I saw this pop up in my Facebook news feed this morning.  At first glance, I thought this was an incredible offer – 150,000 points!  But once I really looked at it, I saw that it’s UP TO 150,000 points.  There’s a big difference.  This offer gives you 5x points on all purchases up to $30,000 in your first year.  So, is this a better offer than the standard 80,000 point offer?  In my opinion, no.

The standard offer gives you an 80,000 point bonus after $3,000 in spend in the first 3 months.  That works out to a little over 26x points per dollar, and in only 3 months!  That is far superior to the possibility of 150,000 points in a year.

You might be asking, “well, what’s the math if I put the full $30,000 spend on the card?”.  Well, don’t do that.  There are much better cards to use for that kind of spend.  But, if you must know:

80,000 point offer: 80,000 points from your first $3,000 and 27,000 points from your next $27,000 (not taking into account extra travel and dining category spend) – Total 107,000 points

150,000 point offer: 150,000 points for $30,000 spend (not taking into account extra travel and dining category spend)

While you would technically get more points from the 150,000 point offer (if you spend the full $30,000 -which most of us aren’t doing) , there are much better cards to put $30,000 on.  Now, if you are a die hard Marriott fan, hate all other hotels and have $30,000 to spend, by all means, go for the 150,000 point offer*.  Everyone else – stick with the standard 80,000 point offer.

*Still don’t do it.  Put $3,000 spend on this card for 80,000 points, then get the Chase Sapphire Reserve with 100,000 point bonus and put $4,000 on that card (then you can transfer those points to Marriott) – that gives you 180,000 points for $7,000 spend.  Done and done.

What do you think of this offer?