What are SPG AMEX Retention Bonus Offers? As I wrote in New Marriott and SPG Rewards Program: 5 Reasons to Hate It, come August 1, 2018 you'll only earn 2 Marriott points per dollar spent on your SPG AMEX for all unbonused (non-Starwood) spend. Since each SPG Starpoint converts to 3 Marriott points, that's equivalent to only earning 2/3 of an SPG point per dollar, that is, 33% less than you currently do.
And while the SPG AMEX will add a Free Night Award, the free night will be limited to hotels that charge 35,000 points or fewer for an award night. There are several problems with this:
- The 35,000 point maximum for the anniversary award night is very limiting. There's scarcely a 35K point property on the New SPG Award Chart (sample for NYC, Paris, Dubai, Bali and Mexico City, full award chart not released yet ) that I'd be excited to stay at, with the possible exception of The Grosvenor House Dubai, or likely would stay at, since we've no plans to visit Dubai anytime soon. Think Sheratons, Marriotts, Residence Inns, Westins, Courtyard by Marriott, and a few JW Marriotts.
- The Free Night Award is ONLY for renewals as of August 1, 2018 or later. Since I was already charged my annual fee, I wouldn't even receive an anniversary award night until April 2019.
- Effective August 1, 2018, the SPG Business AMEX will lose its Sheraton Club Lounge access benefit
- In the meantime, I can't even earn any referral bonuses for my SPG Business AMEX, since the refer a friend program has been discontinued for this card.
For this reason I planned to close my SPG Business AMEX, which I just was charged the $95 annual fee for. You have a 30 day grace period after being charged the annual fee to close your card and have AMEX refund your annual fee.
Predictably, when I called AMEX stating I intended to close the card, I was transferred to AMEX Membership Consulting Services, which is the department responsible for retention. The representative initially tried to persuade me that the new card was actually BETTER since it would earn not 1, but 2 points per dollar spent on non-Starwood purchases, which I found galling in light of the 1 Starpoint = 3 Marriott points. Does AMEX think we can't do the math?
She was unapologetic and unfazed after I pointed this out to her, and moved right on to her next talking point about the new anniversary night award, until I pointed out I wouldn't even receive this until April 2019, and was therefore ready to close my card.
Only then did she offer up 10,000 Starpoints, with no spend requirement, which I decided to take, since I value SPG points at ~2.2 cents per point, or $220, which is over double the $95 annual fee. I'm still sock drawering the card, but the 10K Starpoints = 30K Marriott points is sufficient for me to keep it open one more year.
If you have the SPG AMEX personal card, the recent reported retention bonus offers aren't quite as generous. On Flyertalk, the 2018 data points are all 7000 SPG points for either $1000 spend in either 1 month or 90 days, or 7000 SPG points for $1500 spend in 90 days.
If you received an SPG AMEX or SPG Business AMEX retention bonus offer in 2018, what was it?
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Just got off the phone with them as my business card renewed today {Personal in Jan). She said there is nothing she can do so nada.
Sorry to hear; I’d say it’s worth another call or so before your 30 day grace period is up, just to double check there’s no retention offer before you close the card.
I agree with you 100%, but I’m going to at least keep my SPG Business card until at least 8/1 and then call to cancel. I started putting a crazy amount of MS on the card and want to maximize it while I can.
Sure, makes sense, especially if you haven’t been charged your annual fee yet. Because I was already charged my annual fee I didn’t want to keep the card without a retention bonus.
Follow up, wife tried calling on her personal that was also up. Nothing there either.
Darn–again, if your wife hasn’t closed her card already, could be worth another call later, but still within 30 days of the closing date of the billing statement where the annual fee appears (best to double check with AMEX the last date you can still get the annual fee refunded). Depending on the person you get, you may have to be ready to cancel, as I was, to get them to give you a retention bonus. But that said, it’s true that sometimes there just isn’t a retention offer, especially if you received one for that same card within the… Read more »
How do you anticipate the airlines point transfer to work? Would the 1:1 be 3:1?
Transfers to airlines will be 3:1 and there will still be a bonus when transferring the Marriott equivalent of 20K SPG points. So instead of 20K SPG points = 25K airline miles (for all airlines with 1:1 transfer ratios, which is most of them) it will be 60K Marriott points = 25K airline miles.
Happy to report on my second call – 7 days after the first with NO offer – received the 10k offer, the same as yours, for the biz version after the first AF posted.
My personal version received 10k last year I was told and thus no offers today.
Closed.
I’ve had the Amex SPG cards for years as it was the best mileage plan for airlines. Now that that is changing, what card(s) do you recommend. We tend to use our mileage only for international flights, mostly to Europe, from the NY area.
Josh, thanks for your question; I discussed it in today’s post, https://travelsort.com/which-credit-cards-replace-spg-amex/