Chase Quietly Put $50 on Your Marriott Boundless. You Have Until December 31 to Use It.

If a Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card is sitting in your wallet, Chase quietly added $100 of airline statement credits to it this year and half of them are on a clock. Fifty dollars is available for airline spending between now and December 31. If you have not put $250 on an airline direct since July 1, you have not triggered the credit yet.

New cardholders got the benefit automatic. Existing cardholders who had the card before January 7 had to activate it through Chase before it would post, and that box is easy to miss if you never open the Marriott section of the Chase app. Log in this week and check whether the benefit shows as enrolled. If it does not, enroll it. That is a two-minute click that unlocks a $50 credit later.

The mechanics are simple and picky at the same time. Spend $250 or more, in one purchase or across several, directly with an airline between July 1 and December 31. A $50 statement credit posts on its own once you clear the threshold. The catch is “directly with an airline.” Book through Expedia, Priceline, Kayak, Costco Travel, or the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, and none of it counts. Book at delta.com or the American Airlines app, and it does. Airline gift cards mostly do not qualify. United TravelBank, which is a prefunded balance you can spend later on United tickets, has been reported to trigger the credit and is a clean way to park $250 without committing to a specific flight yet.

The Boundless is a $95 annual fee card. Take both $50 credits, if you got the first half in June and take the second between now and December, and Chase is handing you $5 more than the fee. Take one, and you have covered a little more than half. Take neither because you never enrolled, or because you booked through the wrong site, and the fee is $95 for one free Marriott night that you may or may not use every anniversary. Chase is betting on inertia. That has always been the profitable bet in this business.

Do this now if the card is yours. Open the Chase app. Search “airline statement credit” on the Boundless benefits page and confirm it says enrolled. If not, activate. Then plan any airline booking between now and December 31 directly with the carrier, not through a booking site. If your travel is quiet through year-end, load United TravelBank with $250 in July or August. Five minutes of work, $50 back, on a card you already own.

If you were considering canceling the Boundless because you did not travel much in the first half, hold that call until after December 31. Trigger the credit first. Then decide whether the card belongs in your wallet in 2027.

One more thing. Chase has framed the airline credit as a 2026-only benefit at this stage. There is no guarantee it comes back in 2027. That does not change the move this week, but it does mean the fee-to-benefit math you are looking at right now applies to this calendar year only.

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