If you’re a Marriott Rewards business credit card holder, there are some changes you need to know about. Specifically, significant Marriott Rewards Premier Business Visa changes are coming soon.
Frequent Miler dug up some changes coming soon to the Marriott Rewards Premier Business Visa card from Chase. These changes will go into effect in a little over a month on August 26, 2018. And, unlike the personal card, Chase isn’t creating a new version of their business cards. Instead, they’re just tweaking their existing product.
Positive Changes
Today, the Marriott Rewards Premier Business card earns 5x points on Marriott spend and 2x points on office supply store, restaurant, car rental, internet/cable/phone service, and airline spend. But beginning August 26, the card will earn 6x points on Marriott spend, 4x points at gas stations, restaurants, and internet/cable/phone services. The card will also earn 2x points on all other purchases.
Like the new Marriott Rewards Premier Plus card, the Premier Business will also receive a boost in its annual free night award. So instead of the old Category 1-5 (up to 25,000 points), the new free award night certificate is good at properties requiring up to 35,000 points.
Oh, and the Premier Business card is keeping its ability to earn Gold status through spend. And, even better, the requirement for doing so is decreasing from $50,000 to $35,000 in overall spend. But, the new Marriott Rewards Gold status is a joke, so it isn’t worth pursuing this.
Negative Changes
Like all other Marriott and SPG cards, this card will come with 15 Elite Qualifying Nights (EQNs) annually. However, like the other cards, you only get 15 EQNs regardless of the number of cards you have. Further, the Premier Business card will no longer earn an EQN for every $3,000 in spend. And, the card is also losing its price protection, trip cancellation, and trip interruption coverage.
Marriott Rewards Business Visa
In case you’ve forgotten, Chase also issues a lower-cost Marriott Rewards Business credit card. And though the Premier Business version is losing its EQN for spend benefit, the regular Marriott Rewards Business card seems to be keeping it. This also appears to be the case for the two older versions of the personal card too.
Ritz-Carlton Visa
Another card we’ve been waiting to see confirmed changes for is the Ritz-Carlton Visa. And now, we finally know what will become of this card too. In terms of earnings, the Ritz-Carlton card is receiving a slight bump in earnings, going to 6x points at Marriotts; 3x points at restaurants, rental car agencies, and airlines; and 2x points everywhere else. That’s up one additional point per dollar for each of those categories compared to today’s earning rates.
The Ritz-Carlton card is also receiving a bump in its annual free night certificate, going to 50,000 points. Cardholders will also receive automatic Gold status, though, again, that status is a joke. Unfortunately, the card is losing its 10% bonus on points earned.
Despite the above changes, all other benefits of the card aren’t changing. This means you can still earn Platinum status by putting $75,000 in spend on the card per year. Cardholders will also continue to receive:
- Three club level upgrades annually on paid visits up to seven nights
- $100 property credit for stays of two nights or longer
- Priority Pass Select membership
- $300 annual airline incidental credit
- $100 discount when booking two or more roundtrip economy domestic economy tickets (Visa Infinite benefit)
Marriott Rewards Premier Business Visa Changes
The Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Business Visa is getting absolutely gutted. Yeah, the earning rate is going up, but the number of bonus categories are decreasing. Plus the card benefits are being drastically reduced, while you’ll no longer be able to earn EQNs on spend. And as you know, that’s the sole reason why I’m keeping and using my personal Marriott Rewards Premier card. So hopefully this change is limited to just the Premier Business card. If not, I’ll have to re-evaluate my hotel loyalty relationships.
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