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How to Value Marriott Bonvoy Points

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Please don’t get into the mindset and think if I’m using points from my credit card that means it’s free. If it’s free, it must be a good deal. That’s what they want you to think. I spent over $1 million on credit cards in just one year. Let my experience help you get out of debt and use credit cards to your advantage. Now let’s get into this video.

 

Watch the How to Value Marriott Bonvoy Points

Marriott Bonvoy Card

I’m going to explain the Marriott Bonvoy card and exactly how you can determine if you’re getting a good value for your points. A lot of these cards offer points or miles, and they have ways in which you redeem them, and sometimes it’s to your benefit and sometimes it’s not. But what I like to always do, and I have other videos on this, is try to equate things to 2%. The reason is there are quite a few cashback cards out there now that provide 2% cash back, so you should be getting at least a 2% value off of your miles or points; otherwise, you might as well just use a cashback card. So we’re always trying to achieve more than 2%.

Calculating Point Value

Let me explain, and I’m going to show you in a moment the Marriott Bonvoy site, and I’m going to walk through exactly how you can do it. So when you look to redeem miles, you’ll know how to do it and how to make sure you’re getting a good value.

First, I’m going to throw it up on the Whiteboard, and we’re going to look at two different examples:

Example 1: 1x Card

One of them, and what’s good to do is when you’re looking at the site, there’s a button you click (and I’ll show you in a moment), and it’ll tell you the dollar value, how much it costs if you just want to pay for the room in cash versus the points, how many points they’re going to charge you. So, two examples here of the two different types of Bonvoy cards.

Their cards allow you to earn points in many different categories, but there’s a catch-all category, and that’s where the majority of your purchases will land. So I always look at the catch-all. Most of their cards either have one point per dollar spent (so you spend $1,000, you earn 1,000 points), but the good ones are two points for every dollar spent. So you spend $1,000, you get 2,000 points. Let me show you why you’re going to see in a moment as I go through the site that the one-point category is not very useful. You’ve got to get one of the cards with two points per dollar spent.

For example, if the room costs $157 or 37,000 points:

  1. Divide $157 by 37,000 to get 0.004 (less than half a cent).
  2. If you have a 1x card (1 point per dollar spent), you’d need to spend $37,000 to get that many points, resulting in less than 1% value.
  3. If you have a 2x card (2 points per dollar spent), you’d only need to spend $18,500 to get the same number of points, resulting in 1% value.

So, in this case, it’s not a good deal, and you might as well use a cashback card.

Example 2: 2x Card

If you have a 2x card (2 points per dollar spent), you divide the points by 2:

  1. Divide 37,000 points by 2 to get 18,500.
  2. Divide $157 by 18,500 to get 0.008 (equivalent to 0.8%).

With a 2x card, you’re getting 0.8% value, which is still not a good deal.

So, neither of these scenarios is very good, and it’s better to use a cashback card.

Example 3: Finding a Better Deal

Let’s explore another example where the room costs $119 or 11,500 points:

  1. Divide $119 by 11,500 to get 0.01 (equivalent to 1% value).
  2. If you have a 2x card, you divide the points by 2 (11,500 / 2 = 5,750).
  3. Divide $119 by 5,750 to get 0.02 (equivalent to 2% value).

With a 2x card, you’re getting 2% value, which is decent and comparable to cashback cards.

Points and Dollars Option

There are times when you might be able to get more than 2%. They offer options where you can use points and dollars. Here’s how you figure it out:

If the room costs $119 and they ask for $55 in cash and 5,750 points:

  1. Subtract $55 from $119 to get $64.
  2. Divide $64 by 5,750 to get 0.011 (equivalent to 1.1% value).
  3. If you have a 2x card, divide the points by 2 (5,750 / 2 = 2,875).
  4. Divide $64 by 2,875 to get 0.022 (equivalent to 2.2% value).

So, using points alone gives you a 1.1% value, while using points and cash with a 2x card gets you a 2.2% value.

Using Marriott Bonvoy Points Wisely

By doing this math, you can determine if using your points is a good deal or if you’re better off using a cashback card. Always aim for at least 2% value when redeeming points. Points cards are worthwhile when you can achieve 2% or higher in value, similar to cashback cards. I hope this helps!

Try this calculator to value credit card miles, points and cash, it does the work for you.

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