We’ve covered the free Marriott Bonvoy Bold card, the $95 Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card, and the $250 Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful and Bevy Card twin cards. The next mainstream Marriott Bonvoy card to discuss is the Bonvoy Brilliant card. Going the next tier up to the Brilliant card comes with an additional $400 of annual fee, bringing the total annual fee of the Bonvoy Brilliant card to $650. That’s not cheap by any means, but is, at this point, in line with other top-tier premium cards. At the time, it’s worth nothing that at $650, it was one of the most expensive options in the U.S. market.
This blog is for entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice. I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card. The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.
Welcome offer
The Bonvoy Brilliant card currently is offering a welcome bonus of 100 000 points after you spend $6 000 in the first 6 months. You can then earn an additional 50 000 points after spending an additional $2 000, also in the first 6 months (so $8 000 total). Previous bonuses have capped out as high as 200 000 points previously, but the current 150 000 offer is pretty good. The full bonus is worth around $1 050 because I’d value Marriott Bonvoy points at around 0.7 ¢/point on average. The bonus effectively covers 1.6 years of the annual fee.
Earnings
The Bonvoy Brilliant card has a three-tiered earning structure and earns Marriott Bonvoy award points. Marriott Bonvoy points are worth around 0.7 ¢/point on average, which is a bit lower than before because Marriott has transitioned to dynamic pricing. The card earns 6 points/$ on Marriott hotel stays (4.2%); 3 points/$ (2.1%) on flights (booked directly with airlines) and restaurants, as well as 2 points/$ (1.4%) on everything else. These earning rates are about as good as they get for a Marriott co-branded card. They’re not bad overall and are better than what you’d earn with an equivalent top tier airline card.
How to use the points
The main use for Marriott points is to use them for stays at Marriott hotels, as you’d expect. With Marriott’s dynamic pricing, the points are really only worth around 0.7 ¢/point on average, but sometimes you can find a good deal on a premium hotel and get better value.
Marriott points can also be transferred to >40 airline partners, which is quite impressive. The points transfer, in most cases, at a rate of 3 Marriott points to 1 airline mile. Marriott also gives a 5 000-mile bonus if 60 000 Marriott points are transferred (for a rate of 2.4:1), which can make sense in certain scenarios. The potential flexibility of Marriott points is one of the reasons I actively collect Marriott Points. Ironically, with Marriott having removed their award chart and having switched to dynamic pricing, transferring points to miles may be a more attractive option in some scenarios.
Benefits
The main reason for getting this card over one of the lower priced cards, such as the Boundless card, is for the benefits that you get while staying at Marriott Bonvoy properties. And it’s important to point out after the fiascos of the Bountiful and Bevy cards that this card does, in fact, come with a free night award. But otherwise, as regular readers of this blog might expect, this card’s direct cash benefits act are in the coupon book territory.
The biggest benefit is a free night certificate for a hotel night that costs up to 85 000 points (worth around $595). Next, the card offers a $25/month dining credit (worth $300 total). This credit shouldn’t be hard to use since it works at any restaurant, but it does require actually using the card (which is what Amex and Marriott want).
The biggest benefit of this card over the various other cards is that it offers Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status just for holding the card. This is the only credit card to offer platinum with no spending requirement instead of Gold status, which you can get from several credit cards, including the Amex Platinum and Bonvoy Bevy/Bountiful/Business cards. Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Status is definitely worth a lot more than Gold Status. Platinum Status offers 4 pm late check-out instead of 2 pm, 50% bonus points instead of 25%, a welcome offer selection that includes free breakfast, access to hotel club lounges, and complimentary upgrades to suites instead of just to better rooms.
The card additionally offers 25 elite status nights (most other cards offer only 15 elite status nights), which puts you substantially closer to upgrading to Titanium Status or achieving lifetime platinum status. In addition, with Platinum status, you’d actually earn a total of 21 points/$ on the Marriott room rate between the card and the Platinum status bonus. Assuming you use the free night certificate every year (and have no other stays), you’d achieve Lifetime Platinum just by simply holding onto the card for 24 years, if you really wanted to go down that path.
To encourage spending on this card, it now offers a choice benefit after you spend $60 000 in a calendar year. Currently for 2026, the choice benefits are: 5 nightly (suite) upgrade awards, a second 85 000 point certificate, or 50 000 bonus points. These choice benefits are similar in structure to those offered at the 50- and 75-night stay thresholds. If you select the 85 000 point certificate (which is what I’d do personally) and spend exactly $60 000, it’s as if you are getting an additional 1.4 points/$, which is an incremental 1.1% return on your spending. That’d make the splits 7.4/4.4/3.4 points/$ = 5.9%/3.5%/2.7%, which is actually a very good return on spend.
Like many luxury credit cards, this card comes with a full Priority Pass membership, which offers unlimited visits. Since the Priority Pass is issued through American Express, it does not include Priority Pass restaurants.
This card provides an additional benefit (beyond elite status) when staying at Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis) properties. Having this credit card also opens the ‘luxury credit card rate’ at Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis hotels that provides a $100 statement credit for incidentals (e.g. spa, golf, or restaurant charges).
The card comes with some additional travel perks, such as secondary rental car insurance and trip/purchase protection, but the insurance offerings are not as good as those on The Ritz-Carlton Card.
Examples of using the card
Spend per month
These examples exclude any credits that come with the card. For example, the hotel budget excludes the $300 hotel credit offered by Bonvoy Brilliant card to help offset the annual fee.
| Example A | Example B | Example C | Example D | |||||
| Groceries (2x) | $300 | 600 | $200 | 400 | $600 | 1200 | $400 | 800 |
| Gas (2x) | $0 | 0 | $100 | 200 | $200 | 400 | $100 | 200 |
| Airfare (3x) | $700 | 2 100 | $200 | 1 200 | $0 | 0 | $400 | 1 200 |
| Hotels (6x or 2x) | $1 000 | 6 000 | $200 | 400 | $0 | 0 | $300 | 600 |
| Gen Travel (2x) | $400 | 800 | $0 | 0 | $300 | 600 | $100 | 200 |
| Dining (3x) | $600 | 1 800 | $300 | 900 | $300 | 900 | $0 | 0 |
| General (2x) | $1 000 | 2 000 | $500 | 1 000 | $500 | 1 000 | $400 | 800 |
| Total | $4 000 | 13 300 | $1 500 | 4 100 | $1 700 | 4 100 | $1 700 | 3 800 |
| Average points/$ | 3.33 | 2.73 | 2.41 | 2.24 |
The Bonvoy Brilliant’s bonus categories are relatively specific. This specificity means that the best points values come from spending at Marriott Hotels, which is to be expected from a co-branded Marriott credit card. As a result, the average points earned is quite broad, compared to a simpler and more general card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, with a range of 2.24 – 3.33 points/$, which is worth 1.8 – 2.6 ¢/$, given the average valuation of 0.8 ¢/point for Marriott Bonvoy points.
Specific examples
These examples include the fact that Bonvoy Brilliant Card gives free Marriott Platinum Status but the Boundless only gives Silver Status.
| Card | American Airlines Economy Class ($750) (% return) | Marriott Hotel night ($230/night) | Points values (AA/Hotel) |
| No rewards card | 3 500 AA miles (7%) | 2 000 MP (6.1%) | $52.50 / $14.00 |
| General 2% cashback card | 3 500 AA miles + $15 (9%) | 2 000 MP + $4.60 (8.1%) | $67.50 / $18.60 |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred | 3 500 AA miles + 1 500 UR points (10%) | 2 000 MP + 460 UR points (9.1%) | $75.00 / $20.90 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Boundless | 3 500 AA miles + 750 Marriott points (7.7%) | 3 580 Marriott points (10.9%) | $58.00 / $25.06 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant | 3 500 AA miles + 750 Marriott points (7.7%) | 4 380 Marriott points (13.3%) | $58.00 / $30.66 |
Is this credit card right for you?
This card is best for people that value the free night certificate and the other benefits that come with it. Unlike some other American Express cards, such as the Amex Gold or Amex Green, this card is less about the points earnings and more about getting access to the card’s benefit list (like the US or UK Amex Platinum). If you don’t stay at Marriott hotels, it’s unlikely you will get substantial value out of the card’s benefit list. However, if you are willing to pay attention to the dining credit and use the free night certificate to stay 1 night at a hotel that costs at least $350, you can at least break even. This bar is pretty workable all things considered, but if you’re not staying frequently at Marriott brands that offer breakfast as a welcome amenity option, you’re not going to get much value out of having Platinum status. But all-in-all, I’d argue this card still makes way more sense than the Bevy or Bountiful.
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