Same fee, opposite shape
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless and World of Hyatt both charge $95/year and both come from Chase, but they earn in nearly opposite shapes. Marriott Boundless leads with a strong default rate and caps its best bonus categories; World of Hyatt leads with a weak default rate and leaves its bonus categories uncapped.
What each card bonuses
| Marriott Bonvoy Boundless ($95) | World of Hyatt ($95) | |
|---|---|---|
| Marriott / Hyatt properties | 6x | 4x |
| Dining, groceries (in-store & online), gas | 3x, capped (see below) | 2x, dining only, uncapped |
| Flights, transit, gym memberships | — | 2x, uncapped |
| Everything else | 2x | 1x |
Marriott's 3x on groceries, gas, and dining shares one combined $6,000/year cap — after that pool is used up, those categories drop to 2x, the same as Marriott's baseline rate everywhere else. In practice, once you clear the cap, Marriott pays a flat 2x on nearly your entire wallet outside its hotel brand.
Hyatt's 2x on dining, flights, transit, and gym memberships has no cap at all — but its baseline rate on everything that isn't one of those four categories, or a Hyatt stay, is a plain 1x.
The free-night credit does most of the work
Both cards include an annual free-night certificate, and it's the largest piece of modeled value on either card:
- Marriott Boundless: a free night at properties up to 35,000 points after your card anniversary. We model this conservatively at $150/year (published value up to $250), and count it as easy to use.
- World of Hyatt: a free night at any Category 1-4 Hyatt after your anniversary. We model this at $100/year (published value up to $150), also easy to use.
Marriott layers on a second credit — two separate $50 airline statement credits, each tied to $250 in spend by a deadline — that we model at $50/year total. Hyatt has no second credit.
Net modeled cost
Add it up and both cards land near $0 net after credits: Marriott's $95 fee against roughly $200/year in modeled credits ($150 free night + $50 airline), Hyatt's $95 fee against roughly $100/year (the free night alone). Marriott gets there with a bigger credit stack; Hyatt gets there with a smaller one but fewer strings attached.
Who should pick which
- Heavier everyday spender who doesn't max out $500/month combined in groceries, gas, and dining: Marriott Boundless's 2x baseline plus 3x capped bonus outearns Hyatt across nearly the whole wallet, on top of the stronger free-night credit.
- Someone who spends heavily on flights, transit, or gym memberships: Hyatt's uncapped 2x on those categories has no Marriott equivalent — Marriott doesn't bonus flights or transit at all.
- Hotel-brand loyalty is the real deciding factor for most people: property spend (
marriott_properties,hyatt_properties) is a modeled input in this app, so if you already have a brand preference, run the optimizer with your real numbers rather than picking on rate table alone.
Run the optimizer with your real spend to see how these compare against your actual wallet, not just the rate table.
Data verified as of August 19, 2026.
Want the live numbers side by side? See the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless vs. World of Hyatt comparison page — it renders current rates and fees straight from our verified card data.