Chase is now running a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through November 30. Let me show you why this is a bad deal, and how to do much better even if you want to book a Marriott hotel.
Programs like American Express, Chase and Bilt have points that transfer to airlines and hotels. The airline transfers can be a good deal, although some airline programs like Delta usually make it a bad deal. The only worthwhile one-to-one transfer partner these progams (Chase, Bilt) have is Hyatt. The currencies of IHG, Marriott and Hilton are just too inflated.
Marriott points will usually buy you aren’t 7/10ths of a cent worth of hotel stays. I value the points at 6/10ths of a cent because cash is more valuable. You can do other things with cash besides staying at Marriott. The points may sit in your account and devalue, and while cash can be eroded by inflation it should also earn a rate of return.
Why would you ever transfer a Chase, American Express, or Bilt point 1:1 into Marriott? The same holds for Chase and Bilt to IHG, and for American Express and Bilt to Hilton.
If you really wanted to spend your points for a Marriott stay, you’d be better of redeeming directly through a travel portal.
A reader asked this week about transferring Chase points to Marriott ot book the J.W. Marriott Singapore South Beach for a milestone birthday.
It’d be 446k points…all via Chase Rewards transfer for what would otherwise be a 3K cash purchase.
- 446,000 points for a $3,000 stay is $0.0067 per point. Terrible value for Chase points – but a standard Marriott redemption.
- That was before this new 70% transfer bonus from Chase to Marriott. This makes it 263,000 Chase points, or 1.1 cents per point. Still a terrible waste of points, but obviously less-bad.
J.W. Marriott Singapore South Beach
And he also wanted to know if the hotel was worth the cost paying cash, as a Marriott Gold member (which should help avoid the worst rooms and with 2 p.m. late check-out on day of departure).
My suggestion was to look for the property through Chase Travel, and that he’d likely (he hadn’t told me his dates) find it as part of The Edit.
- 2 cents per point redemption, so ~ 150,000 points for a $3,000 stay. That’s much better than 263,000 with this 70% transfer bonus.
- He can use a $250 Edit credit from his Chase Sapphire Reserve® (See rates and fees) towards the cost (and therefore save 12,500 points) – plus, of course, the cards annual $300 travel credit if he hadn’t already used it.
- And it comes with additional benefits like daily breakfast, a $100 property credit, and upgrade if available.
Booking through the Edit also earns Marriott points for the stay. As a Marriott Gold spending $3,000 [let’s leave aside taxes, since he didn’t give me that breakdown] he should earn 37,500 Marriott points as well. He’d earn elite night credit towards status, too.
Booking through The Edit when the property is available is almost always going to be (a lot) better than redeeming Chase points transferred to Marriott or IHG.
More broadly, Chase’s PointsBoost – when it’s 2 cents per point – will usually beat points transfer redemptions for all but pricier premium cabin international airline redemptions. Sometimes you do better with PointsBoost for international business class even, too.
As for this specific hotel, it’s fine. Singapore is a city with many good hotels and few that are truly great. Plenty of hotels are broadly affordable but not cheap, and more expensive than you think they ought to be for what they are. You aren’t going to be wowed by the price-experience ratio you’ll find in Malaysia, for instance. I actually think this hotel is a good fit for what this reader was looking for. And I was able to offer him some advice on hawker centers, too.
I mean, sure, you *could* use those valuable Chase UR points to book through The Edit instead of transferring them with a 70% bonus to Marriott, then booking through their platform.
OR… you could also transfer those UR points to Hyatt, and stay somewhere far nicer, for a better overall value proposition, regardless of transfer bonuses. ‘Prove me wrong.’