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I already hold the Ritz-Carlton™ credit card from Chase, and I’ve written before about how it’s a card you can’t apply for directly but can still get if you know how. Lately, though, I’ve found myself doing the maths on whether a second one makes sense.
A few days ago, that wasn’t a sentence I would have expected to write, so let me explain how I got here.
My thought process started while I was reminding myself of what the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card offers for another article (it’s not a card I hold in high esteem).
Going through that card’s benefits reminded me just how good the Ritz-Carlton™ card’s benefits are and it also reminded me how cheaply I can effectively enjoy the card’s free night certificate once the cards other major benefit credit is accounted for.
That’s the kind of thing that’s easy to lose sight of once a benefit becomes routine and I have to confess that I occasionally take this card for granted.
A quick recap of what the card offers
For anyone who hasn’t read my full breakdown of the card, here’s the short version.
The Ritz-Carlton™ credit card carries a $450 annual fee and offers the following earning rates:
- 6 points/dollar on Marriott spending
- 3 points/dollar on dining, car rentals, and airline purchases
- 2 points/dollar on all other eligible spending.
The key benefits are:
- A $300 annual airline fee credit
- A $100 hotel credit valid at Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis properties (select rates only)
- Priority Pass Select membership with up to 2 guests per cardholder
- Marriott Bonvoy Gold status
- 15 elite night credits a year
- A Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit
- An annual free night certificate valid on standard room bookings costing up to 85,000 points (which can be topped up with up to 25,000 Bonvoy points from your own balance).
As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this is not a card you can apply for. Chase doesn’t list it anywhere on the main sections of its website (although you’ll still find a page dedicated to the card here).
The only way to get it is to hold one of the other Chase Marriott Bonvoy consumer cards for at least a year and to then call Chase and ask for an upgrade.
Why a second card is in my thoughts
Recently, I’ve been forced to take a fresh look at the major hotel chains generally.
With the recent World of Hyatt award chart devaluations, and some of the rumoured changes still swirling around that program, I’m having to consider whether sticking with Hyatt as my primary hotel program still makes sense.
If the answer ends up being no, then working out how useful the other major chains can be to me becomes a little more important than it was a few months ago, and as I already hold Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium Elites status, it makes sense to consider Marriott first.
This Ritz-Carlton™ card train of thought is, in part, a result of that broader reassessment.
Normally, getting a second copy of a card you already hold for anything other than another welcome bonus would be a hard sell (especially as more and more cards are becoming “couponised” and making it harder to extract value), but with the Ritz-Carlton™ card it really isn’t.
The $300 airline fee credit is, in my experience, genuinely easy to use. It’s far simpler than the airline credit on the Platinum Card® from American Express, and between award fees, baggage charges, and the occasional cheaper fare, I’ve never struggled to use it in full.
That alone takes $300 off the $450 fee, bringing my effective net cost down to $150.
Currently, the elite night credits are irrelevant to my needs, I don’t think I’ve ever used the hotel credit and if I was to get a second card, none of that would change and I wouldn’t get any use out of another Global Entry credit either.
But that doesn’t change the argument for a second card. What makes the argument is the free night certificate benefit.
A free night booking worth up to 85,000 points in a standard room (possibly worth up to 110,000 points if I top up the certificate with 25,000 of my own Bonvoy points), is a genuinely strong benefit.
I’ve used my existing certificate on stays that would otherwise have cost well over $500 for a single night, so a second certificate that would only effectively cost me a further $150 looks like a logical thing to go for.
I’ll happily use two 85k certificates every year even if I don’t start using the Bonvoy program any more than I do now (which isn’t much), and a further $150 doesn’t seem like a big ask if, together with my existing certificate, it effectively allows me to book a very nice weekend away.
How I’d actually get a second card
Since the Ritz-Carlton™ card isn’t open to new applications, my only route to a second card is the same route as anyone else who now wants to get this card has to take.
- Get one of Chase’s other Marriott Bonvoy consumer cards – the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® credit card, the Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful® credit card or the Marriott Bonvoy Bold® credit card
- Wait for a year
- Call Chase and ask for an upgrade to the Ritz-Carlton™ credit card.
I may need to move some credit lines around before I upgrade as I’ll need to make sure that it has a credit limit of at least $10,000 (the minimum that you need for a Visa Infinite card which is what the Ritz-Carlton™ credit card is).
Importantly, I should point out that I won’t be able to earn a welcome offer on whatever Chase Bonvoy card I apply for because the Marriott Bonvoy® American Express® Card which I currently hold makes me ineligible.
It doesn’t, however make me ineligible to apply for another Chase Bonvoy card as the only cards that exclude you from applying at all are the Marriott Bonvoy® Premier credit card, Marriott Rewards® Premier credit card, Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® credit card, Marriott Rewards® Premier Plus credit card, Marriott Bonvoy Bold® credit card.
The absence of a welcome bonus isn’t really a big deal. Yes, it’s a little annoying, but I can live with it, and it means that if I go ahead with this plan, I’ll almost certainly apply for the no annual fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card and not any of the others – why pay an annual fee if I’m not going to be getting a welcome bonus, if I don’t really want a 35k free night certificate (from the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® credit card), and if I’m not actually going to use the card?
Final thoughts
For some readers, the idea of getting a second version of a card that you already hold may feel a little unusual, but the entire case here rests on one specific benefit being worth more to me than the net cost of holding the card, and that calculation doesn’t change just because I already have one.
The caveat here is that this only works because of how I personally use the airline credit and the free night certificate, so if you don’t find the airline credit easy to use, or if you don’t have a clear use for a 85,000-point free night certificate each year, the argument falls apart quickly and the Ritz-Carlton™ credit card is clearly not a card for you.
For me, though, $150 a year for a free night certificate that will frequently save me a substantial sum of money on a single stay and that will pair with my existing free night certificate to give me a weekend at a great property for a net outlay of no more than $300, is a very tempting proposition. But it will require some patience. A year of patience to be precise!
