The brand new Starwood Preferred Guest® American Express Luxury Card has officially launched with a public offer of 100,000 bonus Marriott points after $5,000 in spending in the first three months. These 100k points are valued by TPG at an impressive $900 and this limited-time offer is set to run until October 31, 2018. Also, if you have other Marriott or SPG cards, there are some very good reasons you may want to apply for this brand new card before Sunday, August 26, as new restrictions will then be in place on who can get the bonus.
However, before you apply, if you already have the personal Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express, you may want to see if you have an offer to upgrade to the SPG Luxury card instead of opening up a brand new card account.
We’re getting more than a few reports of readers in the TPG Lounge receiving offers to upgrade their existing personal SPG Amex card to the new SPG Luxury card with as many as 100,000 Marriott bonus points attached to the upgrade. Frequently, when you product change a card, you’re missing out on getting the same number of points as you would if you applied for the card outright. However, in this case, some lucky cardholders can get the same 100,000 Marriott bonus points after spending $5,000 in 3 months as brand new cardholders.
The four offers we’ve seen to upgrade from the $95 per year SPG Amex to the $450 per year SPG Luxury card are…
- No bonus points to upgrade
- 15,000 bonus Marriott Rewards points after $1,000 in spending in the first three months
- 50,000 bonus Marriott Rewards points after $2,500 in spending in the first three months
- 100,000 bonus Marriott Rewards points after $5,000 in spending in the first three months
Since upgrading an account retains your account number and account history (meaning it’s not a new account for Chase 5/24 purposes), I’d personally prefer to upgrade rather than apply outright if I was offered the same 100,000 bonus points. However, if your upgrade offer is for less than 100k bonus points, you have to weigh the pros and cons of applying for a new account versus upgrading to the new card. Most likely, I’d lean toward applying for a new account rather than take a smaller number of bonus points than the normal welcome bonus for new cardholders, especially since American Express has a lifetime one-bonus-per-card rule on all its cards.
Check Your SPG Amex Card Upgrade Offer
To see if your SPG Amex card is eligible for an upgrade bonus to the new SPG Luxury Card, log into your American Express account online on desktop or mobile. You may be presented with an offer when you go to your existing SPG card account.
If that doesn’t do the trick, you can log-in, head to the cards section on the menu, display “All Cards” and select the new SPG Luxury card from the lineup. If you already have the SPG Amex, it should say “Request an Upgrade” next to the new SPG Luxury Card, as shown below. However, if it doesn’t also display a bonus upgrade offer, then don’t expect any points in exchange for the product change (and don’t click the button).
Regardless of whether you upgrade or apply outright, the perks for the new SPG Luxury Card include:
- Up to $300 in statement credits for purchases at participating SPG or Marriott hotels each cardmember year
- $100 Global Entry or $85 TSA PreCheck fee credit
- Priority Pass Select membership (including two guests)
- Annual free night award (up to 50,000 points) after card renewal
- Automatic Gold status and the ability to earn Platinum after spending $75k in a calendar year
- Boingo Wi-Fi access
- 15 elite night credits beginning in 2019 (limited to one per member per year, not one per card)
The SPG Luxury Card is just one element of the new Marriott program, which has been rolling out over the last week. For more of our coverage, check out these stories:
- Your Checklist for the Just-Launched Marriott Program
- How to Combine Your Marriott and SPG Accounts
- Crunching the Numbers on the New Marriott Award Rates
- Why I Need to Apply for the SPG Luxury Card Today
- Should I Hold on to Both the SPG and Marriott Cards After August?
Featured image courtesy of American Express.