As of today both the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card see their welcome bonus lowered from 60,000 points to 50,000 points.
This isn’t a bad offer, in fact it is still a great offer when compared to other cards found in our entire market. It just isn’t as good as the offer of 60,000 points that ended yesterday.
Why is it still a good offer? You have a card that provides a 50,000 point welcome bonus after you meet the minimum spend. Those 50,000 points are worth at least $500 if not more. Subtract the $120 annual fee and you are still getting no less than $380 in value. And I say no less – in fact you could and should be getting more value than that:
The Westin Wall Centre Vancouver Airport in August is only 25,000 points while the best rate we could find was the AAA rate of $396
Imagine two nights, 50,000
points for $792. Now you have $672 in value from the welcome bonus.
And that’s just from the sign up bonus. We’re not even taking into account the other benefits of the card. For example, you have the anniversary free night benefit that can be used for hotels that cost up to 35,000 points per night. Here are some examples taken from our post A look at how The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card provides huge value!
The Westin Turtle Bay Resort and Spa in Mauritius is only 35,000 points per night.
As you can see from the example above you are
way ahead as you would be getting a US$497 room for C$120. Let’s
get more realistic and look closer to home where you might use a one
night free night benefit:
Now you are in Calgary and need a hotel for the night before an early
flight. Or maybe you live in YYC and want a staycation. The Rewards
Canada family can recommend the Calgary Airport Marriott In-Terminal Hotel (read our review here) and it runs 35,000 points for one night:
The 35,000 points you got as an anniversary benefit just got you a $287 room for your $120 annual fee.
The card still has 15 Elite Night Credits given to you every year you have the card, automatic Silver Elite status (and Gold if you hit $30,000 in
spending on the card), the ability to convert to a wide selection of
airlines and the earn rates of 5 points per dollar spent at Marriott
Bonvoy properties and 2 points per dollar everywhere else.
We all hate it when a welcome bonus offer is lowered and we can only hope that in this case the 60,000 points offer returns in the near future as another limited time or permanent offer!
The card matrices below show the latest offers on these cards and may not be representative of the discussion above:
– American Express is not responsible for maintaining or monitoring
the accuracy of information on this website. For full details and
current product information click the Apply now link.
– This post was sponsored by Amex Bank of Canada. The views and opinions expressed in this blog, however, are purely my own.