I just heard that the Marriott Rewards card has increased its offer to 80,000 points, you will too as it will be slammed over the web by credit card affiliate pumpization machines.
Here’s the offer:
- 80K pts
- $3000 spend
- $85 fee
What you might want to do instead:
Go to see the Doctor of Credit. He has a prescription for a 70,000 card, $2000 spend, no annual fee. Keep your money in your pocket.
Update – I forgot to mention that the fee free version comes with an extra night bonus too! Thanks to Will for pointing this out.
- Cat 1-4 night free for signing up ($85 offer doesn’t have this)
- Cat 1-5 night free on annual fee (next year)
For anyone struggling with the math… think about this:
Would you pay $85 for 10,000 pts (ignoring the free night you lose, and the extra spend required…) Yes/No??
If you answered yes, would you pay $595 annual fee for a 70K offer? Because that is what you are saying..
Funny? I don’t get your math?? On your post the “Haul” you value the Marriott points you just earned at 1 cent each yet call it “pumpization” when you can earn an extra 10,000 for only $85 annual fee. That seems like .85 cents per point plus the cost of gift cards? Seems like a equal deal to me???
All I am doing is giving people a factual alternative to 80K. I thought you were all about helping out the little guy traveling for free and whatnot – where’s the harm in giving them options?
In my other piece, I also mentioned that I don’t buy points- so no gift cards for Marriott for me unless for a topup to trigger an award.
70k offer also comes with free category 1-4 night. Let’s say you only redeem it for a category two property, that’s another 10k points which means your paying an extra $85 for nothing. If you redeem for cat 4, your 10k points and $85 ahead.
I think one point is even if you value Marriott points at 0.85 cents you wouldn’t necessarily buy them at that price unless there is a very specific redemption you’re topping up for and 0.85 cents is probably a little rich. However, in very large quantities Marriott points can be worth much more than 0.85 cents due to the Travel Packages. If you can utilize the travel package, points between 0 and 150-180K are worth ~.6 – .7 cents each. Above that point, you can view the marginal points as being worth 1.1x a UA mile or as a right to MS UA miles for ~$0.01/mile. Depending on where those marginal 10K points put your total balance, you may pay $85 for them.
Yep!
I don’t really have any need for Marriott points at the moment, but I do agree that the no AF 70k offer is a better deal. Occasionally I will pay an AF for a particularly good deal, but in general I don’t buy points either.
The question I have is – does the affiliate revenue go up or down when they re-introduce the annual fee, but offer 10k more points (in comparison to the 70k offer)?
70k offer doesn’t have affiliate links, 80k offer does. You do the math 😉
While I agree with the intent of your post, I disagree with your the “$595 for 70000” comment. The value of points rises as your balance gets closer to a “useable” number. If you need 80k pts for your redemption, then to MS the extra 8k points you would need after getting the 70k point offer (+ 2k from the sign-up bonus spend), would cost $80 if your buying pts at 1cent apiece.
To conclude: if you need 80k pts (for a 2nt, 40k/nt stay) and sign up for the 70k offer, you end up paying $80 out of pocket (plus another $20 for the sign-up minimum spend_total $100) for your 2 nights. If you need 80k pts and sign up for the 80k offer, you end up paying $85 for your nights (plus another $30 for the sign-up minimum_total $115 spend) and you’ll have a (somewhat useless) 3k pts left over. Plus you’ve saved yourself the time of MSing an extra 8k.
With all that being said, if you’ll get even a decent value from the free night that you get with the 70k offer,then that one is far and away the better offer.
I think we are on the same page. My point is that if you value ‘any 10K pts’ at $85 then you must value all of them.
I agree that points do increase as you get closer to an award redemption, which is why I will not manufacture points unless it is in this exact situation.
It’s a tricky topic though, because I can create points in any currency with some ease, so it comes down first to a 2X opportunity cost, and that argument then blends into diffusion value to spread out multiple CLs. IE I could put $1M on the Arrival, but if I do at some point am I going to get in trouble?
I’m in the same boat as far as only MSing on airline/hotel CCs when I need to get 1-15ish thousand miles to get to an award. After that I start looking at sign-up bonus’. But I will MS on a 2% back card without an award in mind even though I know I’ll end up using it for some sort of travel-related expense. I’ll absolutely never get less than a cent/mile out of airline miles, but acquisition of hotel points is definitely trickier b/c their value is so much harder to pin down.
Yep, and if you look at the amounts I recently earned in my ‘Haul’ post you’ll see the same. I earned about $300 arrival, $500 cash, and then a moderate amount of points, DL being high as I’m burning the relationship this month.