Today's the last day for many highest ever Marriott card sign up bonus offers! The best offer in my opinion is the Amex Bonvoy Business card for a very solid offer there (125k pts + 2x 50k certs).
Here's a little breakdown of the options and the best previous offers for sign up bonuses on these cards:
Many points experts have good coverage on the subject:
Before you get one of the cards, definitely check to make sure you're eligible for the SUB.
One could definitely make the argument that these aren't the "best" offers for Marriott cards for high spenders since the daily non-bonus spend on the SPG card (no longer available and those that had them were converted away from them) which earned 1x SPG point (3x Marriott Bonvoy Rewards) per dollar spent was fantastic and is no more. My dad had one of these, used it a lot before I ever even got involved with the points side of things at his company, and I was very sad when 3x on general spending was no longer an option on a regular basis. That said, Amex sometimes runs 3x on quite a bit of spend still, though it's capped at $75k in spend, is incremental, and when it came around this year they excluded authorized user charges, whereas last year authorized users weren't excluded.
(Image courtesy Amex)
While I'm ineligible for the bonus since I already have 2 of these cards and recently acquired bonuses (most recently the 5x 50k certs on the Bonvoy Boundless), I almost sought to convince my wife to get it (she's a solid player 2) to help with our 5 year anniversary coming up in December 2022. Instead, we decided that we'll probably instead book a 6 night 1 bedroom Vacasa vacation rental with the 90k Wyndham points from the (no longer available at the 90k elevated bonus) Wyndham Earner Business card that's a solid keeper card with fantastic 8x (gas & on hotels by Wyndham) and 5x (marketing, advertising, and utilities) categories, upgrades up to suites with availability via status, status matches annually to Caesar Rewards, 10% fewer on points only redemptions at Wyndham, 15k pts/yr, etc. all for a <$100/yr annual fee that the 15k/yr points alone would justify.
In this example of an NC search between $300-$350, there are solid options for us:
Also, by not adding a card that needs $5k spend for the SUB now, my wife can keep focusing her spending on the Choice Hotels card where part of the SUB when I got it was getting 4x for the remainder of the year on all purchases. We plan to use those points at the driveable (my wife hates flying due to motion sickness, especially during Covid) 55k/night SALAMANDER RESORT & SPA, where you can get over 3x the TPG value on those points (on peak nights with the points cost being a flat 55k/nt w minimal blackout dates) through Choice's partnership with Preferred Hotels.
(image source hyperlinked in image)
Here are the $ options for this month and next (not including fees which can be a few hundred per night at these rates):
Here are the points options at a flat 55k/night.
It's nothing compared to the value you can get at some properties (especially with $+points bookings at high end spots in peak season when the Choice hotel charges >$1k/night), but >3x the value for something driveable & at the more lux end of the Choice portfolio & totally my wife's style (she loves horses & on-property horses are a solid part of the options there) is a solid option for us.
Overall, I think many eligible people should take advantage of this offer. We aren't, but we're already chasing a SUB with no spending cap for 4x points, and my wife doesn't feel like adding yet another card right now.