Excellent Marriott Bonvoy / American Express hotel cashback deals launched

Marriott Bonvoy has launched two generous cashback deals for American Express cardholders. If targeted, you will find these under the ‘Offers’ tab for one or more of your cards on the Amex website or app. You need to register to take advantage.

The two offers are:

• £100 back when you spend £300 at a selection of European hotels

• £100 back when you spend £250 at a selection of European hotels (exclusive to Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders)

The offers seem to be widely available. My wife and I have it three times between us, and this is despite successfully using the offer four times when it ran earlier in the year:

• on my British Airways Premium Plus American Express card
• on my wife’s American Express Gold card
• on my Marriott Bonvoy American Express card

The offer is limited to the first 40,000 cardholders to save it. HfP readers could hit this target on their own, especially as many can register multiple cards, so don’t delay in signing up.

What is the small print?

Very little.

The offers run to 31st December. Cumulative spending is OK.

Whilst the rules say that you need to pay at the hotel, this is not the case with Marriott cashback offers. Pre-paid bookings are handled directly by hotels, not centrally, and so trigger the cashback.

It is perfectly acceptable for you to ask, if paying at check out, to split your bill across multiple credit cards. Whether this is acceptable to Amex is a different question, of course.

The rules say that ‘transactions must be made in GBP’. Ignore this, it is complete nonsense. Amex has banned Dynamic Currency Conversion – when a retailer abroad offers you choice of paying in local currency or in £, using a very dodgy exchange rate – so it is impossible to pay in GBP even if you wanted to.

Where can you stay?

The list of participating hotels is here and is very long. It covers hotels in:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

The reason that certain countries like Portugal and Ireland never appear in these offers is that Amex does not offer directly issued consumer cards there.

This offer stacks with the current Marriott Bonvoy promotion

You can earn the cashback on top of earning bonus points with the current Marriott Bonvoy promotion.

Between 12th September and 6th December, you will earn:

• 1,500 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points per stay

• 3,000 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points for every three brands you stay at during the promotional period

This offer only applies to cash stays.

I value a Bonvoy point at 0.5p so this is equivalent to a £7.50 bonus per stay, plus an additional £15 every time you hit three brands.

Our full article on the current promotion is here. You can register here. Note that registration closes early on 22nd November so do it now if you think that this promotion might persuade you to do a stay.

The home page for Marriott Bonvoy bookings is here.

PS. Our latest review of the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card is here. It does seem that offering ‘enhanced’ cashback deals like this one has become a regular extra benefit for Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2023 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.