Compare the Features and Benefits of Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card and
Citi Custom Cash℠ Card

Marriott Bonvoy offers co-branded credit cards from two major issuers: American Express and Chase. With so many options to choose from, it can be hard to narrow down the right Marriott credit card for you. If you’re interested in a Marriott Bonvoy credit card but don’t necessarily want to pony up a huge annual fee, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card could be the perfect fit. This card provides an excellent introduction into earning a ton of Marriott points, from the welcome bonus earned upon account opening to the everyday rewards rate.

You’ll not only earn 6x points (up to 17X total Bonvoy points per dollar spent when including your Bonvoy program earnings) on eligible hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy, but the Bonvoy Boundless credit card is a solid match for everyday purchases. Cardholders can earn 3x points per dollar on up to the first $6,000 spent in combined purchases at grocery stores, gas stations and dining. By maxing out that limit, you would earn 18,000 Marriott Bonvoy points alone from everyday spend! Not to mention, you’ll still earn 2x points per dollar on all non-bonus category purchases.

Once you rack up a sizable sum of Marriott Bonvoy points, you can redeem them at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels, where the 5th night is always free on awards, adding to the value.

With 8,500 properties and counting, you can find a Marriott Bonvoy hotel at virtually every corner of the world. It’s easy to search for properties through Marriott’s website, then press “use points/certificates” to see the award rate for your desired travel dates.

Another huge perk to discuss is the card’s free night award. You’ll receive the annual free night certificate every account anniversary year, and the free night valued at up to 35,000 points can be a huge money-saver every year – especially since you can add on up to 15,000 points from your account if the room you want is between 35,000 and 50,000 points. As we value Marriott Bonvoy points at 0.6 cents apiece, this translates into roughly $210 in value — which is more than double the value of the $95 annual fee!

There are even more benefits once you get to participating Marriott hotels thanks to the card’s automatic elite status perks. You’ll be bumped up from your Marriott Bonvoy member account to Silver elite status with the automatic 15 elite night credits, and this level offers 10% bonus Marriott Bonvoy points (as reflected in the card’s rewards rate) and priority late check-out. You can easily bypass the ranks to earn Gold elite status by spending at least $35,000 on the card every year (although, at that point, you’d probably be better off with the premium Bonvoy Brilliant card which grants automatic Platinum status – admittedly for a high annual fee. This level can be particularly rewarding, thanks to enhanced room upgrades upon availability, 2 p.m. late checkout (based on availability), and 25% bonus points on eligible Marriott stays.

Last but not least, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card isn’t just a great pick for your hotel stays. When traveling, you’ll be covered with a plethora of protections, including trip delay reimbursement, lost luggage reimbursement, and secondary rental car coverage. Finally, some important purchase coverages that are standard with Chase are included, including purchase protection and extended warranty.

In summary, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card is a popular pick for the $95 annual fee. It’s easy for cardholders to justify paying this cost every year thanks to the free night award, and that’s before you consider all of the other benefits on the card.

However, if you’re interested in a higher elite status level, a free night valued up to 85,000 points per night, and the possibility to earn Marriott Bonvoy points faster, you may want to consider other Marriott Bonvoy credit cards like the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card.

You will earn 5% cash back (as ThankYou® Points) on eligible purchases in your top spending category each billing cycle, up to the first $500 spent, with 1% cash back thereafter on all of your other eligible purchases made with your Citi Custom Cash card. You do not have to select anything at any time. It’s automatic. And these are not rotating bonus categories – it’s the same choice each month.
The eligible bonus spend categories are:

• Restaurants
• Gas Stations
• Grocery Stores
• Select Travel
• Select Transit
• Select Streaming Services
• Drugstores
• Home Improvement Stores
• Fitness Clubs
• Live Entertainment

You’ll earn an unlimited 1% cash back on all other purchases.

The 5X applies to your top category each month. So it’s kind of like a rotating bonus category except you choose – and you don’t even have to technically choose or register, the 5% is automatically applied to your highest spend category each billing cycle.

As a comparison, the Chase Freedom Flex offers a 5X rotating quarterly bonus category, but with a limit of $1,500 per quarter and on whatever categories they choose. This works out to the same $1,500 per quarter, but divided evenly each month such that you can utilize different categories each month.

This is the first and only card that I can think of that offers 5% at home improvement stores and at drugstores.

While a heavy spender may not be super impressed with the $500 a month cap, I think many spenders would be very happy to earn 5% on restaurants, grocery stores, gas, etc. on a card with no annual fee.

And heck, you could buy $500 worth of show or concert tickets one month and get 5% on that!

The Citi Custom Cash card is a perfect companion card to a Citi Premier® and a Citi® Double Cash card, creating a Citi Trifecta. If you have all three cards, you would use the Citi Premier for 3X Citi ThankYou points® on air travel & hotels, gas stations, restaurants and supermarkets, the Double Cash card for everything else at 2X, except for one category out of the Custom Cash’s options for 5X up to $500 a month. Personally, I think that most people would want to make this their go-to card for gas stations, as that is an easy one to spend roughly $500 a month on. But, of course, what category you pick will depend on your own spending patterns.

You might be thinking about getting multiple Citi Custom Cash cards – a Custom Cash card for each category, but you cannot. Acknowledging that someone might want to hold many of these to get everything at 5X, they have capped this card at one per person.

Bonus Eligibility Rules for the Citi Custom Cash card

The bonus offer is not available if you received one for opening a new Citi Custom Cash℠ Card account in the past 48 months.

However, this is GOOD news! You see, with all of the other Citi credit cards that earn ThankYou points you can only get one bonus, in total, every 24 months. Meaning that getting a Citi Premier precludes you from, for example, a Citi Rewards+.

But the Custom Cash card is not subject to that rule. So, you can get another Citi ThankYou® card bonus and a Custom Cash card bonus within the same 24 month period.

Bonus Category Definitions

It’s important to know what counts and what doesn’t, especially for bonus categories that start with the word “Select.”

The following definitions apply to the Citi Custom Cash card categories:

Restaurants

Includes purchases at cafes, bars, lounges and fast food restaurants. Excludes purchases at bakeries, caterers, restaurants located inside another business (such as hotels, stores, stadiums, grocery stores, or warehouse clubs) and third party dining delivery services.

Gas Stations

Excludes gasoline purchases at warehouse clubs, discount stores, convenience stores or other merchants that do not use the gas station merchant category code.

Grocery Stores

Includes purchases at supermarkets, meat/seafood stores, dairy stores, bakeries, and miscellaneous food/convenience stores. Excludes purchases at general merchandise/discount superstores; wholesale/warehouse clubs; candy, nut and confectionery stores. Purchases made at online supermarkets or with grocery delivery services also do not qualify if the merchant does not classify itself as a supermarket by using the supermarket merchant category code.

Select Travel

Includes airline, hotel, cruise line and travel agency purchases. Excludes timeshares, boat leases and rentals, campgrounds and trailer parks, and real estate agencies.

Select Transit

Includes car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines, and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals. Excludes bike/scooter rentals, auto clubs and insurance companies.

Select Streaming Services

Includes the following cable, satellite, and streaming providers: Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Apple Music, CBS All Access, Disney+, AT&T TV NOW, ESPN+, fuboTV, HBO Max, NBA League Pass, Netflix, Pandora, Showtime, Sling TV, Spotify, Starz, SiriusXM, Vudu, YouTube Red, YouTube TV, and Tidal.

Drugstores

Includes purchases made at pharmacies in grocery stores, general merchandise/discount superstores, and wholesale/warehouse clubs if those merchants submit purchases made in their pharmacy with the drug store and pharmacy merchant category code.

Home Improvement Stores

Includes purchases at home supply warehouse stores, lumber and building materials stores, paint and wallpaper stores, hardware stores, nurseries – lawn and garden supply stores and paints, varnishes and supplies stores. Excludes florists and florists’ supply stores; nursery stock; wholesale construction stores; and glass stores.

Fitness Clubs

Includes membership fee and other purchases at athletic, sports and recreation facilities requiring membership such as health, tennis, and swimming clubs. Excludes fees associated with virtual services for home exercise equipment, personal monitoring devices, or fitness streaming classes.

Live Entertainment

Includes ticket purchases for live entertainment, including: concerts, live sporting events, live theatrical productions, amusement parks, and orchestras. Excludes: charitable organizations that provide live entertainment (benefits), sporting camps, sports complexes where you participate in the sport, public and private golf courses, country clubs (including membership fees), bowling alleys, movie theaters, tourist attractions, museums and art galleries.