xooz

For me, the 15 night credit was the primary benefit,. I barely qualified for Plat last year I dropped the Chase MR Visa with the $95 fee since the Amex benefits overall exceeded the Chase benefits. Next year when the fee on the MR Amex comes due, I may revert to the Marriott Bonvoy Bold no annual fee card, since it seems to have the 15 status nights.

Super Mario

To see if a card is worth it, remove all of the emotions, opinions, and decisions based off of a change baseline. It's about the total benefit.

Like what's going on with the CSR. It increased the AF by $100 a year and the sky is falling to many. Let alone the other perks of the card, I am getting over $2500 a year back in travel redemptions. The $100 increase isn't favorable to me, but that $100 isn't as important as the emotions make it sound. I'm still getting a huge benefit. If you have some card for some marginal "break even" victory, then maybe these changes can push you over the edge. Somewhere, someone else is crying about some other "devaluation" of a program you may jump into because the grass is greener on the other side.

Is it only a good or bad value because of changes you noticed, or is that value an actual value?

BenSenise

for me, the primary value of the amex canada bonvoy card was the annual "free" night (capped at 35,000 points.) Now that value has essentially disappeared for me since the hotels that i would use it at have all moved up a category.

if amex upped the cap to include those hotels, i would keep the card.

spending on the card was already weak at 2 pts per $. whereas it took $17,500 spend for a night in a cat 5. now those hotels are mostly cat 6 so it's $25,000 spend on the card.

once again, i emphasize that this is for my use case and may not apply globally to everyone.

christianj

I'm in the camp that is not sure if I will keep my card moving forward. Living close to NYC, my plan was to use the 35k voucher for a free night combined with a regular award reservation for a weekend in the city (which we do often and I'm doing with my free night from last year in April at the AC Times Square). With the category changes I would have to stay Downtown or in Brooklyn or LI and that is not appealing to me....might as well take the 45 minute train ride in from CT if I am willing to do that. (I had a similar situation years back with the Hyatt card when they increased the redemption rates in NYC and it made the free night voucher virtually impossible to use which caused me to cancel that card after years of having it.)

Can I find some other redemption that is worth the annual fee during the year? Sure but it likely will take some effort and the likelihood that the voucher would go unused is higher.

With all these increases in category, I think the right thing for Marriott and the credit card issuers to do is to just credit us 35k per year and we can use those points for a stay (if we can find one) or combine them with points we already have to stay at higher category hotels. I however think the likelihood of that happening is 0% since with the vouchers there are definitely people that let them expire and never use them and Marriott probably has this in their overall cost calculation.

freeflyin

I have similar thinking and no longer want to be bothered actively looking for somewhere to use the 35K certs, instead of being able to use them for trips that are actually on the horizon.
I canceled my Chase card first,because the annual fee is coming up. I may hold on to the Amex(SPG) for another year. There is some additional value in the Amex,due to the Amex offers

nall

I personally think they should allow you to pay the difference, but I doubt this will happen anytime soon.

abk

I will keep the card because I can easily use the certificate in a hotel I stay at frequently so that makes it worth $150 ( I have an spg amex). However the card stays in the drawer except for paying for actual stays. Last year I only used it when they had the spend $25,000 and receive 25000 points which brought it up to the old earning level. I will use it again if they bring back that promotion but see no other reason to use it.

mia

How did you redeem the points earned during that promotion?

sdsearch

Indeed. I hate when people assume that just because more hotels went up then down then it must be a devaluation for them too, without checking, but yes, since you checked and you know these are the only places you would likely use the certs, then I'm sorry that's the way it's worked out for you.

In my case, it's completely the opposite: I have a Guam trip planned for this summer, and was fearing that the 2 Marriott Bonvoy hotels there which were nominally 35k would go to a "peak" rate of 40k right when I went to use my 35k certs (I'm waiting to earn one more cert before I book). But now those are dropping to 25k, so no "peak" rate worries for me (since the most a 25k can go up to is 30k).

And next year I'm thinking of a trip to Jordan, and the hotel in Amman that I was thinking of staying at then dropped also.

FYI: The way Marriott seems to choose hotel rates is by seeing how many people redeem points/certs for that hotel. The more people that redeem at that hotel, the more likely it is to go up. The fewer people who redeem at that hotel, the more likely it is go down.

So the trick is to figure the places you might go where the hotels are not that cheap but which aren't "typical" points redemption destinations, and chances are that's where Marriott may well have better redemption rates. (Of course, sometimes they're so low, it's not worth using up certs and only makes sense using points. So it's tricky to find the places right in between.)

But unfortunately, Vancouver BC sounds like a "typical" points redemption destination.

abk

I have a pretty good points balance from the good old days but am light on American Airlines miles so my plan is to transfer 60k to AA and get 20k plus the 5k bonus when I need the points. That's still a better deal than using my AA card

Happy

We found the FNs hard to use because there are not very many Marriott brands on our travel paths while the FN certs carry expiration dates.

If it is not a FN cert, but a 35K pts deposit to the account, we may keep our current 3 cards in the household.

As of now we plan to cancel one AMEX BonVoy Biz out of the two we have, and would keep Chase old BonVoy business for another year as its annual fee is $99 versus AMEX $125. Also Chase posts the cert right at anniversary versus AMEX takes 8 to 12 weeks. We are lucky to see our certs a little over a month after 2nd billing cycle. There are many reported here have to wait 2 to 3 months to see their certs. Even today in Marriott forum I read about one poster has not received his cert for a Sept anniversary, and another for an October anniversary!

xooz

Yes, no reason to spend on the card unless at a MR hotel. In your example, $17.5K spend when put on a Chase Freedom Unlimited gets you >25K Hyatt points, which will get you a much better hotel room for a night than most Cat 5 MR hotels.... assuming HY has a hotel where you want to go.