This is something I've been thinking about, not necessarily re Marriott gift cards but regarding all of them. I regularly acquire gift cards for various airlines and other things, if I see an opportunity to get them at a good discount or with extra points/resale/trade whatever. And then I put them away until I need or remember to use them -- often not until a year or two (or I'm ashamed to say) sometimes longer. So if I buy something at say 15% discount, I feel like a genius. Until I realize by the time I use it that I've been losing at least 5.5% per year compared to saving that money in just a regular money market. Same with buying and holding points/miles. It just doesn't have the same economic formula as a few years ago when interest rates were close to nonexistent
Originally Posted by
nacho
I have reached the same conclusion even without any Bonvoy credit card.
The problem is that it makes sense to buy a huge amount of it, but then the bigger the amount, the more $ you would lose if someone did steal your card. Also, the interest rate is pretty high at the moment, I know you won't get 20% return on your investment, you get something like 4+% here in Scandinavia if you put them into a bank.
Another minus for non-USD earner is that USD is too high at the moment, so it makes zero sense to buy the card and use it next year (it's very likely that USD will drop a bit next year). Furthermore, the US has gotten so expensive that I found out that even if the airfare is $300 cheaper per person to fly to the US, it is still cheaper overall to visit Japan from Denmark (as long as you are ok with staying in Japanese business hotels). Not to mention the insane increase from $12 to $21 to get a ESTA just to enter the US vs. 5 EUR for the EU and the ESTA only lasts for 2 years.