For this summer American Express have brought back increased welcome bonuses on their Marriott Bonvoy co-brand cards. These are being touted as the best offers for this year and in this post we look at how those bonus offers can provide some amazing value on hotel stays.
Whether you get yourself the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card and/or the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card and meet the minimum required spending in the first three months you’ll be looking at receiving no less than 65,000 and 75,000 bonus points respectively.
After those first three months the value doesn’t diminish as you have the rest of the welcome bonus points that you can earn over the course of your first year and into the second year. Oh and should I mention the annual free night award you get in the second year and every year after that?
The limited time increased welcome bonus offers
First let’s recap what the increased welcome bonuses are on these two cards:
Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card
Annual fee: $120
New Marriott Bonvoy® American Express®* Cardmembers earn up to 110,000 Marriott Bonvoy® points
- Earn 65,000 points after you spend $3,000 on your Card in your first 3 months of Cardmembership
- Earn an additional 30,000 points after you spend a total of $20,000 on your card in your first 12 months of Cardmembership.
- Plus, earn 15,000 points when you make a purchase between 15 and 17 months of Cardmembership
And I’d be amiss for not mentioning the earn rates:
- Earn 5 points for every dollar in eligible Card purchases at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy®
- Earn 2 points for every $1 in all other Card purchases
Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card
Annual fee: $150
New Marriott Bonvoy® Business American Express®* Cardmembers can earn up to 130,000 Marriott Bonvoy® Points.
- Earn 75,000 points after you spend $6,000 on your Card in your first 3 months of Cardmembership.
- Earn an additional 40,000 points after you spend a total of $30,000 on your card in your first 12 months of Cardmembership.
- Plus, earn 15,000 points when you make a purchase between 15 and 17 months of Cardmembership.
and the earn rates for the business card:
- Earn 5 points for every $1 in Card purchases at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels.
- Earn 3 points for every $1 spent on eligible gas, dining and travel after your welcome offer ends, or the cap is reached.
- Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on everything else
Both of these offers are available until August 18, 2025. You must complete your application by 11:59PM ET to be eligible.
The Marriott Bonvoy cards are great for all Canadians
For many of you who may be new to points and miles or just the Marriott program, you may not be fully aware of what 65,000 to 75,000 Marriott Bonvoy points can really bring you. In this post we’ll highlight a few examples of this value and why everyday Canadians who stay at hotels, even infrequently, should consider having this card in their wallets.
Whether it’s for stays at any of Marriott’s 300 locations in Canada or the near 10,000 locations worldwide, the points you get from the Marriott cards (Welcome bonus and on everyday spending) can help ease the hit to your wallet for always-getting-more-expensive hotel stays.
Remember, this is just a look at the what the first part of the bonus from each of these cards! The entire welcome bonus on both cards is even higher so you’ll have even more points to play with!
On top of this, the cards have other benefits that provide even more value, namely the anniversary free night benefit which we also look at below!
Value in the initial welcome bonus offers
Let’s look at some examples of what you can get with this welcome bonus and the value from it:
Here’s a night at the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane which runs over 400 GBP per night and on select nights it prices below 65,000 points. This is an example for October 17, 2025:
Here you have a room that runs 457 GBP or about C$850 for one night you can redeem 64,800 of the 65,000 or 75,000 points you have from the first part of the welcome bonuses.
For those working with cents per point valuations this redemption works out to 1.3 cents (C$) per point. Which means the initial 65,000 points from the consumer card can be worth $845 and $975 from the 75,000 points on the business card assuming you are able to redeem all those points at this 1.3 cents per point valuation.
If we take the entire potential bonuses from the cards of 110,000 points and 130,000 points you have $1,430 and $1,690 in value respectively before taking into account your annual fees!
How about something closer to home, here’s a one night stay at the Calgary Airport Marriot In-Terminal Hotel in October 2025:
Here you have a room that runs C$451 all in for one night – pricey if you have an overnight layover at YYC but that’s where points can come to the rescue. You can easily redeem 25,000 of the 65,000 or 75,000 points you have from the first part of the welcome bonuses to cover this night and still have lots of points leftover! Not to mention this doesn’t include the points you’ve earned on your spending to reach that first part of the bonus.
For those working with cents per point valuations this redemption works out to 1.8 cents (C$) per point. Which means the initial 65,000 points from the consumer card could be worth $1,170 and $1,350 from the 75,000 points on the business card assuming you are able to are able to redeem all your points at this 1.8 cents per point valuation.
Recommended reading: How to properly use Cents Per Point (CPP) and Cents Per Mile (CPM) valuations
If we take the entire potential bonuses from the cards of 110,000 points and 130,000 points you have $1,980 and $2,340 in value respectively before taking into account your annual fees. Simply amazing!!
Stay for 5, pay for 4 Benefit!
The Marriott Bonvoy program allows you to book 5 or more nights with points and you only pay for 4. The program will automatically remove the night with the lowest amount of points from your total when you book. This benefit is another way you can stretch the value of the sign up bonus (and of course any points you earn for your day to day spending on the cards!)
With the initial part of the welcome bonus offers you could easily book yourself five nights at the TownePlace Suites Fort McMurray in October and still have points leftover:
With the 5th night free you are only paying 59,500 points in total for a stay that would otherwise cost you C$1,531.45. Here the card is providing you a savings of $1,381.45 to $1411.45 after taking the annual fee for the first year into account!
For those working with cents per point valuations this redemption works out to 2.57 cents (C$) per point. Which means the initial 65,000 points from the consumer card could be worth $1,670 and $1,927 from the 75,000 points on the business card assuming you are able to are able to redeem all your points at this 2.57 cents per point valuation.
If we take the entire potential bonuses from the cards of 110,000 points and 130,000 points you have $2,827 and $3,341 in value respectively before taking into account your annual fees. That’s “insert your favourite expletive here” huge value from a credit card welcome bonus offer! And especially pso considering these cards only cost $120 or $150 per year!
I could go on and on with many more examples but I think by now you should be able to see what the initial part of the welcome bonus on these cards can provide you.
Value in the Anniversary Free Night benefit
Once you get into year 2 with the cards you will be earning the remainder of your welcome bonus (at the very least the part of the bonus for making a single $1 purchase between months 15-17) but this is also when you’ll receive the annual anniversary free night award (up to 35,000 points) that you can use at any eligible Marriott Hotel worldwide.This benefit alone is the reason so many points and miles enthusiasts keep this card year after year (it is a full fledged keeper card and not one you get just for the welcome bonus)
Plus there is feature of the Marriott Bonvoy program which allows you to also top off these certificates with up to 15,000 points so you can redeem for a free night worth up to 50,000 points.
Now let’s get back to an example for this one!
Here’s a one night stay at Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel. This hotel offers free nights between 31,000 and 50,000 points. In this case we found a night at 33,000 points which is comes in 2,000 points below the maximum amount at which you can redeem your Anniversary Free Night Award so you not require any points for a top off:
Here you have your Free Night Award providing $322 in value and at what cost? Your $120 or $150 annual fee! In this case you are $172 to $202 ahead just by holding onto the card beyond the first year. And you get this benefit each and every year. The free night alone shows that this is a card you will want to keep in your wallet as it will continue to give you more value than what you put into it on a yearly basis.
Wrapping it up
There you have it – a look at the value these cards provide strictly from the initial part of their welcome bonus and anniversary free night benefit. We didn’t even touch upon the 15 Elite Night Credits given to you every year you have the card, the 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, andthe earn rates of 5 points per dollar spent at Marriott Bonvoy properties and 2 points per dollar everywhere else (the latter of which is one of the best base earn rates on any card in Canada!).
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Click here to learn more about and/or to apply for the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card.
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Click here to learn more about and/or to apply for the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card
Remember these current increased welcome bonuses are only available until August 18, 2025! (You must complete your application by 11:59PM ET to be eligible)
Do you have either of these cards? Let us know how you have maximized the value from it in the comments section below!
Images via Marriott
Originally posted on April 8, 2024 @ 2:30 pm
