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Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card (See rates and fees)
American Express is offering an initial bonus of 125,000 points after spending $8,000 within 6 months of cardmembership for the Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card. This is a nice improvement of a 100,000 point offer, and you have a full six months to meet the required spend.
St. Regis Abu Dhabi
Key reasons to consider this $125 annual fee card:
- Receive 15 nights towards elite status. You can receive these elite nights, and also elite nights from a consumer Marriott card. And the elite nights count towards lifetime status.
- Receive one Free Night Award every year after your card’s renewal month. Plus, earn an additional Free Night Award after you spend $60,000 in purchases on the card in a calendar year.
Each of these awards can be used for one night (redemption level at or under 35,000 points) though bear in mind since this is Marriott some hotels will have resort fees due on awards.
The free night awards, combined with annual elite nights, make keeping the card make sense I think. I carried this card for several years.
I don’t think it’s a great card for ongoing spend though it isn’t bad certainly for its accelerator categories: 6x points at Marriott Bonvoy properties; 4x points for purchases made at restaurants worldwide, at U.S. gas stations, on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers and on U.S. purchases for shipping; 2x on all other eligible purchases. Don’t use this card outside of bonus categories.
Marriott Waikiki Beach
You receive Marriott Silver as a cardmember and earn Gold with $35,000 in purchases in a calendar year. But the value in the card towards status is the annual elite nights.
Cardmembers also receive access to a 7% discount Amex Business Card Rate booking Marriott channels such as their website. This has occasionally worked out for me as the best available rate I was eligible for though isn’t always.
Al Maha Desert Resort
For rates and fees of the Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card, click here.
Quick! Start a “business” just to get the offer! And use Gary’s links!
@ Gary – Marriott = hard pass.
@Gene — But, but… with the recent devaluations, those points are now worth closer to 0.6 cents per point, whereas they used to be closer to 0.8 cents per point, so… soft pass?
@ 1990 — Um…
Marriott? Thanks but no thanks.
Hope they would bring back the 5 free night certificates so my wife can apply.
That’s what I got last year and booked 5 all-inclusive nights in Cancun.
@Gene — Ok, so ‘soft’ is too soft. How about ‘moderate’ pass? I’m just not as ‘hard’ on this as @Erect probably is.
With a lot of these it depends on where you are at in your card journey. It might make sense for some, not for others. I appreciate the write up!