@Ghoshida wrote:Hello fellow FICOers!
So I logged in to my AMEX account today and under the deals tab, there was a 100k SPG points offer to upgrade my old SPG card to their new luxury card. For a $5k spend, of course.
Now, I haven't looked at new cards recently, so I am a bit out of loop on this one. I know that the 100k SPG points is now effectively 33.3k SPG points of yesteryear. There's also a $450 fee and a $300 credit on SPG/Marriott hotels I guess? I was keeping my current card beyond its one year date because of the annual free anniversary night offer, though I am not sure if the old cards got grandfathered into it.
Have you got this offer? Have you considered taking it? Are there any gotchas?
I have 2 travel cards - CSR and US Altitude, besides Citi TY Premier, AMEX Hilton (0 AF), Chase IHG, and the old SPG.
I use SPG/Marriott hotels occasionally, probably 3-5 times a year, 2-3 days each stay. We have used them for award stays another 3-5 times a year for the past 2-3 years.
All inputs appreciated! That includes any link to past discussions that my cursory search didn't get to.
@Ghoshida yes, all cards are grandfathered into the annual free night certificate. That will show up each year on your anniversary, starting back on August 1st, 2018. The only "gotcha" would be that you'd be ineligible for any elevated new cardmember bonuses on the card; 100k is pretty sweet (I upgraded with no bonus offer).
@CreditCuriosity wrote:
@iced wrote:My SPG AmEx offer was 125k points for $5k in spend. Have not taken it as it's not that appealing to me. I'm a Platinum Premier via nights so the Gold/Platinum Elite benefit is worthless to me, but the free night cert plus $300 credit would make the card mildly profitable, though not enough to entice me to move my hotel spend from CSR to it.
I'm not a current SPG card holder, so it may affect things.
Must be targeted as havent seen anyhting about a 125k upgrade or new card offer yet?
No idea if it's targeted. I saw it come in via email with the daily spam:
@Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure the double dipping you speak of is possible. In order to use the Amex Offers, said card has to be used at the Property. Which I believe would rule out combining it by booking with AmexTravel.
Using Amex Travel would result in no credits. To receive the $300 credit, the card must be directly charged by a Marriott, Starwood, or Ritz-Carlton property. The Amex Offers that I currently have are $60 statement credit with $300+ charged directly by (legacy) US Marriott properties and $100 statement credit with $500+ charged directly by US Ritz-Carlton properties. The $300 credit isn't from Amex Travel, it's a feature of the $450 AF SPG Luxury card. From the way that other Amex credits have posted in the past, I would say that they will likely work together (spend $300 at a Marriott and get a total of $360 in credits) but I can't guarantee it. I had a similar $60 for $300 Starwood Amex Offer, but the restaurant and bar ended up being closed at my only US Starwood stay last month so I couldn't hit $300 in one night and my stay over the weekend at a Starwood property was in Canada. That should trigger the $300 credit, though, and my Marriott stay this coming weekend should trigger the $60 Amex Offer credit.
Everything routes to marriott.com now, but I'm not sure if you have actually tried to book since the merge? Everything goes right back into the legacy sites at that point. I was really hoping for the booking to all become seamless and function like Marriott bookings have. The offers list the specific properties that they work on:
Not sure if I'll be able to use the Ritz-Carlton offer or not, though. That one works in Canada, but the nights of my stay in Montreal next month only has two rooms available: a signature room for $1,000 CAN each night, or the Royal Suite for $9,900 CAN each night - and I'm certainly not spending 20 grand to sleep on the couch for the weekend (only has 1 King bed and the kids will take it before I can claim it).
Anyway, I think as long as you pay the hotel themselves at checkout the statement will be credited. Pretty sure the URL language is to show that it won't be credited if you book through Amex Travel, Expedia, Travelocity, Chase UR portal, a travel agency, etc.