TravelinSperry

The room at 50,000 points is worth more than $150... likely worth $250-$300. So they are paying us $100-$150 for having it. And that is worth more than the points we'd earn for that one night.

So... really the question is which ONE card will we hold for Starriott stays? We have 3 options. We can hold onto our legacy SPG Amex. We can hold onto our Marriott legacy (or upgrade it) and/or we can apply for the new Starwood Luxury card. Of course if we have multiple cards we can keep/cancel some.

The two newest cards have almost the same earnings, but the Starwood Luxury card does come with 3 points earned on Air & Restaurant (where the base Marriott Premier Plus does not). Since Starwood is paying us $100-$150 for having it and it has slightly better earnings (even discounting the other benefits for those of us who are LTP or LTPP and don't need status or PP or GE).

So Starwood Luxury gets us:
1- 3 points earned on Air & Restaurant
2- Sign up bonus (tbd)
3- We are paid $100-$150 net for having this card.
Further,
4- Guessing this card will have higher insurance levels for CDW, Extended Warranty, etc. (similar to what Amex Hilton Aspire offers).
5- GE, PP, & Plat status at $75k (may be worthless for those who carry other $450 AF cards and/or who are already LTP or LTPP).

Marriott Premier Plus gets us:
1- Sign up bonus (only if you are outside the 5/24 window, otherwise you get the upgrade bonus or can cancel and wait).
2- We are paid ~$100 net for having this card (assumes a $195 redemption can be attained at the 35,000 point level).

Starwood Legacy gets us:
1- Sign up bonus (assumes you never had this card before).
2- We are paid ~$100 net for having this card (assumes a $195 redemption can be attained at the 35,000 point level).

So it seems to me the best card to hold and use no matter who you are is Starwood Luxury. Even if you do not value #1 , #4 & #5 above, you are still earning $50 more net (at least) to keep/use this card over the others. That said, it does pay to play the sign up bonus game and get the Marriott Premier Plus card to get the bonus (then cancel yr 2). And finally, once the award chart comes out - it may pay to actually keep the SPG legacy card and the Marriott Premier Plus card as the 35k level may be better than redemptions shown here.

C17PSGR

Thanks for your analysis. You make some good points.

I have the legacy Marriott card which I use for Marriott spend (20-30k a year) and just started using at restaurants as I realized my other cards only get 1X at restaurants. All the cards offer the 15 nights. The legacy Marriott offers i night per $3k, so that's an extra 10 nights credit a year. I'm PP with an Ambassador (and now LTPP with around 3000 nights and still don't get the significant value point of an Ambassador but that's a different thread) but can't say I'll keep staying 100+ nights a year. So, the legacy Marriott card only makes sense if it helps me get to the 100 nights. Of course, the bonus for upgrading to the new Marriott card is ridiculously low.

The luxury card isn't available yet, right? And I suppose we're also waiting to see if they update the Ritz card.

Happy

Totally agree.

That is the same scenario with the Hyatt card as well and Hyatt pts are far more valuable than Marriott pts.

I would give Flexible currency priority over any specific program's currency any day. Not to mention UR pts have an underlining cash guarantee of 1c per pt or 1.25 to 1.50c per pt when used to book travel on UR site depending on which UR card you own.

TravelinSperry

Correct, the SPG luxury card comes out in Aug.

And you make a good point re the credits on the legacy card. If you use it to spend and want to get to Ambassador this can be a help. But with the corresponding $20k spend requirement, I personally won't hit it regardless. So that benefit is of no value to me (I'm LTPP). But for those who are trying to attain Plat or Platinum 75 - the legacy card does have some worth. Still - with the upcoming devaluation, it would seem Chase Sapphire Reserve would be a better way to go unless you really value Plat benefits and can't get them without these credits.

Charmcity

I have both Amex Starwood and Chase Marriott but am concerned about Chase customer service before switching. We really like Amex and how easy they are to deal, a description that eludes Chase. Are they any better with the Sapphire products than their regular Marriott card? The economics of UR seem to make more sense than Amex MR for us.

zorbachs

That's the real dilemma. The economics of UR (and actually, BofA's premium card for me) make way more sense than using MR all the time, but I love Amex's customer service and their loyalty to their clients. I have a Sapphire Preferred card but have not had as good of an experience with Chase as I have with Amex. I just wish MR points were more flexible and I could redeem for cash if I wanted to do that. I currently can in theory, but you would need gift cards and the redemption would be less than 1 cpp.

At this point, I am considering just moving my spending to BofA and get at minimum 2.6% back, but I value my relationship with Amex so that's holding me back.

heckofagator

Does anyone know which cards give you SPG Gold status? Perhaps the new luxury card or any of the business cards?

AmEx SPG was my daily spender and since I always met the 30k spend, we enjoyed the Gold status. I think I am switching over to the Chase Trifecta for daily spend, but am curious about the possibility of keeping SPG gold somehow. Although we only travel once or twice a year, so its not huge, but we do enjoy it.

bgriff

New Luxury card gives it to you included, current Amex SPG will continue to give it to you for $35K in spend instead of $30K. I think the new Chase midrange card might be the same.

Also keep in mind that Gold will be worth less in the new system than it is now. No more 4pm late checkout (only 2pm and subject to availability), and a smaller premium in terms of how many bonus points you earn for your hotel spend. And the temporary generous matching to Marriott Gold, which came with a variety of nice features, will also go away. So future Gold is maybe marginally nice to have, but not that exciting. I certainly wouldn't spend $35K per year at the new devalued rate of return on an SPG/Marriott card just to get new Gold, and if you only travel a few times a year I'm not sure the Luxury card would be worth it for you either.

heckofagator

Ouch, I didn't realize all that was dropping. I have 20k or so spent YTD this year, so I guess I'll get up to $30k and then stop spending (hopefully I'm grandfathered into the 30k spend verses 35k for this year). but yeah, with all those benefits going away, maybe its not too much to worry about.

Happy

We dont have much need for Chase UR related services other than one messy lodging booking on the UR site last year when the owner of the property ignored my repeated emails to confirm the booking and the condition of cancellation quietly changed online - the one was sorted by Connexions, the travel agency Chase (as well as Citi) used for travel booking using UR (and TYP in Citi's case) all to a satisfactory outcome as expected. Did take a few phone calls due to the travel bookings are handled by 3rd party company.

We also have an excellent experience on a very recent rental car CDW coverage under CSR benefits (CSP has the same benefits except a lower cap on the reimbursement). From filing the claim to receiving money in the bank via ACH it tool only 8 calendar days. All done online. It paid the full repair cost estimate quoted by Budget in Catania, Italy, in Italian no less. Though Budget RA at Rental End has full English translation with Damage Details and the related charges. The airport surcharge is not a covered item so Card Benefits did not pay but due to the VAT calculation was very screwy, we actually got paid a little bit of such. Surcharge was 170 euro before 22% VAT. The reimbursement was only short of 150 euro from the total amount related to the damage (1427 euro). I have posted a detailed sequence of events in the Chase forum under the CDW coverage, hopefully would help others who need to go thru the process as there are very little detailed info found online.
The process is just as quick as with AMEX, which we also filed CDW before albeit only at 110 euro.

We did have a long drawn out DCC claim with Chase that probably due to my own stupidity to take the vehement advice from the DCC thread folks to insist on a rebill from the merchant, instead of just call in to ask credit on the over charge from being DCCed. The rebilling was refused by the merchant who did agree to refund the DCC difference (only $3, that is why I said I was stupid to do a rebilling request on "principle"), but Chase somehow could not handle it when the claim was for rebilling. At the end Chase credited me $40 for the trouble which was indeed a lot of trouble due to the CSR handling this dropped the ball to make sure the credit was posted, and the time had lapsed in such a way that Chase automatic system reinstated the original charge because I had not sent in the contest paper work because the CSR told me no need to! That experience irks me but on the other hand, a mere 5 min phone call at the beginning would have taken care of the overcharge right on the phone without any more action needed. Those folks frequently posted on the DCC thread are NUTs when it comes to DCC claims. Though I also read about in one case on a lengthy hotel stay in China, the merchant never contested the claim and the customer got the whole bill of over $1K changed to permanent credit. So I guess the morale is, if the overcharge is in a meaningful amount, go ahead to dispute under Visa Code 76 and insist on rebilling. Otherwise, just call to get the overcharge credited back (must point out it is Chase who eats the cost and the merchant gets away with it.)

So far, the "more important" customer service needs we have had, Chase has right at par as with AMEX, and in the CDW claim process, surpassed AMEX because of its efficiency - all done online, no human interaction. we dont even know the adjuster/examiner's name due to the only 2 emails we received - First one was Approval of Claim, giving instruction on how to choose a payment method (we chose direct deposit), the 2nd one and the final one was Notice of Final settlement without any more liability with the payment sent to our bank account received less than 12 hours after we submitted our payment method option online. With AMEX claim we had several email exchanges with an assigned adjuster and it took 10 days to settle on an amount of only 110 euro.

Now we are waiting a Travel Cancellation claim filed last Thursday on a forfeited B&B booking due to Ryanair canceled out flight CTA-MXP, that was due to Italian air controller strikes on May 8th. It is a qualified claim because strike induced carrier cancellation is a covered event, and prepaid / noncancellable travel expenses are reimbursed. Again claim is filed online with supported docs (much more involved than CDW - itinerary, cancellation, reason of cancellation, refusal on reimbursement from travel providers involved, card statements on which the charges were billed and any refunds posted, etc). We dont have direct proof of the Italian air controller strikes other than news we found much later, including all 3 US legacy airlines announced Travel Waiver due to the strike on May 8th, as well as Ryanair refusal to reimburse prepaid travel expenses due to the cancellation is out of its control and not subj to EU261 compensation other than refund the ticket purchase which it did.

Will see how this <$80 claim goes now the long weekend has passed and everyone back to work.

OTOH I dont know the area of extended warranty, purchase protection, etc claims which bank would be better. General consensus is AMEX is much better. So put your big ticket item purchases or items you think extended warranty might be needed such as a cell phone., a MacAir. stuff like that nature on your AMEX card. Surely you would have other AMEX no fee card than the SPG to take care of it. No reason to keep SPG card for this purpose.

Happy

SPG Gold will worth much less, or rather worthless starting August 1st when the programs merge and new rules come in effect. It will be equivalent to the current Marriott Silver which only gives you free internet access and that is pretty much about it.

Only Gold earned from Marriott side will retain the same benefits, and they will not be called Gold but Platinum under the new rules.

You really really are way behind as all these are announced in April. Read the STICKY at the top of SPG forum, especially the QandA Starwood Lurker has maintaind at the top of the STICKY to get yourself uptodate.

heckofagator

yeah, I was happy (and ignorant) just having the SPG card as everyday and just racking up and using the hotel points on our family vacations. Enjoyed late check out, room upgrades, etc, but didn't concern myself with multiple reward programs or churning or anything like that. Turns out there's a whole lot out there going on.

But thank you for your clarification, the writing is on the wall and SPG will probably not be of use to me much longer and now that you highlight the new Gold Program, I'm not even sure I care to meet the $30k spend this year to get gold next year.

phltraveler

Amex doesn't have Price Protection on the Plat and their other cards. Chase is eliminating Price Protection on the Chase Sapphire Reserve and other cards by the end of august (see here).

As far as Purchase Protection/Extended Warranty/Return Protection, I've had a great time claiming with Amex over the past five years on numerous occasions, largely online and quick. However, my most recent extended warranty claim was a nightmarish two month process appealed no less than five times, with the Amex Claims administrator only relenting after a ton of poking and prodding on their toll free line and dragging my state's insurance regulator into the matter (credit card benefit but considered insurance per the terms), at which point Amex refused to admit they were wrong but paid me due to my "protracted claims process".

I've never claimed those or auto coverage with Chase (although my understanding is Card Benefit Services, which provides the benefit on Chase cards, also provides the auto benefit to US Bank, who I have claimed with smoothly). I've made extended warranty, price protection, return protection with Citi and they've been smooth (Citi's exteneded warranty policy is way better than Chase or Amex as it stacks with extended warranties/service plans and is 24 months on the extended/warranty or service plan (or base warranty if no other warranty applies) rather than just 12 months max on the base manufacturer's warranty).

Even though other cards might earn at a higher rate, I concentrate a lot of spend on physical goods on my Citi Doublecash instead, as the purchase benefits are really quite good, and price protection can easily eclipse points earnings (they're dropping it from $500 an item/$2500 a year to $200/$1000 because people are using it so much, but at least Citi is not dropping Price Protection as a benefit completely [like chase]).

zorbachs

I, too, have begun using the Citi Doublecash for retailers like Amazon that work with price protection apps. If I were to buy a really expensive item like a Macbook or phone, I'd use my Amex, but otherwise I like having some sort of price protection.

I have a Platinum card, so I already have SPG gold as it is even without the SPG card. And I can't see myself using the new SPG luxury to reach Platinum using the new point values. I suppose switching over to full backcash may be my best move at the moment. I have over 600k MR/UR points, so I have flights covered for the foreseeable future.

Dreamwalker

That seems like a lot of annual fees for annual nights.. What is it like over $800 in annual fees for 6 restricted nights? Do you feel you get value out of that? I feel like with all the cards going to restricted annual nights of X amount of points or below we are going to see a devaluation chart in about 12-24 months, if not sooner. Hotel cards are tricky for me, because I see the value in the annual free night, which is greater than the AF, but wonder if they are worth that beside it. The only hotel card I've held onto is the SPG. I had the Hyatt for a while, but found I was using the AF night at the same place, because of their small footprint where I could get that room for 8000 points and shift the AF to another card for signup bonuses. Personally, I try to keep AF's below $1000 as much as possible, though I'll have to raise that once I get Amex Platinum since I have CSR.