Why the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card is weak

There are premium credit cards that charge high annual fees and can justify them. The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card is not one of them. At $650 a year, this card needs to work hard to earn its place in a wallet, and right now I don’t think it’s working hard enough.

What the card does well

Let’s get the positives out of the way first.

The 25 elite night credits that the card offers are genuinely useful if you’re trying to reach or maintain a higher status tier with Marriott Bonvoy and no other card can match this.

Complimentary Platinum Elite status is, obviously, a real benefit that some Bonvoy members will value as Platinum is the point at which Marriott Bonvoy status starts to feel a little more meaningful, and getting there without actually having to earn 50 elite night credits every year is worth something.

But that’s more or less where the good news ends.

The earning rates are unimpressive

The Brilliant card earns 6 points/dollar on Marriott stays. That sounds reasonable until you notice that the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Card from Chase earns the same 6 points/dollar on Marriott stays but costs $95 a year to hold.

You are paying an extra $555 a year for a card that does not earn more points on the spending category that matters most to Marriott loyalists.

Away from Marriott properties, the card earns 3 points/dollar on dining worldwide and 3 points/dollar on flights booked directly with airlines.

Based on our valuation of Bonvoy points (0.6 cents each), that’s an effective rebate of 1.8% in both categories. There are no-annual-fee cards that beat that with ease.

Charging $650 a year to give cardholders a rate of return that no-annual-fee cards can match is not a strong position to be in.

The $300 dining credit is more restrictive than it sounds

The card comes with a $300 annual dining credit, issued as a $25/month credit.

The problem here is that this structure forces you to pay for at least one meal per month with your Brilliant card, and if that meal costs meaningfully more than $25, you’re almost certainly leaving better earnings on the table.

Most cards worth holding earn considerably more than the paltry 1.8% effective rebate that this card offers on worldwide dining.

Every time you put a restaurant bill on this card to capture a $25 credit, you’re potentially giving up additional value that a better earning card would have generated.

It’s a credit that alters your spending in a way that doesn’t serve you particularly well and it’s a credit that expires every month which increases the change that you’ll forget to use is an miss out (and that’s exactly why the benefit has been designed in this way).

The free night award isn’t particularly special

The Brilliant card includes a free night award each year, usable on standard room redemptions costing up to 85,000 Bonvoy points.

That’s a reasonable redemption value, but it’s the same value offered by the Ritz-Carlton Card from Chase (no longer open to new applicants). That card has an annual fee of $450. The Brilliant card charges $650. You’re paying $200 more per year for the same free night award.

Relevant reading: How to get the Ritz-Carlton card even though it’s closed to new applicants.

The $100 property credit comes with strings attached

The Brilliant card comes with a $100 property credit and while that sounds promising, the details significantly reduce its usefulness.

It’s only valid at Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis properties, which already sit at the expensive end of the Marriott portfolio. It requires a stay of two or more nights, booked using a specific “special rate” that is not among the more competitive rates on offer.

In other words, to access the $100 credit you need to book an expensive stay at an expensive property at a rate that isn’t the cheapest available.

You’re spending more in order to get less back. For most people, that’s not a benefit, that’s a trap.

The $60,000 spend threshold for extra benefits is hard to justify

Spend $60,000 on the card in a year and you can choose one of three additional rewards. A the time of writing, these are:

• 5 suite night awards
• Another free night award (valid on standard room redemption up to 85,000 points)
• 50,000 Bonvoy points

My issue isn’t with the rewards themselves, it’s the opportunity cost.

If you polled people who could genuinely put $60,000 of spending on a credit card each year and asked them whether they could redirect the majority of that spend to cards earning Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, or Citi ThankYou points, most of them would say yes. And most of them would be better off doing exactly that.

The other key benefits aren’t differentiators

The card includes a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck fee credit. So does the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, which costs $95 a year. So does the IHG® One Rewards Premier Credit Card, which costs $99 a year.

The card includes Priority Pass Select membership. So do a large number of other travel cards, many of which earn points you’d actually want to earn.

Neither of these benefits is a reason to pay a $650 annual fee.

Bonvoy elite status is getting weaker

I’ve noted how the main positive aspects of this card are that it offers cardholders automatic Platinum Elite status and 25 elite night credits per year, but it’s also worth noting that I cannot remember a time when Marriott elite status was less impressive, and I say that as someone who holds Lifetime Bonvoy Titanium Elite status.

Yes, if you’re going to be booking Marriott properties, you’re likely to have a better stay if you hold Platinum status than if you were further down the Bonvoy food chain (you may get a room upgrade and depending on which brand you’re staying at, you may have access to a complimentary breakfast), but Bonvoy elite benefits have never been so weakly policed as they are now.

Marriott has clearly made the decision that it’s real customers are the hotels and their owners and not the people staying at these hotels, so if a hotel chooses not to honor the benefits laid out in the Bonvoy terms and conditions, you can expect Marriott to turn a blind eye.

This isn’t new. It’s been going on for a number of years, but the number of properties that seem to be happy to play fast and loose with the Bonvoy terms and conditions appears to have grown significantly. Especially in the United States (which is where most Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant cardholders are to be found).

So there we have it. There’s even a downside to the positive elements of the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card, and if you’re someone who values this card for the elite status alone, this is something you should probably keep in mind.

Bottom line

The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card has two things going for it – the Platinum Elite status and the 25 elite night credits. If you’re a Marriott loyalist trying to hit or hold on to an elite status tier, those benefits have real value (albeit not nearly as much value as they once did).

Everything else on this card is either matched by cards costing a fraction of the annual fee, comes with restrictions that significantly reduce its practical value, or simply isn’t good enough to justify the price.

At $650 a year, this card needs to be exceptional. Right now, it’s mediocre. And mediocre at $650 a year is a very hard sell.