Marriott Visa Card Alert / Tip
 

Greetings All,

I just got hit with the $30 annual fee on my Marriott Rewards Visa Signature Card from Bank One.

I charge enough annually, where, in the past, I could call up the bank and have them waive this annually fee.

When I called this year, the bank said Marriott would no longer allows them to waive the fee, but if I kept the card they would give me 3000 Marriott Rewards points.

I was surprised by the offer and I accepted it. However, in retrospect, I suspect I could have gotten more than 3000 points, considering the current Marriott credit card sign up offers out there...........

If anyone takes advantage of this information to negotiate for more points please post how many you get!

Good Luck!

P.S. My apologies if this information is already out there on the Marriott or Credit Card forum but as you know, the search engine is down.....

In my opinion, $30 is a fairly low annual fee. It's not something I would get too worked up about in the big scheme of things.

True, but 3,000 points is 3,000 points.

3,000 pts. = $30 @ $.01 per point (a generally accepted reasonable value).

Go figure........ ;)

SunLover

You can purchase up to 10% of the points you need for an award at $10 per 1,000 points. So basically you broke even and could look at it as getting the fee waived.

While it likely isn't a great move for your credit report, I have seen many reports of people cancelling before the end of the year and then signing up again next year for the full 15,000 bonus. That single bonus is worth as much as actually using the card for $5,000 worth of hotel stays or more than the amount of points you'd get spending $1,000 per month outside of hotels. For many people, the sign-up bonus is worth more than having the card and they are better served to sign-up, use it once, cancel, and wait for the next offer. Again, the only downside to this approach is that it lowers your credit score going through so many cards but if no major purchases are on the immediate horizon then the impact is minimal and repairs itself fairly quickly.