After
spending most of 2020 supporting existing customers we can say 2021 is
the year American Express is back in the game for acquiring new
customers! We’ve seen increased welcome offers on the American Express Cobalt™ Card (now gone) The
Platinum Card®, the Choice Card from American Express™ (now gone) as well as offers on the SimplyCash™ Preferred Card from American Express and the SimplyCash™ Card from American Express. Of course we also saw increased welcome bonuses for the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card, the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card come out earlier this year to which this post is a reminder of the amazing offers on these two Marriott cards!
The current best ever welcome offers are as follows:
Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card
- New Marriott Bonvoy™* American Express® Cardmembers earn 60,000 Marriott
Bonvoy™ points enough for 3 free nights at a Category 2 hotel after you
charge $3,000 in purchases to your Card in your first three months of
Cardmembership.* subject to change at any time - Plus, get a $120 statement credit when you charge $10,000 in net
purchases to your card in your first twelve months of Cardmembership.
Offer subject to change at any time.
Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card
- Earn 60,000 Welcome Bonus Marriott Bonvoy™ points after you charge
$5,000 in purchases to your Card in your first three months of
Cardmembership. Offer subject to change at any time - Plus, get a $150 statement credit when you charge $15,000 in net
purchases to your card in your first twelve months of Cardmembership.
Offer subject to change at any time.
These are some amazing
new bonuses for these cards – yes we have seen 60,000 bonus points for
these cards before but not with statement credits! Basically if you can
meet the spending requirements over the period of the year your first
year is free with either of these cards. You’ll notice those statement
credits equal the annual fee for each card. Spend $10,000 in the first
12 months on the personal card and you get a $120 credit which as you
can see is what the annual fee is on the card. Likewise the Business
version has a $15,000 spend requirement and once you hit that you get a
$150 statement credit which equals the annual fee on that card.
Here
at Rewards Canada we value Marriott Bonvoy points a 1 cent a piece (C$)
which puts the welcome bonus value at $600 for either card and you can
get that full value if you meet the statement credit spending
requirements. No deducting the annual from the points value here if you
do so!
I would highly recommend reading our reviews of these cards
so that you can see the huge value and potential in them:
And
while I won’t cover everything in this post that these cards offer I
will go into some of the redemptions you can expect from these card’s
60,000 point welcome bonuses.
Free nights at Marriott Hotels
With
60,000 points – actually at least 66,000 points on the personal card
and 70,000 points on the business card since you have to spend $3,000
and $5,000 on them respectively to get the bonuses – you’ll have
multiple free night options with the Marriott Bonvoy program:
This
is Marriott’s standard free night chart which as you can see you’ll
have enough points for one night at the second highest level of hotels
which are Category 7 Hotels or as many as six nights for an Off Peak
redemption at a Category 1 hotel. If you meet the minimum spend
requirement for a statement credit on either card you’ll have well over
70,000 points which gets you into an Off Peak absolute top level
Category 8 free night! No matter which route you go you should be able
to extract at least $600 in value from the welcome bonus points alone!
At least 25,000 airline miles/points
Your
other great redemption option with Marriott Bonvoy is converting the
points to any one of their 40+ airline partners. Points convert at a 3:1
ratio however when you convert 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points at once
Marriott will kick in the equivalent of 5,000 miles or points as well.
That means the new 60,000 point welcome bonus on both of these cards is
the same as getting 25,000 miles or points in most of their airline
partners. That includes Aeroplan and if you do reach that statement
credit requirement you could consider these offers as a way to score
25,000 Aeroplan Points at no cost. Same for British Airways Avios,
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles and so many other options!
Card features and benefits
The
awesomeness of these cards doesn’t end with just the new welcome
offers. The cards have some great features and benefits including being
some of the highest earning cards on non-category bonus spending since
both earn 2 Marriott Bonvoy points per dollar spent on everyday
spending. Then you have the annual free night award, automatic Silver
Elite status and more:
Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card
• Earn 5 points for every dollar in eligible Card purchases at participating Marriott Bonvoy™* properties
• Earn 2 points for every $1 in all other Card purchases
• Receive an Annual Free Night Award for up to 35,000 points at eligible
hotels and resorts worldwide every year after your first anniversary
• No annual fee on Additional Cards
• Redeem points for free nights with no blackout dates at over 7,000 of the world’s most desired hotels
• Automatic Marriott Bonvoy Silver Elite status membership
• Receive 15 Elite Night Credits each calendar year with your Marriott
Bonvoy™ American Express® Card. These can be used towards
attaining the next level of Elite status in the Marriott Bonvoy program
• Enjoy an automatic upgrade to Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status when you reach $30,000 in purchases on the Card each year
Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card
• Receive an Annual Free Night Award automatically each year after your anniversary
• Enjoy an automatic upgrade to Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status when you reach $30,000 in purchases on your Card each year
• Receive 15 Elite Night Credits each calendar year with your Marriott
Bonvoy Business American Express Card. These can be used towards
attaining the next level of Elite status in the Marriott Bonvoy program
• You can earn 3 points for every $1 in Card purchases on eligible gas, dining and travel
• Earn 5 points for every $1 in Card purchases at participating
Marriott Bonvoy properties. Earn 2 points for every $1 in purchases
charged to the Card everywhere else
• Make the most of a suite of business management tools that give you more control over your business anytime and anywhere
Wrapping it up
Anytime you can take advantage of an increased welcome offer on the Marriott cards – especially now with the statement credits you really should consider it due to the inherent value you can get from the points. We’ve provided quite a bit of coverage of late on that potential
outsized value of the Marriott Bonvoy program and how that ties into
many of American Express’ cards but what we don’t know is when these great offers will end – so don’t procrastinate on getting one or both of these cards!