Hey guys! So today I got an email from Amex with the subject line: Small Business owners – We’d like your feedback. It offered a $20 check for a 10 minute survey about possible revamps to the SPG/Bonvoy Biz. From DoC posts about similar Amex surveys, I knew I had to select that I was a business owner (and not just employed full time) in order to qualify. It also asked a little about my business, the hotels I’ve stayed at, which brands, how many times in the past year, and what loyalty programs I belonged to, etc., in order to be eligible.
The survey presented 12 different variations of new benefits on the Bonvoy Biz, while keeping the $125 AF and existing 4x bonus categories, and asked how likely would the benefit changes make me spend more on the card, and whether the benefits listed made the card better than other cards. What caught my attention were some card options included a $100/$125/$150 travel, Marriott or resort credit, while other versions included a token amount of Uber credit with your stay, capped at some number per year; some versions included a 50k FN anniversary certificate and the ability to earn a 50k FN cert by spending $60k, while others kept the 35k FN certs; the ability to earn Platinum Elite status by spending $75k; the ability to spend your way — something like $30k — to a room upgrade, higher % bonus points on stays, and late checkout (which seemed kind of redundant to me if you have a high enough Elite status); and 3x Marriott points on non-category spend (basically restoring the base spend value of the old SPG cards) but capped at either $30k or $50k a year, then back to 2x. There were a few options that bumped up Marriott category spend to 12x! I replied that I was most likely to increase my spend on cards with the 3x base rate and the 50k FN certs. The travel or resort credits are also interesting and would effectively negate the AF, but they don’t really encourage ongoing spend.
Anyway, Amex seems to be thinking about revamping the Bonvoy Biz! We shouldn’t expect to see all of the above make it onto one card, but they’re some of the ideas that Amex is considering.
