Chase has brought back one of its best-ever welcome bonuses on the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Visa: five Free Night Awards worth up to 50,000 Bonvoy points each, valuing the overall offer at 250,000 Bonvoy points.
Chase Bonvoy Boundless Visa: Five Free Night Awards Worth 50,000 Points Each
Most credit card signup bonuses are delivered in the form of rewards points in a certain loyalty program, but Chase has taken a different approach here.
Upon signing up for the Chase Bonvoy Boundless Visa and spending $5,000 (all figures in USD) in the first three months, you’ll earn a total of five Free Night Awards, each worth up to 50,000 Bonvoy points. The card has an annual fee of $95.
The Free Night Awards will be deposited in your account up to eight weeks after meeting the spending threshold. They’ll then be valid for one year from the date of issuance, meaning that you’ll have the opportunity to redeem them for your travels throughout the rest of 2023 and into 2024.
On paper, the five free night certificates are worth up to 250,000 Marriott Bonvoy points in total, which is obviously a jaw-dropping bonus to receive on a single credit card application.
Of course, you don’t actually get the full flexibility of having 250,000 Bonvoy points in your account, as you’re limited to redeeming the Free Night Awards as they are – you wouldn’t be able to leverage the Marriott Bonvoy points to transfer to their airline partners, for example.
But if you primarily collect Bonvoy points for the purposes of high-end hotel stays, then this offer will be right up your alley.
Not only can you redeem each Free Night Award for a hotel that would otherwise cost 50,000 Bonvoy points, but you can also top-up the Free Night Award by up to 15,000 points, thus potentially using each certificate towards a hotel that would otherwise cost up to 65,000 points.
Plus, in addition to the signup bonus worth a quarter-million Bonvoy points on its own, the Chase Marriott Visa also provides an elite qualifying boost of 15 elite nights, which can be stacked with the American Express US Marriott Bonvoy Business Card to give you a total of 30 elite qualifying nights.
Remember, the only way to stack two of these 15-night bonuses to reach 30 is to hold both a US-issued personal Bonvoy card and a US-issued business Bonvoy card.
If you hold the following combination of Marriott Bonvoy co-branded credit cards... | You will receive... |
Canadian personal + Canadian business | 15 elite qualifying nights |
Canadian personal + US personal | 15 elite qualifying nights |
Canadian personal + US business | 15 elite qualifying nights |
Canadian business + US personal | 15 elite qualifying nights |
Canadian business + US business | 15 elite qualifying nights |
US personal + US business | 30 elite qualifying nights |
Amex US Bonvoy Brilliant + US business | 40 elite qualifying nights |
That’ll get you more than halfway towards Marriott Platinum Elite status, which is where you start to enjoy the truly valuable benefits like free breakfast, lounge access, and suite upgrades.
The Chase Bonvoy Boundless can also be worthwhile to keep year after year, thanks to its anniversary bonus of a Free Night Award worth up to 35,000 Marriott Bonvoy points, which can easily outweigh the card’s $95 annual fee.
Lastly, in terms of the points earning rate, the Chase Marriott Boundless earns 6 Marriott points per US dollar spent at Marriott properties, which is on par with with its Amex US counterparts.
On all other purchases, it earns 2 Marriott points per US dollar spent, which isn’t really a competitive return on everyday spending – your best bet would be to reserve this card for spending at Marriott hotels.
Who Is Eligible for the Bonus?
As good as the offer is, there is a multilayered set of eligibility rules that might limit many individuals who are interested in the offer from actually being able to get it.
First of all, Chase generally requires at least one year of established credit history in the US (and sometimes more) to approve you for a premium travel credit card. They also won’t process applications without an SSN or ITIN included on the application.
For Canadians, this means that only those of us who’ve already gotten started on our US credit card journey at least one year ago will potentially be eligible at this time – if you haven’t gotten started yet, there’s no better time than the present, so that you can have some skin in the game the next time one of these stunning non-Amex offers arrive.
Chase also has the infamous “5/24 rule”, which means that they won’t approve you for any credit card if you’ve opened more than five credit cards over the past 24 months. So if you’ve gone on a US credit card application spree recently, that means you won’t be able to get approved for the Chase Bonvoy Boundless until you go back “under 5/24”.
Next, on the Chase Marriott cards specifically, there is a very convoluted set of exclusion criteria for prospective cardholders who also hold the Marriott credit cards issued by American Express US. Here they are:
This is some very granular fine print indeed, and you’ll want to carefully read through each criterion to make sure it does not apply to you if you want to be eligible for the bonus.
Alas, I imagine that many Canadians who’ve gotten started with US credit cards may have applied for one of the Amex US Bonvoy credit cards along the way: either the US Bonvoy Brilliant or the US Bonvoy Business.
If that’s the case, you might find yourself disqualified from the Chase bonus due to the above eligibility criteria – Marriott clearly doesn’t want to be doling out big bonuses left and right to anyone who’s willing to apply for their cards from both issuers.
On the other hand, if you’re already fairly “deep in the game” with US credit cards but haven’t touched the Amex US Bonvoy cards yet, then you’d certainly be eligible for this rip-roaring bonus on the Chase Bonvoy Boundless, and you should absolutely jump onboard while it’s available.
Conclusion
The Chase Bonvoy Boundless Visa has brought back its much-celebrated welcome offer of five Free Night Awards, each redeemable for a free night worth up to 50,000 Bonvoy points and valid for one year from the date of issuance, when you apply and spend $5,000 in the first three months.
Unfortunately, Chase’s relatively stricter approval criteria, as well as the specific eligibility criteria on this product, may prove to be an obstacle for many prospective applicants.
However, there’s no published end date on the offer, meaning that it could remain in place for at least a few months’ time, giving applicants who may need to maneuver their US credit card portfolios with the eligibility criteria in mind the opportunity to do so.
