$80 per year would be well out of line with other hotel cards, and the other hotel cards are already far superior to the Marriott Visa in terms of overall rewards.

If Marriott wants to get serious about putting their Visa card on a level playing field with HH, they need to go to 2 pts/$ everywhere and 4 pts at the hotels. That's comparable with HH's 3 & 5. To get onto a playing field with Starwood, they gotta go 3 pts/$ everywhere - we can keep dreaming for that. I'd be happy with a good competitor to the HH card.

As for the other stuff...
- Offer to swap 3 MR for 1 FF: there are already ways to move out MR points at a better rate than that via the travel packages.
- Double points for gas, groceries, etc. Don't waste time and marketing dollars trying to sell me a perk with a miniscule impact over time.
- Reducing Gold to 35 nights. OK, no complaints with that.
- Threshold bonuses. OK, no complaints, but they still have to change the basic earning structure. With the proposed 10k bonus, if I spend $25,000 in a year, my rewards options are 25k SPG, 75k HH, or 35k MR. Marriott is still dead last by a mile.
- Anniversary bonus: Now we're talking! This would be an area where Marriott could gain a competitive advantage over the other two. How about 1 free weekend night at a Cat 1-5 per year? Yes, that's worth more than the $30 annual fee, but it's a little bone to throw considering the rest of the card benefits lag HH and SPG. I wouldn't care if they cut it down to Cat 1-4 or 1-3 as long as it's a no-bull free night.