Marriott Rewards Credit Card

[mitchwebb]

Out of all our Hotel cards I like Marriott best for family travel. A lot of the cards you only get one bed. Marriott lets you pay a little more for a suite or two beds.

Marriott also gives you extra night when you redeem four nights. You get the fifth for free. We also get a 1-5 category hotel night free each year, which pays for the annual
fee.

Hyatt and Spg is better for us with child free travel. I have 84,000 IHG point and a free night and am having trouble finding a hotel to use them at. I will look at Holiday Inn.
thanks for the advice.

 

[punkin712]

We have had the Marriott Rewards Visa Signature (black) card for about 15 years and love it. We get the free category 1-5 hotel certificate every year, but you also get 5x points on Marriott-related charges and 2x points on airline and dining transactions. There is also a United Airlines perk, but I can't recall the specifics. We use the card for everything and get bonus point offers pretty frequently so we always have A LOT of points (almost 400,000) in our account.

We have Platinum/Elite status, so whenever we stay at a Marriott brand hotel, we always get upgraded to a higher room category or receive some kind of special extra. Last year, we stayed at an AC hotel in Madrid for a one night stopover and got upgraded to a larger room and also got a half bottle of wine with cheese and olives delivered to the room! Several years ago, we redeemed points for a week at the Ritz-Carlton in Maui. Next year is our 20th anniversary, so we're trying to decide where to spend our points for a special anniversary trip.

For us, it is definitely worth the annual fee! We have often talked about getting an airline credit card (we can never seem to use our air miles to get upgrades when we fly), but haven't been able to tear our loyalty away from the Marriott card

 

[mitchwebb]

If you don't stay at hotels very often the Amex card is great for accruing points. You can transfer to Airlines, hotels or get Universal tickets. We use it for everything
except when we need money for a Credit card sign up bonus or buying Airline tickets. We saved for a couple of years and was able to get five round trip tickets to NY for new years last year. This year we had 70,000 points and was able to get 5 tickets to london for new years. Unfortunately I haven't found tickets back but my girls are fine with that.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

@havaneselover I just noticed a banner at the top of the page for the Marriott Rewards Business Credit Card that is a 100,000 point bonus. Granted the annual fee is $99 and the minimum spend is $5,000 in 3 months. But it's still a great deal! Just thought I'd let you know.

 

[havaneselover]

@havaneselover I just noticed a banner at the top of the page for the Marriott Rewards Business Credit Card that is a 100,000 point bonus. Granted the annual fee is $99 and the minimum spend is $5,000 in 3 months. But it's still a great deal! Just thought I'd let you know.

$5000 would be doable when dd's swim dues are due. I guess I'd have to sell something on eBay to be a business owner. I'll have to look into this. Thanks!

 

[mitchwebb]

That's how we accrued a lot of points. Anytime we have a large purchase or bill we open a card. I added the business Marriott for 80,000 points a couple of months ago. It was $3000 in first three months. Just payed DD housing for next year and there goes that $3000. We even pay our property taxes if we have a sign up. We did end up paying $49 in fees but we were able to get 50,000 united points. The 50.000 points were worth almost $1000 to me since i was able to buy two roundtrip non-stop tickets to Orlando.

Would never suggest this if you are looking to buy a house or car that you need to finance in the near future. We are set for both for at least 10 years. Also if you are not able to pay off each month it is not worth the interest.

 

[KarenAylwood]

My parents have had the Marriott Rewards card for years and I convinced them after signing up for ours to upgrade to the card with the annual fee because of how much they spend at restaurants and at Marriotts. We don't travel as much now that we have a toddler (at least that requires a Marriott stay) but since I have a few different CC's I just adjust what I spend on it. We saved hundreds- probably over a thousand dollars on our honeymoon to Hawaii- had some free nights on points, earned a ton of points, got some free upgrades and payed discounted rates. We also stayed for free travelling for a week in California - San Diego and Anaheim. We still get 1 free night per year with our annual fee. The points never expire as long as we charge every year on the card so at some point we'll have a ton of points and go somewhere free. My parents have gotten a ton of use out of it and charge pretty much exclusively to the card. They've gotten some pretty amazing upgrades as well.

The introductory deal you quoted is a great one. Check out the point values for hotels you might be staying in. I really trust Marriott as a hotel brand and have hardly ever been disappointed.