Fyi - Chase Sapphire Reserve has recently opened 2 airport lounges, 1 in LGA and 1 in JFK. Went to the LGA one yesterday, and it’s really nice, one of the best lounges we’ve been in, actually.
This is good because the included Priority Pass domestic lounge selection had been getting really thin in recent years.
Yet another Marriot Bonvoy points tactic that might be more forgiving and actually a better play overall.
FIRST THING: TL;DR
I intended this to be a quick reply - then realized there are enough moving parts that need to be spelled out so I expanded it to a homeric post. The TL;DR: If you have at least a single Swolphin stay planned, the annual fee of this card can probably pretty easily be offset by perks, even without the sign up bonus.
You may want to grab a coffee to go through the rest.
The Rest
Today’s Miles Earn and Burn daily email had this tidbit:
| Now, the Amex Marriott Brilliant is a premium card, so has a premium annual fee: $650. I realize that will make many people fall off of their chair. |  |
But, hear me out, imma go through some numbers.
First - Can You Make that Brilliant Annual Fee feel, ummm, Brilliant.
Yes. next question.
More info needed? OK.
With any high-annual-fee card, you have to be ready to play at least some of the game to compensate for that initial slap-in-the-face fee. Amex, in particular has turned their premium cards into a sort of coupon book where you need to track and use various credits to suck the marrow (eww) of the value out.
So, as you saw in the MEAB newsletter image above, the Brilliant currently has an all-time-high sign up bonus (SUB) of 185,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Also, if you or your P2 (spouse, etc) have ANY Amex card, you can use a referral link to refer to each other to get another 10K - 30K points on top of that. (Depends on what your Amex card referral offers are, I have some cards at 10K and others at 20K right now. Also, never use your own referral link to sign yourself up for a card.)
But, let’s ignore that SUB - we want the annual benefits of the card itself to at least cover that $650 smackers.
Right off the bat, there are a few biggies that help:
Annual $300 dining credit (usable as $25/month.)
I don’t know about you, but I dine. Do you dine? I do.
While perhaps annoying that it is broken into monthly credits, IMHO this is an easy win since you can use it at any restaurant. (Unlike the Amex Gold card monthly dining credits which only have a few specific chains where you can use them.)
Annual Fee Net after Dining Credit: $350
Annual 85K Free Night Certificate
If you are going to stay at a Swolphin resort, or another upper-level Marriott hotel, I think you can conservatively count this certificate value as another $250 - and easily more depending on where and when you use it.
Annual Fee Net after Free Night Credit: $100
If you have a swanky side, you also get an annual $100 resort credit at Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis properties, but I’m going to ignore that as it is less likely to be of value to most folks to offset the annual fee.
Platinum Elite Status
With this card you become an automagic Platinum Bonvoy member. I think you get to wear a crown.
The card also includes a lot of perks like travel insurance, lounge access, extra points earning levels, Global Entry / TSA PreCheck credit, Priority Pass membership, lounge access (if they even have one) etc -LET’S IGNORE ALL OF THAT DARN VALUE TOO.
You may get the same perks above from other cards.
In general, Bonvoy points may be entirely meh to earn (compared to transferable points like Chase or Amex) unless you have specific uses for them or really have a lot of Marriott stays.
So, where’s the 
value in Platinum status?
IMHO: Room upgrades, late check out, Welcome Gift choice.
To be up front, Marriott is famous for its perks to be intermittently provided during stays. But, if you benefit from at least one of these Platinum Elite perks, you’ll be shaving that net $100 annual fee down pretty close to $0 if you haven’t already with that 85K free night certificate.
Does 4PM late checkout have a monetary value? Mostly no.
Can you get a 4PM late checkout with lower status, like Gold? Yep. I have.
But, with Platinum it is theoretically “guaranteed.”
Does that mean they won’t weasel out of it for you? Nope. But I bet your chances are pretty good at Swolphin.
Our 4PM check out this summer was excellent - we had time on our last day to wander around Crescent Lake and nosh, take photos, shop. That was a great mental decompress at the end of the trip perk.
Room upgrades can also happen independently of Platinum status - but being THIS ELITE opens up the door to the possibility of being upgraded to a suite. I think there’s some opportunities there.
But, the most tangible value is probably in that Welcome Gift Choice: free food.
Now, depending on the hotel/resort it might not be a giant amount of money, but it will be something. Googling around for Swolphin examples of this benefit I found this on another forum that shall not be named:
At $20 per day, that’s $100 on a single 5-night stay.
I think that breakfast perk can easily zero out the rest of that annual fee with just 1 or 2 trips, depending on your travel party - and even make the card a money maker if you have a couple of trips lined up.
Finally - Perhaps the Best Part of this 185K SUB
Free night certificates have a 1 year shelf life.
With Marriott - under normal conditions your points will not expire. (Technically they expire after 24 months of inactivity. But, you probably don’t want your points to hang around that long since points inflation is real, yo. Also, in a pinch you can avoid expiration by just transferring 1,000 points into the program.)
When the points value is equal (say three 50K certificates vs 150K points) - you want to take the points every time. Right now I’m still trying to find a use for my 3 remaining FNCs from last year.
They expire in May and I haven’t been able to line anything up with school breaks.
An Actual Example
Let’s check out a Swolphin stay and see how the bonus points vs free night certificates compare.
Things to keep in mind:
You can add up to 15,000 Bonvoy points to free night certificate if needed. (So, 50K certificates can be used for nights up to a ceiling of 65K.)
Marriott seems to be jacking up the points needed at the Swolphin hotels AND their calendar is bizonkers. As I have said before in this and my Deluxe It Up thread, you often have to play games to find reasonable points days.
When creating this example I noticed a few weeks where most days were 65K or well below that per night - but randomly in the middle of that week might be a 78K night.
Is Marriott trying to minimize people using certificates by inserting unbookable nights those weeks? Depends on how big your tinfoil hat is, I guess.
When booking with points alone (no certificates involved) - if you book a 5 night stay, you only pay for 4 nights. (Marriott automagically zeroes out the cheapest night so you do not have a choice is free.)
In general: Hardcore points jockeys will often argue that using math alone, transferring from Chase to Amex to Marriott is NOT going to be the best use of those points. But, I’d make the argument that if the stay is of value to you, transferring points to Marriott is fine. I’ve done it. I will do it again.
To see where there might be opportunities to book a stay using the 50K free night certificates, I searched using the “Flexible Dates” option and a length of stay of 1-night. Using the single night search, you can see the points cost for every night in the month at a glance. I then screen capture the month so I can use it as reference when booking the full stay later.
Here is July 2024 as it stands right now.
(In 10 minutes it might be different, who knows? Not even Marriott, I bet.)
For this example I’m going to pick that week starting on Sunday, June 30th. The 1st 5 nights that week are all going for less than 65K, so I can use my certs and will have to pour Bonvoy points on top. (Last August the week I booked was almost entirely 48K - 50K, BTW.)
Once I chose the date I wanted to start, I changed my search to 5-nights instead of 1. When I then select a start date of 6/30, the booking looks like this:
After earning the SUB for the Brilliant card I’d have 185K SUB + 20K referral bonus = 205K points.
For the Boundless, I’d have (5) 50K Free Night Certs + 20K points referral.
Here’s how the points bookings would play out:
I’d have to add 41K points from somewhere (transfer from Amex or Chase or just earned via Marriott spend) when using the Brilliant card points to book, or 34K when using the Boundless free night certs. (Both Chase & Amex sometimes offer bonuses when transferring points to Marriott, but I’m not going take that into account here.)
That kind of looks like the Boundless free night certificates is the better deal - it is costing me 7K fewer points out of pocket to book this stay.
However: I’d make a few arguments
In this scenario, as long as you are someone willing to play the game offsetting the premium card annual fee by using the card credits and perks, I think I’d probably lean heavily towards the Brilliant card.
@JJT - as always, fantastic summary!
I never would have imagined having a credit card with such a high annual fee, but I’ve gotten so much value out of it over the past year. The $25 monthly dining credit is easy peasy - just use your card at a restaurant and the credit comes through. No jumping through hoops, no figuring out if the restaurant is included, etc.
Another perk I’ve found super valuable at non-Swolphin hotels:
With the Brilliant card, you also get 25 elite night credits. Paired with periodic extra night promos, this makes it easier to get the 50 nights you need to earn the Annual Choice Benefit which includes 5 night upgrade certificates. These certificates bump you to the top of the list for room upgrades and can be super valuable at some properties.
Thanks to the Brilliant perks, I had an amazing experience last year. I found a dirt cheap award flight through Virgin Atlantic (thanks to Amex MR points) and was able to meet my daughter in London while she was studying abroad. I booked a regular room at the London Marriott Hotel County Hall (beautiful property right on the river by the London Eye). I requested an upgrade using 3 upgrade certs and got bumped up to a balcony view room overlooking Big Ben and the London Eye. The lounge was lovely in the evening and for breakfast we got to eat in the Library (again with views of Big Ben!). It was a core memory experience for sure!
Side note - if you have a Brilliant, check to see if you have a special referral bonus available. Mine is showing 40k points per referral!!
Excellent info, I think you’re selling me on it! 
I’m finally an influencer! LOL
Currently a $75 Uber Credit when signing up for Clear. Used our Amex Platinum card to buy since it comes with Clear credit.
So I’m looking at Marriott credit cards and need some insight - if they say you get 5 free nights valued up to 250k points, does that mean you get 250k points to use as you please or you can only book nights at or under 50k?
What happens if you want rooms over 50k? Is there a cash price to pay? I can’t seem to see the price per night for a hotel so that is kind of driving me bonkers. It’ll show me the totally points for the stay but not points per night.
I figured this out 
You get 5 free night certificates, EACH good up to 50K.
If a night you want to book is more than 50K points, you can add up to 15K points on top.
The tricky part is when there’s one night in your stay that’s over 65K - can’t do it with a certificate and is annoying.
Pure points are always better than certificates and don’t expire (well they do, but that is easy to avoid), so usually best to go for the certificate bonuses when you have a pretty good idea of where/when you will use them. 
Thank you! This is what I THOUGHT would happen but then started second guessing. The Marriott cards seem to have better point value SUB than IHG or Hilton
For Disneyland Trips, I found the Element hotel a great use for the certificates. It is priced in the 40k range so good value and has free breakfast and 10-15 minute walk from park.
Also used a certificate for a night stay at Swan Reserve in May.
Okay - more credit card questions.
I know that the Disney visa is not a great deal, but honestly, it’s one way I can convince my husband to use those $$$ on our next trip lol.
Same goes with the SUB for my chase sapphire preferred? I have to hold this card until 6/1 bc I booked a trip on it (travel insurance), but my last SUB was April 2022. I can just transfer all of my points to my Chase Ink or Chase Freedom Unlimited - cancel my card in June - apply for the new card a few days after I cancel. Is that how it works?
You can use both.
And that’s the only answer I have 
Thank you!
I’ve been debating changing design but I love my current one too and it’s been discontinued lol.
For the DVisa reapplication: yep, that’s about right. (Just be sure you actually earned the SUB on 6/14/22 as opposed to that being your application date.)
For the Sapphire: That is the rare card with a 48 month turnaround before you can get another SUB, so sadly if your last SUB was APR 2022, you are NOT eligible until 2026.
But, when you do go for the next SUB on that card, yep, you can move the points to another UR card while you close and re-apply.
I was using my statement date - the statement where the SUB appeared. That’s accurate, right?
Do you know about the rewards card? As long as I transfer it over to the card, they can’t take it away, right?
Ahhhh, this is super helpful!! Thanks for that catch.
I think using the statement where the SUB appeared is a good way to track it, so you’re set!
Oh, I didn’t catch the 2nd part of that question - you DEFINITELY have to request those rewards $ be added to a rewards card and sent to you before you close the card or they will be gone.
If you will be earning more rewards dollars on that card between now and June, a good trick to get all the $ off if you don’t already have a rewards card: Request all of your rewards be sent to you BUT leave $10 or more in the account. That way you’ll have the rewards card long in advance and can wait right up to the day before you intend to close the Visa card to transfer the remaining $ to that rewards card you have in hand.
(The minimum transfer amount is $10 (double check me they didn’t change it), so leaving at least that much insures you won’t even leave a $1 on the table, which annoyed me when that happened on my first rodeo.)
Thank you! Gosh - you are just so helpful.
I already have the rewards card (I used it in 2023) but it has $0 on it bc I haven’t transferred it yet. I’ll just be sure to transfer it right away before I cancel/reapply.
Do you know if I have to cancel? I know I can’t use my own referral code to go from the regular to premiere - but I assume they will let me have both a regular and premier (which is probably useless but one doesn’t have an annual fee).
While you can’t refer to yourself, you can refer your spouse - before I began playing the larger points game, my DW and I referred each other back and forth every other year and doubled up on both the SUB and referral bonuses.
When it comes to holding both cards: I do not know if Chase considers them one card or two different cards. I would tend to think they might consider them different, but even if they do, do they also consider the SUB on one counts for the SUB on the other and you have to wait 24 months to get both? If you do have to wait 24 months to get the other card, then I’m not sure what the advantage of holding both cards is. (Unless one is your oldest card and you want to keep it open for credit score purposes.)
Googling around just now I didn’t find anything definitive about it. The heavy hitter points people that would write about that kind of thing likely aren’t churning Disney cards 
If your husband is up for it, I think your most lucrative play would be to refer him to a Premier if he doesn’t have one, then when you hit the spend on that have him refer you back and try applying for the Premier.
They won’t approve you if you’re not eligible for the SUB. If they do, you’ll end up with double the rewards.
If they do deny you, you can close the DVisa you have now, wait a few weeks, then call recon and ask them to reconsider the application. (You have 30 days from application to call.)
You’re right - I think that is the best play. I’m trying to think long term for what CCs he might be applying for down the road too.
You are amazing. Thanks for always being so helpful.
