ airline mile in dozens of different airline programs.

You seem to be assuming it's reason #1 , but what it's mostly reason #2 ? Reason #2 is extremely likely to disappear in the merged program (Starwood was the only program to "calibrate" its point to be equal to the value of 1 airline mile, every other hotel program has for years been calibrated differently, most at 5:1 hotel point:airline mile, including Marriott).

So how many of those people who are using the SPG Amex at least as much for reason #2 as any other, would stop as soon as reason #2 evaporates?

So because reason #2 is such a big factor, that makes it hard to extrapolate which SPG Amex holders would continue to want an Amex card in the new program if the Amex card only earned points that were worth 1/5 of an airline mile (on purchases outside of a handful of special categories)? Wouldn't the usership drop to about the level of Amex Hilton cardholders (in that Amex Hilton cardholders obviously don't have the card for earning airline miles)? And how many of those do you see?

Meanwhile, as to Citi, be careful what you wish for, in case it comes true: Citi having a card partner does not mean Citi making that partner transferable from TYP. Citi has had AA for years, Citi has had TYP (with transfers to airlines) for years, but they've never made transfers from TYP to AA possible. So who's to say that if they got this hotel program, that there'd be TYP transfers to it possible? Not certain at all, IMHO.

At least at Amex, MR transfers to SPG are possible (if not the best value), and at Chase, UR transfers to Marriott are possible.

mikesyr18

Marriott is in bed with Chase and is most likely interested in staying there.

Also, Chase's cards have better worldwide acceptance than AMEX cards do, so unless Marriott wants to lose customers (because that is a factor for many travelers) they're better off sticking with Visa/Chase. Hilton on the other hand, seems to be a very mismanaged program (deflated points value, moving from Citi to AMEX, previously had FTF's on their card and still will until 1/18, devaluing diamond status now) so I'm not surprised they've deepened their relationship with AMEX and ditched Citi.

Starwood on the other hand won't have a say in which bank they get to stay with because Marriott has them on a leash. I see too many disadvantages for AMEX (on their end) here for them to win the SPG/Marriott merger, and then you can't forget about Ritz-Carlton who is also deeply in bed with Chase, more than Marriott is.

I could see a simple elimination of the SPG card by Marriott with Chase Marriott cards being automatically issued to those card holders. It's probably simple, Marriott: "We don't have a contract with AMEX like SPG did, so we don't need to issue a card through them."

mikesyr18

Acceptance and interchange fees are all that matters. There's no point in selling credit cards if your merchant acceptance rate stinks.

krazykanuck

I disagree with the "most likely" part of your first statement. I do think it's a real consideration, which is why I mentioned it, but I don't think they'd just ignore other options to stay with the current provider.

As for worldwide acceptance, I agree that Amex isn't as widely accepted as Visa/MC, but is that really an issue with hotels? I don't think I've ever stayed in a hotel that didn't accept all CC brands. Beyond hotels sure, but as a credit card user, that's really not a big deal for me. If a merchant doesn't take Amex and if that's the card I planned to use to begin with, I'll just pull out a generic Visa/MC like my CSR or Citi Prestige. In either case it's not an airline or hotel branded card because I don't use those outside of their brands anyway, except for my SPG card because it's a transferable points card in hotel card clothing as sdsearch alluded to.

I'm not sure why you're referring to Marriott and Ritz (same company, BTW) being "in bed" with Chase. Chase issues their cards. What I'm focused on is value, and I think that (cards in force * spend) is more powerful for the SPG cards than the Marriott/Ritz cards, given the average Amex cardholder vs your average Visa cardholder, and the loyalty level of SPG elites. Again I might be wrong, but just as I have little evidence of this, you have nothing as counter evidence, and frankly I don't think "worldwide acceptance" is one to people who carry multiple cards. I mean who goes to Europe with nothing but an Amex, or Japan with nothing but a Visa? Somebody who isn't going to be completing transactions. That's who. Gotta catch em all. I carry all 3.

mikesyr18

(1) Some people may do so, but I don't get a hotel credit card to just use them at hotels. Earnings 5x on gas, groceries, and restaurant purchases is nice. I'd also rather have AMEX on my side in a dispute than Citi. I'd also like my card to be accepted virtually everywhere.

(2) I know Chase issues their cards. I'm saying it'll be harder to win both Marriott and Ritz at the same time. I think if AMEX wants to get Marriott/keep SPG, RC and Marriott will be a package deal or nothing.

(3) When SPG is devalued next year, it won't matter. SPG points will not be worth nearly as much after Marriott touches the rewards program. Marriott points themselves are only worth about 0.9 cpp. Ritz won't want their card competing with a $450/year Hilton with the same brand.

(4) Common sense. There's not going to be hard, cold evidence at this time, obviously.