Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

A secret tip for Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

The Marriott Bonvoy American Express card is a good niche product with one stand-out feature – holding it earns you 15 elite nights in Marriott Bonvoy each year, credited to your account in early January.

This means that Platinum, the key status level to have because it unlocks lounge access, decent upgrades and guaranteed 4pm check-out, only needs 35 nights in a year instead of 50.

There is one additional core benefit which I wasn’t fully exploiting until a reader tipped me off.

A secret tip for Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders!

As regular readers will know, Marriott Bonvoy runs regular cashback deals with American Express, usually twice per year.

The current version gets you £100 cashback when you spend £400 at selected UK / European Marriott Bonvoy hotels by 31st December. Cumulative spend counts.

If you have a Gold, Platinum or British Airways American Express card, you are likely to have this offer available for registration via the app or Amex website.

Marriott Bonvoy Amex cardholders get a better deal

Marriot has always ensured that holders of the dedicated Marriott Amex card got a better deal.

At present, cardholders are offered £75 cashback when you spend £200 at the same list of participating hotels.

£200 is obviously easier to spend than £400, even if the total cashback is a little lower.

But what I didn’t know ….

What I didn’t know, until TGLoyalty pointed this out in our comments, is that supplementary cardholders on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card get the same deal.

This is very attractive, and makes the £95 annual fee on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card even easier to justify.

Not wanting to miss out on £75, I put this to the test and applied for a supplementary card for my wife.

At present, American Express is offering 3,000 Bonvoy points if you add a supplementary cardholder to your Marriott Bonvoy card. You must apply via this link.

The process worked fine and I had received my 3,000 bonus points by the time I received the card in the post.

I registered my wife’s card online and waited. It takes a while for cashback offers to appear on new American Express cards, often a couple of weeks. I made a single test purchase with it just so Amex knew it was active.

And then, this popped up:

A secret tip for Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders!

The first, and so far only, cashback offer on my wife’s new Marriott Bonvoy American Express supplementary card is the ‘£75 back when you spend £200 with Marriott’ offer.

We should hopefully have no problem claiming this before the offer ends on 31st December.

Remember that hotels have no problem splitting bills at check-out amongst multiple credit cards. If you and your partner both had this offer and spent £400 on a Marriott stay, you could each pay £200 on your respective cards and get the cashback twice.

So, in summary:

  • if you have the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card, it is a no-brainer to issue a free supplementary card to your partner – you get 3,000 points for doing so and you will double-up on any Marriott cashback deals
  • if you DON’T have the card, you may be more tempted now you know that you will be able to double-up on Marriott cashback credits via a supplementary card – although, of course, there is no guarantee that these offers continue to run in 2025

If you want to learn more about the key benefits of the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card, take a look at this article.

Our full review of the card is here and you can apply here.

The representative APR is 54.1% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 30.4% variable.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status from UK credit cards

How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status from UK credit cards (April 2025)

There are various ways of earning Marriott Bonvoy points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

The official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card comes with 20,000 points for signing up, 2 points for every £1 you spend and 15 elite night credits per year.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points for signing up and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

You can also earn Marriott Bonvoy points by converting American Express Membership Rewards points at the rate of 2:3.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Marriott Bonvoy Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and MeliaRewards Gold status.

We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

You can also earn Marriott Bonvoy points indirectly:

and for small business owners:

The conversion rate from American Express to Marriott Bonvoy points is 2:3.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Marriott Bonvoy points.

Category

Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Comments (60)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • BJ says:
    8 Nov8 November 05:11

    Not a secret anymore 🙂

    Are you covering the biggest deal in town at the moment or is that a secret too? …the one that let’s you, for example amongst many, let’s you fly from East and SE Asia to the UK in business class for £450-650pp but the clock is ticking.

    • memesweeper says:
      8 Nov8 November 05:19

      date(s)? airline(s)?

      • George says:
        8 Nov8 November 05:53

        It’s almost certainly not real

      • BJ says:
        8 Nov8 November 06:19

        Buy Hawaiian miles at 1.27cents each. Transfer to Alaska MP to redeem. One World and useful additional partners like Singapore. There is massive value for sone routes and airlines if you can find availability while others are hugely expensive nonstarters. Example given was for CX and AY. It’s not so good as it was due to devaluations but there is still a lot of sweetspots for both longhaul and regional flights if you shop around. It can beat AY avios at 0.88p where the Alaska MP reward charts and fees offer more value and lower fees than AY or QR using avios.

        • Roger says:
          8 Nov8 November 06:23

          Which card to use for buying miles? presumably charges in USD?

        • executiveclubber says:
          8 Nov8 November 06:51

          Hmm, what I’m seeing is most routes eg Perth to Hong Kong, Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, are 60k Alaskan miles, whereas you can use different pricing options for a better deal with Avios

          • BJ says:
            8 Nov8 November 07:56

            Is that with CX, if so there has been a devaluation since ai last looked.

          • zapato1060 says:
            8 Nov8 November 08:02

            Im not disputing BJs successes but one I booked recently, HEL-SIN its 75k with Alaska but 62.5k with Avios.

          • BJ says:
            8 Nov8 November 09:53

            Sounds like there has verb further devaluations since I last looked. Sorry for that! Still worth exploring though as other schemes have also devalued.

            @Zapato – if that’s the bew price for SIN-HEL on AY via Alaska MP then note that SIN-HEL-UK will also be the same where it’ll be 80k with AY+.

        • A270 says:
          8 Nov8 November 06:58

          Can you buy miles with these if you have just registered for an account or do you need to wait a period? Also is this ongoing or is there a bonus points offer?

          • BJ says:
            8 Nov8 November 07:06

            Not certain, you’ll need to check. I’ve been a member of Alaska MP for years and joined HwawaiianMiles when takeover was first rumoured.

          • Jim Lovejoy says:
            8 Nov8 November 17:53

            I bought miles within a few days of registering.
            And this is definitely a bonus points offer. Buy miles and get the same number of miles as a bonus.
            I’d say for Europe based people it’s more of a niche program.
            It’s best for flights in the Americas and maybe Asia, especially Japan Air if you can find anything other than economy.
            It has less availability than BA for both the IAG group, Qatar and Qantas.
            Much more availability with Oman air for what that’s worth.
            So, as I said, niche.

    • Jet says:
      8 Nov8 November 05:34

      Yeah, more details pls?

      • BJ says:
        8 Nov8 November 19:31

        It was brilliant for regional within Asia on JL and CX until they devalued. It’s clear from comments longhaul including on AY is now affected too, However, as @meta comments later there is still value to be found.

    • Farid says:
      8 Nov8 November 05:44

      Is this fake?

    • Damian says:
      8 Nov8 November 05:53

      I didn’t realise a Clickbait Writer was a job.

    • Mouse says:
      8 Nov8 November 06:57

      @BJ I can understand £600 one way before taxes since you are buying at c.1p per point and the reward chart shows 60,000 points for 3,001-5,000 points, but where does the £450 come from? Seems like by the time you add a return and taxes you are going to be some way north of £1,500?

      • Mouse says:
        8 Nov8 November 06:58

        *3,001-5,000 miles

      • BJ says:
        8 Nov8 November 07:16

        CX at about 45k miles unless they have devalued that since I looked. £450 came from 42.5k but now I think it may be 45k so a little higher. HK to Oz ( except SYD) and NZ sometimes showed good availability availability at lower or similar pricing. Ut’s a nuisance but you just have to play with charts and check availability to see where scheme works for us all. My interest has been regional flights within Asia with JAL and CX but sadly no longer as good as it once was but then there have been devaluations all over the place with many schemes lately.

        • meta says:
          8 Nov8 November 07:19

          Can you buy and transfer straight away? I couldn’t find an answer on Hawaiian whether there are restrictions on new accounts. I do have Alaska account.

          • BJ says:
            8 Nov8 November 07:59

            Sorry @meta, I don’t know. If there are no publishwd restriction my guess is that there is none.

          • meta says:
            8 Nov8 November 08:39

            I just tried dummy purchase and it’s letting me do that.

          • BJ says:
            8 Nov8 November 10:00

            That’s good. Based on commrnts above though I need to take a look see what’s happened to their reward charts in recent months. I knew about the JAL changes but it looks like AY and CX have now been devalued too. SQ regional used to pe poor value relative to CX and JAL but it might now be in play if nothing changed there. MH was always very expensive.

          • meta says:
            8 Nov8 November 10:09

            Yes, I made some searches. 75k for Tyo-Hel
            on AY, (not worth it), but it’s also 75k for Hel/Fra/Lhr with JAL which is significantly less than on Avios. I’m sorted for next year and I don’t buy points unless I can use them for something immediately.

    • Charlie says:
      8 Nov8 November 11:12

      I was in Doha recently. I had an Avios booking in biz to Amman with RJ. I’ve recently started using points comparison sites as Avios in general is poor now in many regards. Alaska came up with 15k in first on Qatar, which was a surprise. Shelled out 300 USD for the points and had a seat ticketed 5 minutes later. I’ve had an Alaska account for years but its balance has always been nil. Might be a way forward when my BA G ends next September. I was planning on dropping to silver until April 2026 and then re-qualifying but will have a look at Alaska instead. I don’t value Avios as being worth much more than 0.75p now.

      • louie says:
        8 Nov8 November 14:51

        Which comparison site would you recommend?

      • Charlie says:
        8 Nov8 November 18:16

        For hotels, I pay about £7 per month for MaxMyPoint, simply because in testing I found it to be the most reliable for alerts for IHG hotels, though I’m on about 80 nights this year. Also, the monthly view is near identical to IHG and you can refresh immediately. You can also choose three hotels where you can set a maximum price for any day of the year – I have mine for the IC Budapest, Vienna and Berlin, and receive an email each morning. MaxMyPoint has paid for itself. For flights, AwardTool is pretty good I find, plus PointsYeah. However both are inaccurate. I’ve paid for both – testing the hotel alerts system, and as said, both were significantly worse for hotels than MaxMyPoint.

      • BJ says:
        8 Nov8 November 19:46

        The avios sphere has become complicated with multiple airlines using them. A few readers have called on Rob to oroduce an article on this and he has expkaibed the difdiculty of doing so. A few days ago I encouraged readers to fully evaluate avios options on a trip by trip basis as I’ve already stumbled on a few surprises by doing so. I’m glad you foubd something useful in Alaska MP. I’ve veen crediting revenue fljghts there but mostly buy points if a sale makes it worthwhile at a time of need.

        • Charlie says:
          8 Nov8 November 20:51

          I’m not being critical of Avios, because there are some good redemptions available at IAG, plus now Finnair and Qatar. But the good redemptions of yesteryear are priced poorly against competitors. Cathay, JAL etc. Yes, there are still gems. But 45k Avios versus 15k Alaskan miles for a route is more typical than atypical now. Or 50k Avios versus 25k Aeroplan miles. Or a recent miles booking from Hawaii to Taiwan in biz with a stopover in Tokyo, on ANA and Eva wide bodies….. just 25k Lufty miles plus about £150.. I kid you not.

  • david says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:19

    What is this ‘gotcha Friday’?!

  • The Streets says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:33

    Have been doing this for some years now on my additional four cards… the downside is the limited choice of countries where the offers run which is only a handful in Europe

    • meta says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:21

      Yes, since the introduction of offers. Surprised HfP didn’t know about it, but everyday you learn something new I guess.

    • BJ says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:02

      I think it’s only in recent months that we’ve seen offers increasingly restricted to main cardholders The preceding norm was that SUPPs mirrored Main in most cases.

      • meta says:
        8 Nov8 November 08:38

        I haven’t noticed. I get the same offers across all my supps, bar dining credit/HN and Amex Travel, but that’s always been the case.

        I also have the other £100 off £400 across all the cards.

        • BJ says:
          8 Nov8 November 10:11

          I cannot recall which but I’ve definitely had some offers restricted to main card only.

  • Mouse says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:35

    Would Amex consider it to be taking the mickey (to the point of closing your account) if you and your partner each had a Marriott card and each had a supplementary and quadruple-dipped at the same property?

    • Harry T says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:00

      I’ve done this a few times on my own account with the main card and multiple supps.

      • Nick says:
        8 Nov8 November 07:40

        Just pay half at checkout and half the night before if you’re worried. If (big if) Amex cared they wouldn’t even notice if the transactions were staggered. They’ll care even less if Marriott funds the offer.

    • Polly says:
      8 Nov8 November 10:58

      Cannot believe it either Rob, that slipped by you!
      We are doing just that in December. 4 separate bookings, 4 nights in a row, alternate names per night tho.
      Plus, we have double dipped the restaurant offer spend £200 get back £75, including the £100 you need to for the restaurant. So, got the extra 7k points, plus the refund. Restaurant offer on main cards only tho. Definitely worth keeping the card.

  • BBbetter says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:56

    This has been mentioned many times before. Comments section:
    https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/10/25/four-credit-cards-worth-keeping-unused-just-for-their-benefits-2/comment-page-1/#comments

    • Scott says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:59

      What’s your point? How does it help anyone to point out that this has already been mentioned? If people already knew then fine. If they didn’t know then this article has helped them.

      • BBbetter says:
        8 Nov8 November 11:41

        Ok, no need to get agitated. The point is that many miss comments posted late, so always worth going back to read the comments on previous days articles.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      8 Nov8 November 22:23

      That comment section is where I mentioned it to Rob 🤣

  • DJ says:
    8 Nov8 November 09:29

    It just needs a better card design now 🙈

    • Rob says:
      8 Nov8 November 09:46

      I was thinking that yesterday – Bonvoy is probably the most dated one now.

      • meta says:
        8 Nov8 November 10:12

        I had the old SPG branded card until May this year. I quite liked presenting it at former Starwood hotels.

  • Willie says:
    8 Nov8 November 09:33

    Err thanks Rob, that’s probably 4-figures a year you’ve just cost me after Amex realise and pull it!

  • Barracough says:
    8 Nov8 November 09:44

    I’ve just applied for a supplementary Marriott Bonvoy Amex card for my wife using the link in the article and it’s been accepted. No mention though of receiving 3000 points but hopefully they’ll come through in due course. I was about to apply anyway so I’m not too fussed, although 3k of points would be nice!
    It’s 7 years today since I discovered HfP. Thanks Rob, colleagues and the regulars for all the fantastic information, advice and tips. Changed my life!

    • Swiss Jim says:
      8 Nov8 November 10:23

      How come you remember the exact day?

      • Barracough says:
        8 Nov8 November 15:59

        A close relatives birthday. He told me about miles and points collecting and I went on-line and discovered HfP.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!