Chase Marriott Rewards and Chase Southwest Airlines Premier Credit Card Retention Successes
It’s that time of the year… annual fees start charging, free night certificates start appearing, and bonus points start posting. Earlier this week, I received the following email from Chase / Marriott about my free night certificate valid at any Marriott hotel category 1-5. The one thing I don’t like about the Marriott free night certificates is that they are only valid for 6 months from the date they are issued. If you cannot use them by then, call Chase and they will usually extend the certificate for another 6 months.
Since my free night certificate posted to my Marriott account before the annual fee posted to my Chase Marriott, I was planning on closing the credit card and keeping the free night… for free.
Logging into my Marriott account also shows the free night certificate. I wrote a tutorial on how to use this certificate here.
Here is my retention bonus call from this morning. If you cannot play the file below, try using a different web browser or downloading the file here.
Results: I was offered another free night certificate valid at any Marriott property category 1-4 after spending $1,000 in 3 months. I took the deal.
In other news, my new Chase Southwest Airlines Plus credit card posted the 50,000 bonus miles to my account…
… and my old Chase Southwest Airlines Premier credit card posted the 6,000 bonus anniversary miles to my account.
Here is a screenshot from my Southwest Airlines account. The 5,993 miles would be 6,000 miles if I didn’t refund some Southwest Airlines flights (see above).
Here is my retention bonus call from this morning. If you cannot play the file below, try using a different web browser or downloading the file here. Skip to the 5 minute 30 second mark to hear the Southwest Airlines retention offer.
Results: I was offered 3,000 bonus Southwest Airlines miles just for keeping the card open. I took the deal. Since I already received 6,000 bonus Southwest Airlines miles, my total score is 9,000 miles for $99. Since I value Southwest Airlines miles at at least 1.5 cents each, that comes out to $135 in Southwest Airlines points for $99, not a bad deal if you ask me.
In other news, my monthly Club Carlson points posted to my account. I am still waiting for the sign up bonus for my Club Carlson business account to post, which should be in the next couple days. Looking at my personal Club Carlson account, it looks like I have earned 115,239 Club Carlson points just from credit card use. Since this card earns 5x on everything, I spent around $23,048 on this card since January. Not too shabby.
Last but not least, if you are heading to Staples this week, why not pick up a free ream of paper. You will need to do a Staples Easy Rebate and give them the coupon code 52390. I have more than enough paper from the various Easy Rebates from the last few months, but I am looking forward to unloading the paper and my neighborhood garage sale this weekend.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
You get paper for free and then sell it to your neighbours?
Yes. And some strangers too. It is a win-win. They get cheap paper and I clean out my bedroom.
Oh my gosh Grant, we might just be neighbors! My neighborhood is having a garage sale too this Saturday. Sort of off topic but wanted to get your thoughts on the following cards I’m thinking of applying for, my very 1st AOR, so naturally I’m quite apprehensive.
-Marriott w/ 70k bonus
-United Explorer w/ 50k bonus
-Citi AA Platinum w/ 50k bonus
-Chase Ink w/ 70k bonus
I haven’t had any of those cards before except for the Citi AA, but it was for the Amex version w/ the 100k bonus back in 2010. My goal is to rack up as much AA or United Miles for a trip in Asia in the winter, or Hawaii in spring 2015. Also thinking of churning my IHG MasterCard then reapplying for it in a month or so. I initially opened that in 2011 but it was a Priority Club Visa that got converted to a MasterCard recently.
I know a lot of this is through Chase so I may have to space out some of these. The miles earning cards are of more urgency to me than hotel cards. What strategy will you suggest?
I would only go for one personal and business chase credit card. Definitely go for the Chase Ink Bold/Plus. You can transfer to British Airways and go to Hawaii for 25,000 BA miles round trip from LAX.
As for personal Chase Cards, I would go for the 50,000 United miles.
You might want to go for an AMEX credit card that earns Membership Reward Points that you can transfer to British Airways.
The Citi 50,000 AA miles credit card is also a great card. No annual fee the first year. You might want to look into B of A Alaska Airlines card which will give you a free one way on one of their partners like Cathay Pacific.
I don’t think you can churn the IHG card since you already have the new MasterCard version.
I live near Jeffrey and Bryan across from the Mormon Church and Smith Farms.
Grant, per Chase’s T&C’s: This bonus offer is available to you as long as you have not received a new cardmember bonus for this product in the past 24 months. My interpretation of it is as long as it’s been >24 months since I got the bonus, I should be eligible for the bonus again. And the bonus I initially got was for the Visa version so although it eventually got converted to MC, that shouldn’t have a bearing to the bonus sign up, should it? Can you explain further the free one way from B of A Alaska Air? I would absolutely love to try Cathay’s biz or 1st class to Asia!
Oh btw, do you have a post on free United stopover with a RT ticket?
Oh just an idea for a future post, how about a listing of cards that are churnable and the amount of time in between? I’m sure a lot of readers can benefit from it:)
Thanks for being so helpful and responsive!
Hi Grant, 3 Decembers ago I scored the SWA biz and personal, had CP for 23 months now because of it. I’ve read about the Marriott hotel & flight package #3. I’ve no Marriott points, 160 URs. Any datapoint on applying for the Marriott Biz and Personal at the same time like I did with the SWA?
Thanks!
I suppose it is possible to go for a personal and business version of the Marriott credit card at the same time. You should get instant approval on the personal and may have to call the business recon line to get approved, but in theory it should work. Good luck, let me know how it goes!
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Does giftcardmall.com still accept American Express Gift cards as payment for Visa Gift cards. I thought I read somewhere on the internet that they do not.
I’m not sure. I use a regular credit card for my GCM purchases. Can you try it out and let me know?
Grant, can you write a little bit about how to use:
1. Blubird
2. Serve
3. gobank
to MS
I have all the info you need in the Bluebird and Serve sub headers at the top of the page.
Which is best? Bluebird or Serve?
Serve is better. Read this post: http://travelwithgrant.com/amex-serve/convert-from-bluebird-to-amex-serve/
Hey Grant. Searched to see if anyone had the Mariott Premier and Southwest card like myself and had ever tried this and stumbked on your site! This is great! I have been staying a lot at Mariotts and have my preference set up to get 600 points on my southwest account each stay. I check out every day into a new hotel and get 600 points every time. Should I be having that 600 go to southwest or let the points build up on Mariott and convert later? Do you pay with your Mariott card when you stay in the hotels or the Southwest card?
Thanks for your help!
Hmm, it would require some math to calculate whether 600 SWA points per night is greater than X Marriott points converted to SWA. I use my Chase Ritz Carlton CC to pay for Marriott stays and I just closed my Chase SWA Plus this morning to avoid paying the $69 annual fee.