Finding huge value in the new welcome bonuses on the Marriott Bonvoy credit cards

Last week American Express revealed some amazing new up front welcome bonus offers for their co-brand cards in the U.S. and Canada. In this post we’ll look at how you can extract huge value from the bonuses on the U.S. cards. For Canada, we have already done this on our Canadian site so you can read that post here.  On the U.S. side there are new offers across the board and for this post we’ll focus on the offers that provide 125,000 to 150,000 bonus points as their welcome bonuses.

The new welcome offers are as follows:

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card

• Earn 125,000 Bonus Points and 1 Free Night Award (Free Night Award has a redemption value up to 50,000 points) after spending $5,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening with the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card. Click here for more details on this card

Here at FFB we value Marriott Bonvoy points at 0.7 cent a piece (US$) which puts the welcome bonus value at US$875 to $1,050.  This does not include the free night award that are also up for grabs. After annual fees that value drops to $580 for the consumer card and $700 for the Brilliant card, $750 for the Business Amex and $780 for the Boundless card. That’s strictly the points value less the annual fees. Those are minimum values however, as I’ll show you below you’ll see that you can easily put those 125,000+ points offers at over $2,000 in value! And this doesn’t take into account any of the additional free night awards, statement credits and other benefits the cards provide.

Value in the 150,000 point welcome bonus

Let’s get down to business. What can you get for these six figure card offers?

Might as well start off with the destination everyone raves and dreams about. The Maldives. The amazing thing with Marriott and the Maldives is that they just opened up a Category 5 hotel this month in the islands where most hotels are Category 8. What does Category 5 mean? It means a standard award night at the new Le Meridien Maldives goes for only 35,000 points and it is possible to get an overwater villa for that rate! Let’s check that out!

Le Meridien Maldives
Five night stay March 5-11, 2022

So here you have five nights for 150,000 points, which just happens to be the exact amount of the current welcome bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card! And that doesn’t even take into account your spending on the card so you’ll have even more points to use or the free night award worth up 85,000 points. So what about actual value? Let’s look at that exact same room by paying a cash rate:

The 150,000 points would save you US$3,900.52 on this stay. Subtract the annual fee of $450 and you have a net value of $3450.52. The gives a net value of 2.3 cents per point which is more than triple our minimum base valuation of 0.7 cents per point!

The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection
Two night stay March 27-29

and the cash rates:

Here you are redeeming 100,000 points towards $2049.44 which is within the welcome bonus on all three cards offering these six figure bonuses. With a per point value 2.1 cents a piece that would make the 125,000 point bonuses on the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card worth $2,500 and $2,535 respectively (Value of points less the Annual Fee) and for the 150,000 points on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card you are looking at $2,700 in value

Value in the Free Night benefit

Not only are these cards do these cards come with huge welcome bonus points offers they all also provide bonus free night awards. The Bonvoy Brilliant offers one with a value of up to 85,000 points, the Bonvoy Business offers two awards with a value of up to 50,000 points each and the Boundless has one with a value of up to 50,000 points. The 85,000 point free night award covers a standard night award right up to the highest of Marriott Bonvoy Categories which is Category 8. For the other cards at 50,000 points that will cover anything as high as a standard award at a Category 6 hotel or an Off-Peak night at a Category 7 hotel. Let’s look at some examples:

With the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card free night award of 85,000 points you could redeem it for one night at the  Prince de Galles, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Paris

Here the 85,000 point free night award saves you 636.60 EUR or roughly 736.00! Add that to the $3450 above from the Maldives example and have nearly $4,200 in value from the complete welcome bonus less the annual fee on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card

And for the 50,000 point free night awards let’s look at the W Hollywood:

Here you can use the free night award(s) off the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card or the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card to save $350.78. As the Bonvoy Business Amex has two nights included that’s $751 in value that can be added the our example above of $2,500 for the points putting your overall value at $3,251. For the Boundless card at a total value of nearly $2,900!

There you have it – a look at the huge value these cards provide strictly from their welcome bonuses. We didn’t even touch upon other benefits like the elite night credits, anniversary free night awards, statement credits and so much more these cards have to offer. Now is definitely the time to take a look at these cards if you have been considering getting one thanks to these amazing welcome offers.

You can learn more about and/or apply for the cards with the links below:

• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card
• Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card

FrequentFlyerBonuses.com has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. FrequentFlyerBonuses.com and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

Images via Marriott