Understanding Marriott Credit Card Eligibility Rules

All credit cards with welcome offers have restrictions regarding who is eligible for the bonuses, and at times they can be complicated. However, if you ask me, Marriott’s co-brand card portfolio is next-level when it comes to understanding eligibility restrictions.

That’s not to say the cards are hard to be approved for, but rather that it can take some effort to understand if you’re eligible for the bonus on a particular card, based on which other cards you have. In this post I wanted to discuss that in more detail, for anyone who is considering applying for a Marriott credit card.

Why are Marriott’s credit card eligibility rules so complicated?

Many wonder why Marriott has such complicated restrictions regarding who is eligible for card bonuses. You can’t simply get each Marriott credit card once, but rather eligibility for a card is based on whether you’ve had select other cards, whether you’ve applied for other Marriott cards in the past 30 or 90 days, etc.

Ultimately these complicated restrictions come down to a few factors:

• Credit card issuers add restrictions regarding welcome offers to encourage profitable consumer behavior; they don’t want you to get all of these cards just for the bonuses
• Marriott has co-branded credit cards issued by both American Express and Chase (there are a total of six — three from each issuer), and eligibility for some Chase cards is even based on whether you have Amex cards, and vice versa; this doesn’t even include cards no longer open to new applicants, like the Ritz-Carlton Credit Card
• The Marriott Bonvoy program was only launched in 2019, after the merger between Marriott and Starwood; previously both Marriott and Starwood had different cards, and whether or not you’ve had one of those cards plays into the eligibility requirements for the bonuses on current cards

General Marriott credit card eligibility requirements

Before we talk about the eligibility requirements for specific card welcome bonuses, let’s talk about the rules of being approved for Marriott’s cards more broadly, as each card issuer has different rules.

Before I even share those, let me mention that being an authorized user on a Marriott card doesn’t in any way preclude you from getting the card yourself as the primary user, and earning the bonus.

Marriott Amex card requirements

The following three Marriott credit cards are issued by American Express:

• The Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card (review), which is the Marriott business card
• The Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card (review), which is a Marriott upper mid-tier personal card
• The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (review), which is the Marriott premium personal card

If you want to get approved for an Amex card, keep in mind that:

• Amex generally limits consumers to having at most five Amex credit cards at any time (this excludes hybrid cards), and it doesn’t matter whether these are personal or business cards
• Amex will typically approve people for at most two credit cards in a 90 day period
• Anecdotally I find that Amex cards are much easier to be approved for than Chase cards, especially with instant approvals; however, I’d still recommend having a credit score of at least 700

Marriott Chase card requirements

The following three Marriott credit cards are issued by Chase:

• The Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card (review), which is the Marriott no annual fee personal card
• The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card (review), which is the Marriott mid-range personal card
• The Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful™ Credit Card (review), which is an upper mid-tier personal card

If you want to get approved for a Chase card, keep in mind that:

• Chase has the 5/24 rule, whereby you typically won’t be approved if you’ve opened five or more new card accounts in the past 24 months (with any issuer); however, there are increasingly reports that this is no longer consistently enforced
• Chase doesn’t have a strict limit on how many cards each person can have, but rather the limit seems to be the overall amount of credit you can be issued
• Chase will typically approve people for at most two personal credit cards in a 30 days period
• I’d only apply if you have a very good credit score, ideally at least 700

Which Marriott credit cards are you eligible for?

With all of that out of the way, let’s talk about the restrictions around earning the welcome offers on these cards. Can you apply for one Marriott credit card? Two? How about three? Does it matter which ones? I’ve seen some sites try to create charts to make this easier, but personally I’ve just found that to create even more confusion.

Eligibility if you’ve never had a Marriott credit card

Let’s start with the ideal situation — you’ve never had a card from Marriott or any of its predecessors, including Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. If that’s the case, you’re eligible for any one of the six cards, and you’re eligible for the welcome offers as well.

Want to get two or three Marriott credit cards?

This is where it starts to get tricky. If you’ve never had a Marriott credit card before and you want to get two or three Marriott credit cards, there’s one combination of cards you can get, assuming you don’t want to get the cards more than two years apart:

• You can apply for the three American Express cards — the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant — though you need to do so in a specific order
• You’re only eligible for the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy if you haven’t had the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, so if you want to eventually pick up both cads, you’ll want to apply for the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy before you apply for the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant
• If I wanted to pick up just two of those cards, I’d go for the Marriott Bonvoy Business and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant — the cards are arguably the best complements to one another, get you the most overall value, and you can also apply for them at roughly the same time without issue

What other Marriott card combinations can you have?

There are some other combinations of the six cards that you can get over time, but you’d have to wait, and the rules may make your head spin. Looking at the eligibility restrictions for the welcome offers among the current six cards…

You can’t get the welcome bonus offer on the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, or Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant if:

• You’ve acquired the Marriott Bonvoy Bold, Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful, or Marriott Bonvoy Boundless, in the past 90 days
• You’ve received a new cardmember bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Bold, Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful, or Marriott Bonvoy Boundless, in the last 24 months

You can’t get the welcome bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Bold if:

• You currently have the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless, or have received a new cardmember bonus on it in the past 24 months
• You currently have the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, or Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, and have received a new cardmember bonus on the card in the past 24 months (it’s fine if you have those cards, you just can’t have received a bonus in the past 24 months)
• You were approved for the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, or Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, in the past 90 days

You can’t get the welcome bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless if:

• You currently have the Marriott Bonvoy Bold, or have received a new cardmember bonus on it in the past 24 months
• You currently have the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, or Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, and have received a new cardmember bonus on the card in the past 24 months (it’s fine if you have those cards, you just can’t have received a bonus in the past 24 months)
• You were approved for the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, or Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, in the past 90 days

What happens if you’ve had other Marriott credit cards in the past?

If you have any cards from back when the Marriott Rewards or Starwood Preferred Guest programs were around, I’d recommend just looking at the restrictions on the application pages:

• For Amex cards, go to the “offer & benefit terms” section of the card application
• For Chase cards, go to the “offer details” section of the card application

I’m not trying to be unhelpful, but the reality is that each card has dozens of different scenarios about eligibility for welcome bonuses, depending on which cards you have, or have had in the past. At some point I’m doing a disservice and complicating things by listing it all out, when the application terms list them as easily as they can possibly be listed (which still isn’t very easy, admittedly).

Bottom line

Marriott has six co-branded credit cards, all of which have great benefits. There’s understandably often some confusion about who is eligible for the bonuses on these cards.

Hopefully the above sheds some light on that question, both when it comes to getting approved for Amex and Chase cards in general, and when it comes to eligibility for each of these products.

If you’re new to Marriott credit cards, the moral of the story is that you can either get any one of the six cards, or if you want to get two to three cards and not wait two years, you’re eligible for the Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Bevy, and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. But if you’re going to get all three of those, apply for the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy before applying for the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant.

Personally I think the ideal combination is getting the Marriott Bonvoy Business and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, as this maximizes your overall perks by a long shot.

What has your experience been with Marriott Bonvoy credit card eligibility rules?