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American Express Membership Rewards is offering a targeted 30% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy. While we weren’t targeted on this one, Doctor of Credit reports on some readers being targeted. This is a poor value, so I wouldn’t recommend it except in fringe circumstances.
The Deal
- American Express Membership Rewards is offering a targeted 30% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy
- No link — log in to your Amex account and go to the transfer page to see if you see the 30% bonus (which will mean that 1,000 Amex points = 1,300 Marriott points)
Key Details
- No end date specificed
- Must transfer in increments of 1K
Quick Thoughts
These targeted transfer bonuses with no listed end date are kind of annoying since they try to force your hand into making a transfer by not telling you how long the increase will be available. That said, transferring to Marriott is generally a horrible value since there are many much more valuable Amex Membership Rewards sweet spots. That said, with the right use in mind and a desire to avoid spending cash out of pocket, this could make sense for someone…maybe. It’s a stretch. One possibility that comes to mind is if you can snag a 5-night stay at an off-peak Category 1, you’d be looking at 16,000 Membership Rewards covering 5 nights. Essentially paying 3,333 Amex points per night will probably yield an entirely acceptable value at many Cat 1 properties as compared to the nightly paid rate. However, when you consider the fact that Marriott was recently selling points for 0.875c each, you could have just bought 20K points for $175. That’s an average of $35 per night — and when you look at it that way, 3,333 Amex points per night doesn’t seem like much of a deal at all.
Bottom line: this is probably a hard pass for most, but might be worth it for a quick top-up for a valuable award.
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Gee, what a terrible deal. The only reason I’d have Bonvoy points is to transfer to an airline that is not part of Amex, citi, or chase transfer.
Now that Korean is changing it’s program, I see no value in the loyalty program here.