I have to travel for a business trip next month and I will be staying at a Marriott (total cost ~$1000). I could just pay the bill with my Chase Sapphire card and get 2x the URs and also the Marriott Rewards points.

Is there any downside to purchasing $1000 of Marriott gift cards from Staples.com and getting the 5x Ink Bold bonus and 4x Staples.com bonus. Will I still get the Marriott Rewards points if I use a gift card to pay the hotel? I do have a concern about reimbursement for gift cards from my company, but I will check on that.

Finally, if someone were to sell you UR points, what is the most you would be willing to spend? Obviously, at least 1 cpp. If I do get URs transferred into my account does that count toward the year end 7%?

Thanks.

If you pay your bill at a Marriott property with Marriott gift cards, you get the same number of Marriott Rewards points as if you paid with cash.

What you *don't* get is the additional 5 Marriott Reward points per dollar you'd get if you charged it to the Marriott Rewards Premier VISA card from Chase.

If you don't already have that card, Chase is currently offering a $75 credit on top of the 50K points, 15 elite nights credit, one free night, etc., that they usually offer. Check here

Also, the 70K bonus points, free night certificate, 15 elite nights credit, and instant silver status offer still works. There's a thread somewhere here on FT in the first couple of pages for that offer. I can confirm that it's still working just fine!

edit - let met piggyback a relevant question - if I were to purchase marriott giftcards with my marriott visa card (from marriott.com or anywhere else), would i get the same 5 pt bonus per dollar as I would if I was paying a marriott hotel bill with my visa card?

+1 the thread is the 1st one in miles buzz Forum (special credit card offers)

Interestingly, Marriott Rewards Mall has a link to Staples.com that says when you click through their link you will automatically get 2 pts/$1 spent on purchases made at Staples when your Marriott Rewards number is included with your purchase.

I wonder if one could follow OP's proposed plan of action, but purchase said cards via this link initially to double all that follows... (this may be convoluted as all heck, I haven't had enough coffee yet!)

(link mentioned above - https://mrewards.shopmyway.com/shopNow.htm?plc=4511& )

I'm not seeing Marriott gift cards on the Staples website. Where are they?

Edit: nevermind, I found them by searching for "Marriott" (duh). Oddly enough, they don't show up when you browse their "all gift cards" section. I wonder what other gift cards are hiding?

Remember that, officially, reservations made on Marriott's cheaper "Advanced Purchase Rates (APR)" cannot be paid by gift cards.

Please check out Mooper's thread and my post in there (#66) referencing this.

Your logic of leveraging Chase Ink Bold's category bonus:
... is novel, but I'm not sure if Chase is going to allow the category and shopping bonus to stack.

CGE:

Aren't you just trading the 4x from the Chase UR Mall for the 2x from the Marriott mall with everything else the same (Ink Bold or Chase Marriott multiplier)? If I understand what you are saying, you are trading the Marriott Mall 2x for the Chase UR mall 4x at Staples.com.

Henry82:

Thanks for the links, that is great information. My rate is not APR, so this shouldn't be an issue with my reservation. It is just a conference negotiated rate. I can't take credit for the novelty of stacking. I have read this on several travel blogs (Mommy Points, Points Guy, etc.). I haven't done it, so I can't confirm it.

If you purchase the gift cards on marriott.com and pay with the Marriott VISA, the purchase (in the past, at least) has earned the same 5 points per dollar from the credit card as if you had used the credit card to pay a bill at a marriott property. I don't think it would work that way if you bought the gift cards from another source (like a drugstore).

Also, of course, the charge to the Marriott VISA goes toward the free night credit for each $3,000 charged to the card.

Ah, I see.. I don't have a Chase card with the UR program, so didn't realize you go through their own Mall to get to Staples.com and associated bonus points.

You are correct, then. Sorry about that.

I love this board, I really do. Thank you so very much for that.

Um.. one more question though.. if you buy Marriott gift cards from marriott.com and pay with the marriott visa, and get 5 pts/$1 for the purchase, then do you still get another 1pt/gift card $1 value when redeeming the gift cards? (Because up thread it says that if you pay for a purchase/stay at Marriott with a Marriott gift card, you get the same pts/$1 as if you paid with cash, and I believe that is 1 pt/$1.)... because this works out to 6 pts/$1 total value which I can work with.


(I'll throw out something else while I'm in here - I don't have the Chase card and associated mall, but I have a Barclay's Travelocity card which earns points towards travel. Barclays has it's own "RewardsBoost" shopping site where you can buy Marriott gift cards with your Travelocity card and net 2.5 Travelocity points per dollar that way. Not nearly as good as the Chase/Staples combo, but worth a mention, especially since 20,000 Travelocity points is worth $400, not $200 like most other programs I've seen... but of course 10K pts is still only worth $100 which I only just realized. Thought it was $200.. oh well. Incentive!)

I like that approach to get 9 UR points per dollar since UR points are more flexible than Marriott points. You can up your take even more by going thru the UR Mall to Marriott to book your stay. I can't remeber how many bonus points the UR mall currently gives for Marriott. Maybe 2x?

I've never used UR Mall so cannot speak about specifics, but AmEx network (or whatever a similar vehicle for AmEx is called) requires you to pay with the AmEx card. In other words, you don't get points if you pay with gift cards - if UR Mall is similar it probably requires you to pay with your Chase card and thus cannot be double-stacked with credit cards from staples.com.

However it seems like cashback sites not affiliated with particular credit cards (ebates, mrrebates) do offer some cashback so this idea may very well work.

Unfortunately, the rate was a special conference rate and I had to follow the link on the conference website for registration. Is there a way to use these special rate links through the UR Mall portal or have it available online once in Marriott.com from UR Mall (or any hotel website)? I couldn't figure out a way.

(I am actually attending this conference, but a shady way to get conference rates or into sold out hotels is to search for conferences in the city to which you are traveling and go to the hosting society's webpage. Hotels never require verification that you are actually attending the conference).

I have both a Chase Sapphire Preferred and a Marriott Visa so I can confirm this is correct.

Going through the the Ultimate Rewards Mall you must click the link directly from the mall and check out with that card. You cannot go to staples.com directly and collect bonus ulimate rewards points.

Buying $100 worth of Marriott cards throught the Ultimate Rewards Mall will net you 400 Ultimate Rewards Points.

When you stay for 1 night with the $100 gift card you will net 10 Marriott points + whatever bonus for elite membership (20% for silver, 25% gold, 50% plat).

This is not any better than paying for $100 worth of room with the Marriott Visa card as it will get you 500 Marriott points. If you wish to sacrifice 1pt/$1 for this transaction for the sake of getting UR points instead of Marriott points go for it.

It's true that you have to go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to get points, but you do not have to check out with that card. I've earned over 150,000 ultimate rewards points by buying things through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and I've almost always paid with an Amex or gift card. There is a downside to this: if points don't accurately post, then you might not get help from Chase.

Regardless of that, the OP asked about using a Chase Ink card to buy Marriott gift cards for 9X. He can do this by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples and buying Marriott gift cards there. The Ink Bold gives 5 points per dollar for office supplies (Staples does qualify), and the UR Mall gives another 4 points per dollar for Staples. So, the OP is virtually guaranteed 9X for buying gift cards.

Next, the OP can go through the UR Mall to Marriott to book the hotel. The UR Mall currently gives 3X. I'll admit that there is a small chance that he won't get the 3X when he pays with gift cards at the end of his stay, but I'd bet he will. To be safe, pay all but a few dollars with gift cards and put the rest on a Chase card.

Finally, yes, the OP will also get Marriott points for his stay. Up to 15X I believe depending on his elite status.

So, it's possible to get up to 9X + 3X + 15X = 27X points!

[Edit] Since the OP wasn't able to go through the UR Mall to register for the hotel, he will be limited to 9X UR points + up to 15X Marriott rewards. Up to 24X is still awesome!