The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Welcome Bonus Has Tripled to 60,000

American Express has brought back the tripled welcome bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Card, offering 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points when you spend £3,000 in the first three months. The offer runs until 26 May 2026.

If you are unfamiliar with Marriott Bonvoy points, they are more versatile than most people realise. You can use them for free hotel nights across 37 brands, or you can convert them into airline miles with over 40 different frequent flyer programmes, including Avios and Virgin Points. You could get a 5,000 mile-bonus for doing so, but more on that below.

Lets go over what the offer includes, what the points are worth, how the airline transfer situation works, and whether this card could be a good fit for you.

Just a quick heads-up: Points Well Made is here to dish out the juicy details on miles and points, but we're not your financial advisers. Any decisions you make regarding products featured on this site are your own responsibility, and you should always consider whether a product suits your personal circumstances. While we chat about all manner of lender goodies, we're not a lender ourselves. Remember, you know you best.

The offer

• The Bonus: 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points when you spend £3,000 in the first three months. This is triple the standard 20,000-point bonus.

• The Fee: £95 annually (no free first year)

• Who qualifies for the bonus? You must not currently hold a personal American Express card, and must not have held one in the last 24 months.

• Representative APR: 52.5% variable (including fee), 29.1% variable on purchases

• Offer ends: 26 May 2026

Unlike the Amex Gold or Platinum cards, the Marriott Bonvoy Amex does not earn Membership Rewards points. Instead, you earn Marriott Bonvoy points directly. That might sound like a downgrade, but Marriott Bonvoy points have a unique advantage as they can be transferred into over 40 airline programmes at a ratio of 3:1, and Marriott adds a bonus of 5,000 airline miles for every 60,000 points you convert. That 60,000-point welcome bonus lines up perfectly with this threshold.

For a huge number of those airline programmes, the Marriott Bonvoy Amex is the only UK credit card that can earn their miles. You can see the full list of Marriott Bonvoy airline transfer partners here.

How many points do you earn on spend?

• 6 Marriott Bonvoy points per £1 spent at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy

• 2 Marriott Bonvoy points per £1 on all other purchases

The everyday earn rate of 2 points per £1 is not going to set the world on fire. If you are purely looking at the ongoing earning rate and plan to convert everything to airline miles, you are earning roughly 0.67 airline miles per £1 spent (before any transfer bonuses). That is lower than the 1 mile per £1 on the Amex Gold, though the Marriott card gives you access to far more airline partners.

Where the card earns its keep on an ongoing basis is if you stay at Marriott hotels regularly. At 6 points per £1, hotel spending adds up quickly, and those points stack on top of what you earn from the hotel stay itself through your Marriott Bonvoy membership.

How many airline miles could you earn?

Lets say you spend £3,000 on the card at 2 points per £1, that earns you 6,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Hitting that £3,000 target triggers the 60,000-point welcome bonus, bringing your total to 66,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.

You then transfer 66,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to your choice of airline miles at the 3:1 conversion ratio. That gives you 22,000 airline miles. But because you are transferring at least 60,000 points in one go, Marriott adds a 5,000-mile bonus on top.

Your total: 27,000 airline miles from a single card with a £95 annual fee.

To put that in context, buying 27,000 Avios directly from British Airways would cost you over £500. Here, you are getting them for £95 plus £3,000 of spending you were going to do anyway.

Even if you factor in the annual fee against the bonus alone, you are still getting these points at a fraction of what they would cost through any other route.

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What about using the points for hotels?

Marriott uses dynamic pricing so the cost per night varies, but as a rough guide, budget and mid-range brands like Moxy, Courtyard, and Four Points typically price between 15,000 and 40,000 points per night depending on the property and dates. A Sheraton or Westin will usually cost more, often in the 40,000 to 60,000 range. So your 60,000-point bonus could realistically cover anywhere from one night at a premium property to two or three nights at a well-chosen Moxy or Courtyard. It is also worth noting that Marriott gives all members a fifth night free on award stays.

Status and Elite Night Credits

With the Marriott Bonvoy American Express, you get:

• Automatic Silver Elite status each year you hold the card

• 15 Elite Night Credits deposited into your Marriott Bonvoy account annually

• Gold Elite status when you spend £15,000 on the card in a calendar year

If you are not familiar with Elite Night Credits, they work a bit like tier points in an airline loyalty programme. You need to accumulate a certain number each year to reach the next status tier: 25 for Gold, 50 for Platinum, and 75 for Titanium. Every night you stay at a Marriott hotel earns you one Elite Night Credit, but these card credits count towards those thresholds too.

The Silver Elite status you get with this card is fairly modest, offering a 10% bonus on base points from hotel stays. The real value is in those 15 Elite Night Credits. Platinum Elite, for example, requires 50 qualifying nights per year and comes with room upgrades (including suites where available), a welcome gift choice of breakfast or points, lounge access at participating brands, guaranteed 4pm late checkout, and an annual choice benefit. Those are decent perks to have, and the 15 credits from this card makes reaching those upper echelons of status easier to reach.

If you are interested in stacking these credits with other Marriott card, then we cover exactly how that works in the debit card section below.

Other perks

• Free Night Award (worth up to 25,000 points) after you spend £25,000 on the card in a membership year

• Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis credit of up to US$100 when you book directly for a minimum 2-night stay

• Travel inconvenience insurance when you charge trips to the card

• Supplementary cards available at no extra cost, earning points that go into your balance

• Referral bonus of 9,000 Marriott Bonvoy points for every person who applies successfully through your referral link

What about the Marriott Bonvoy debit cards?

When this card last ran its tripled bonus in summer 2025, it was the only Marriott-branded card available in the UK. That is no longer the case. In November 2025, Marriott partnered with Currensea to launch two debit cards, and they muddy the water somewhat when deciding whether the Amex is still the right choice.

Here is how the three cards compare side by side:

	Amex	Debit Card	Premium Debit
Annual fee	£95	£55	£175
UK/Europe earn rate	2 pts/£1	1 pt/£1	1.5 pts/£1
Non-UK/Europe earn rate	2 pts/£1	2 pts/£1	3 pts/£1
Marriott hotel earn (UK)	6 pts/£1	2 pts/£1	4 pts/£1
Marriott hotel earn (abroad)	6 pts/£1	4 pts/£1	6 pts/£1
FX fee	2.99%	0.5%	0.5%
Elite Night Credits	15	10	15, increasing to 20 with spending
Status included	Silver	Silver	Gold
Welcome bonus	60,000 pts (20,000 pts standard)	5,000 pts	15,000 pts

Stacking: how the cards work together

The real power move, as we covered in our piece on why Hilton, Marriott, IHG and United Airlines are all launching debit cards in the UK, is that the Elite Night Credits from the Amex and the debit cards stack. Here is how those combinations play out, assuming one of them is the Amex:

Scenario 1: Amex only (£95/year). You start the year with 15 Elite Night Credits. To reach Platinum Elite (50 nights), you would need 35 nights. That is still a lot of nights, but if you are a regular Marriott guest it's easier to reach that target .

Scenario 2: Amex + standard debit card (£95 + £55 = £150/year). You start the year with 25 Elite Night Credits. That automatically qualifies you for Gold Elite (room upgrades where available, 25% bonus on base points, late checkout until 2pm). To reach Platinum, you would need 25 nights.

Scenario 3: Amex + Premium debit card (£95 + £175 = £270/year). : Up to 35 Elite Night Credits combined (15 from the Amex, 15 from the Premium debit card, plus up to 5 more earned through spending on the Premium card). That means you would need as few as 15 actual hotel stays to hit Platinum Elite, which gets you suite upgrades where available, lounge access with complimentary breakfast, guaranteed 4pm late checkout, and an annual choice benefit. Fifteen stays is roughly one a month, entirely realistic for someone who travels regularly for work or leisure.

For those of you who live out of suitcases, this combination also puts Titanium Elite (75 nights) within striking distance. If you are already doing 40 or more nights a year, the 35 card credits close the gap. Titanium adds a 75% bonus on base points, a second annual choice benefit, and 48-hour guaranteed room availability at participating hotels.

What to be aware of

No card is perfect, and there are a few things to be aware of:

The FX fee is 2.99%. This is the biggest drawback. If you are planning to use the card abroad, the foreign exchange fee will eat into a lot of the value from the points you earn. For overseas spending, you would be far better off with the Marriott Bonvoy Debit Cards (which charge just 0.5%) or another card with low or no FX fees.

No free first year. Unlike the Amex Gold, which waives its fee in year one, the £95 fee on the Marriott Bonvoy Amex is charged from the start.

The 24-month eligibility rule. If you currently hold any personal American Express card, or have held one in the last 24 months, you will not qualify for the welcome bonus. You can still apply for the card and receive all the other benefits (including the Elite Night Credits), but you will not get the 60,000 points.

To apply, you must:

• Have a permanent UK home address

• Be aged 18 or over

• Earn at least £20,000 per year

Is this card right for you?

The Marriott Bonvoy Amex sits in an unusual position. It is not the best card for everyday points earning, and the FX fee rules it out for travel spending. But for two specific groups of people, it can be excellent value.

If you stay at Marriott hotels regularly, even a handful of times a year, the 15 Elite Night Credits alone could justify the £95 fee. The ability to fast-track your way to Gold, Platinum, or even Titanium status by stacking card credits with actual stays is something no other UK credit card offers.

If you want to collect airline miles with a programme that has no other UK credit card partner, the Marriott Bonvoy transfer route is the only game in town.

Remember, you must pay these cards off in full every month or they will start to accrue that high rate of interest, and you may not get the points you have earned. Pay off your balance in full every month, and you will be okay.

The offer runs until 26 May 2026. For full details or to apply, visit the official American Express UK page.

Sam

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