Deal has ended, view more American Express Membership Rewards deals by clicking here.
The Offer
- Some American Express members are being targeted for a 40% transfer bonus to Marriott. Normally you can transfer 1,000 Membership Rewards points to 1,000 Marriott points. Under this promotion you’d receive 1,400 Marriott points.
The Fine Print
- Valid until 10/31/20
Our Verdict
We saw a 50% transfer bonus last year, before that it was always transfer bonuses to SPG for 50% as well:
- October 23 – November 17th, 2016: 50% bonus
- October 12th – October 31st, 2015: 50% bonus
- October 16th – November 30th, 2014: 50% bonus
In my opinion American Express Membership Rewards points are way more valuable than Marriott even with a bigger transfer bonus. Because of that I wouldn’t recommend transferring. As always a full list of American Express transfer bonuses can be viewed here. There is also a Hilton transfer bonus currently as well.
Hat tip to Frequent Miler
Dhiraj from OMaaT said,
“For those who also hold AMEX cards on the Canadian side as well, you can take advantage of a unique opportunity. AMEX allows you to “combine” your MR points across different countries. This process takes a bit of time and per some reports, can only be done once every 12 months. The transfers across countries are done at prevailing exchange rates for underlying home currencies. That means, you can convert your US AMEX MR to 1.2-1.3 CAN AMEX MR. Of course the Canadian MR doesn’t have as many transfer partners as US MR, but there are 3 transfer partners that are better value – Aeroplan (1:1 transfer on both US and CAN MR), BA Avios (1:1 on both US and CAN) and Marriott Bonvoy (1:1.2 on CAN and 1:1 on US). CAN AMEX MR to Bonvoy usually happens at 1:1.2 ratio. Right now, AMEX CAN has a 25% transfer bonus to Bonvoy until Sept 30, 2020, meaning you will transfer 1:1.5 from AMEX CAN MR to Bonvoy. So, if you transfer AMEX US MR to AMEX CAN MR and then move to Bonvoy, you are effectively getting 1:1.8 US AMEX MR – Bonvoy ratio. Of course the process takes a bit longer, but may be worth the effort if you were anyway going to make use of this transfer bonus.”
As others have stated, the offer is meh. I might transfer 1000 MR points to Bonvoy as a keep alive, to reset the clock for my Bonvoy points expiration. Probably will do so at the end of October, to take advantage of the small bonus.
Even at 1:3, I won’t transfer just because the resort/destination/city fee is not waived on award booking.
I’m targeted, of course, because Amex like to give me useless offers. Also, targeted for another useless Hilton at 1:2.8
Got targeted for this. 40% isn’t super exciting, even 50% really wouldn’t be either unless you had a specific redemption in mind.
Lol, even 200% wouldn’t be worth it.
just my valuation: Marriott ~.7 cpp and AMEX membership rewards ~2.0 cpp which makes this transfer bonus not worth it for the typical use case.
But edge cases to consider
– topping off Marriott account for award, especially 5th night free
– utilizing a Marriott transfer partner that AMEX doesnt have: Alaska Airlines, Korean Air, Qatar, Turkish Airways
The second point essentially means 1 MR = 0.45 mile, which would be a ridiculous thing to do