Marriott targeted me with an email offer for their credit card today that I think is the best sign-up package I’ve seen on this card.

The current public offer for this card is for 80K points after $3K spend in three months, but the annual fee of $85 is not waived.

The new offer has a waived first annual fee, which is big for me as I don’t like having to pay for benefits before testing them out.

While the points bonus is 40K, half that of the public offer, it offers a $200 statement credit after your first purchase. This statement credit could pay for about two and a half years of the future annual fees on the card, meaning you wouldn’t really have to start paying anything for the card until the fourth year of having it and all its benefits.

As with the public offer, one of the huge benefits of having this card is you get a free night’s stay at a category 1-5 hotel on each year anniversary of having the card. This could be worth hundreds of dollars each year.

Here’s what the 40K points and free anniversary night can get you:

And here is a link to some ideas for what hotels you could spend your points on.

I’m guessing I was targeted for this offer because I signed up for Marriott’s loyalty rewards program recently. I won’t accept the offer because I’m currently working on the minimum spend for my Chase Sapphire Preferred (here’s my take on that card).

Here’s the offer I received:

This offer, along with the 80K-point bonus on the business version of this card and the recent targeted 75K Chase Sapphire Preferred offer, makes me wonder if Chase is having to amp up their sign-up offers due to a decrease in applications caused by Chase’s infamous and unconfirmed 5/24 rule (they won’t approve you for a card if you’ve gotten more than 5 credit cards in the past 24 months).

Let me know what you think! Is this Marriott card offer better than the public offer? Have a nice day!