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Big fan of Marriott properties? Willing to effectively pay $150 annually for an 85k free night certificate for a Marriott property? Well, the Chase Ritz Carlton Card might be of interest to you if you said yes. The card also gets you into Chase Sapphire lounges and provides Priority Pass membership. Unfortunately, this card is closed to new applicants, so you’ll need a workaround to get this card.
I usually don’t like to talk about credit cards since there’s already a lot of content about it elsewhere, but I wanted to highlight this card and my experience getting it, as I have not seen as much about it online. In this post I’ll explain how to get the Ritz Carlton card, how to potentially get two free night certificates if you time the upgrade just right, and the various perks the card offers.
The workaround to get the Ritz Carlton Card
Some patience is required to pull this one off. At least a year. This is because you have to:
1) Open a Chase Marriott Card (the Amex ones won’t work). The three Marriott cards in the Chase ecosystem are the Boundless ($95 fee), Bountiful ($250 fee), or Bold ($0 fee).
2) Then you have to wait a full 12 months and call or message Chase to “product change” to the Ritz Carlton Card. You have to wait 12 months due to the CARD Act. Additionally, you need to have at least $10,000 in credit line on the Chase Marriott Card.
3) When you call or message Chase, they will read a quick script telling you about the fee and benefits and hopefully approve you for the product change! This does not count towards your 5/24 status and you can also product change to the Ritz card even if you are over 5/24.
Trick to get two free night certificates after product changing
Personally, I think the Marriott Boundless ($95 fee) card is the best bang for your buck among the three Chase Marriott cards. You get a 35k free night certificate (you can book up to a 50k night award by topping off with up to 15k Marriott points). I’ve found the 35k free night certificate generally gets me hotels priced around $200-400/night. The Boundless also gives you 15 elite night credits towards annual and lifetime status every calendar year.
Importantly, if you have the Marriott Boundless card already, or are willing to hold onto it for nearly 2 years, you could time the product change to the Ritz Carlton Card and get both the 35k free night certificate from the Boundless card in addition to the 85k free night certificate from the Ritz Carlton Card.
You will want to call in to product change between 4-6 days before you get your annual free night certificate. To figure out the date you’ll get the certificate, you can do a few things. First is if you have the unused certificate, you can check the expiration date. That is the same calendar date that it was issued. Second is to check your emails and search “free night award” and you should see emails that tell you when the certificate expires. There should also be an email saying “You’ve Received a Free Night Award” but mine have always come 1 day later than when they were added to my account (my certificate added on January 26 but I get the email on January 27). The last method is to check your credit report or other records to see what day you opened the card.
Ritz Carlton Card Benefits
Key perks
This card has a $450 annual fee and is a Visa Infinite card. You can view all the details on all the benefits directly on the Chase site here.
- Earn 6x Marriott Bonvoy points for every $1 spent at Marriott Bonvoy hotels
- Earn 3x Marriott Bonvoy points for every $1 spent on dining, car rentals, and airline purchases
- Earn 2x Marriott Bonvoy points for every $1 spent on all other purchases
- Get a Free Night Award every year after account anniversary for up to 85k points at Marriott Bonvoy hotels and top off with up to an extra 15k points (for a 100k award night)
- Get $300 annual travel credit for qualifying airline purchases such as baggage fees, upgrades, lounge memberships, etc.
- Access to Chase Sapphire Lounges and Priority Pass lounges (up to 2 guests)
- Get Marriott Gold Elite status automatically + spend $75K+ for Marriott Platinum Elite
- Get 15 Elite Night credits every calendar year that helps count towards Marriott Elite status
- Three Ritz-Carlton Club Level upgrade awards
- $100 credit on qualifying dining, spa, or other hotel incidentals when booking a 2+ paid stay at The Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis properties. Must book specific member rate.
Additional benefits
- Unlimited and free authorized users (they also get lounge access)
- J.P. Morgan Premier Concierge
- No foreign transaction fees
- Primary auto rental insurance up to $75k for theft and collision damage for most rental vehicles in the US and abroad
- Baggage delay insurance up to $100/day up to 5 days for essentials if bag is delayed 6+ hours
- Roadside assistance covering up to $50/incident up to 4x a year
- $1 million travel accident insurance
- Lost luggage reimbursement up to $3k per traveler
- Trip delay reimbursement up to $500/traveler if common carrier travel is delayed 12+ hours or requires an overnight stay
- Global entry or TSA fee covered
- Extended warranty protection
- Purchase protection
- Return protection
Perks I value
Although there is a $450 annual fee for this card, I effectively see it as $150 because of the $300 travel incidental credit that can be used. Unfortunately, the $300 fee is technically meant for incidentals only and you also have to message or call Chase to have it applied to a prior charge. However, there are data points that representatives are fairly lenient on applying the charge (Reddit thread with data points). So think of it as prepaying for $300 in travel-related credit with some minimal friction to use.
The 85k free night certificate is also a lot of value and can snag you a night at a hotel that potentially costs $1,000+ a night. It is becoming a bit more challenging though after a few rounds of Marriott devaluations but some hotels that you could book include the St. Regis Rome, The Ritz-Carlton Tokyo, or The Hotel Grand Bretagne in Athens, Greece.
The Chase lounge access benefit can also be fairly helpful if you travel through airports with them. Being Philadelphia-based, the Chase Sapphire lounge at PHL has been my go to now. You get 2 free guests and apparently if there is a waitlist, Ritz cardholders get priority access over Sapphire Reserve members. You also get Priority Pass membership as well if you don’t have one already. Additionally, as of now… you can have as many authorized users as you want and for free! This can be useful for providing lounge access for others.
Finally, the automatic 15 elite night credits you get every calendar year is super helpful for me in requalifying for Marriott Platinum or Titanium Elite status every year. Currently, you need 50 ENCs to reach Platinum or 75 for Titanium so it is a nice head start.
Perks that are probably not useful
The card provides 3 Ritz-Carlton club-level upgrade certificates. Think of Ritz-Carlton clubs as a lounge within a hotel that often has elevated food and drink options that are prepaid complimentary to those in a club-level room. The issue is you have to book a “special” rate over the phone and that rate is usually worse than the best-available rate.
There’s also a $100 hotel credit for St. Regis or Ritz-Carlton stays of 2+ nights. Again, you have to book a special rate that is usually worse than the best available rate.
The trip delay insurance is not the best one out there, as it requires a 12+ hour delay. I am likely to use a different premium card that only requires a 6-hour delay such as my Venture X or Amex Platinum.
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