I saw this pop up in my Facebook news feed this morning. At first glance, I thought this was an incredible offer – 150,000 points! But once I really looked at it, I saw that it’s UP TO 150,000 points. There’s a big difference. This offer gives you 5x points on all purchases up to $30,000 in your first year. So, is this a better offer than the standard 80,000 point offer? In my opinion, no.
The standard offer gives you an 80,000 point bonus after $3,000 in spend in the first 3 months. That works out to a little over 26x points per dollar, and in only 3 months! That is far superior to the possibility of 150,000 points in a year.
You might be asking, “well, what’s the math if I put the full $30,000 spend on the card?”. Well, don’t do that. There are much better cards to use for that kind of spend. But, if you must know:
80,000 point offer: 80,000 points from your first $3,000 and 27,000 points from your next $27,000 (not taking into account extra travel and dining category spend) – Total 107,000 points
150,000 point offer: 150,000 points for $30,000 spend (not taking into account extra travel and dining category spend)
While you would technically get more points from the 150,000 point offer (if you spend the full $30,000 -which most of us aren’t doing) , there are much better cards to put $30,000 on. Now, if you are a die hard Marriott fan, hate all other hotels and have $30,000 to spend, by all means, go for the 150,000 point offer*. Everyone else – stick with the standard 80,000 point offer.
*Still don’t do it. Put $3,000 spend on this card for 80,000 points, then get the Chase Sapphire Reserve with 100,000 point bonus and put $4,000 on that card (then you can transfer those points to Marriott) – that gives you 180,000 points for $7,000 spend. Done and done.
What do you think of this offer?