Bottom Line

The Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful and its sister card, the Bonvoy Bevy, simply don’t offer the necessary benefits befitting their $250 annual fee. You only get a free night’s stay by spending $15,000 on the card in a year. And while complimentary Gold Elite Status is a nice perk, you still have to stay another 35 nights over the course of the year to get bumped up to Platinum Elite Status. Add in the fact that the 85k point sign-up bonus might not get you much since Marriott’s reward redemption is much higher than other hotels, and we suggest passing on this card.

Why You Might Want This Card

You can earn a quick 85,000 point sign-up bonus after spending $4000 in three months, and you also get complimentary Gold Elite Status with Marriott, which comes with some nice perks and benefits. If you’re chasing Platinum Elite Status, the Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful card also offers 15 Elite night credits each year to get you started towards the 50 nights necessary to reach it. You can earn a free night each year with this card. Unfortunately, you have to spend $15,000 on the card to get it... and it comes with an annual fee of $250.

Exceptions To The Rule

We can't really think of any:

• The other Marriott co-branded cards offered have similar or better sign-up bonuses and have benefits that line up with their annual fees

About Marriott Bonvoy

Bonvoy holds a unique place in this hobby. That’s because the points are a solid value for hotel reservations at the world's largest hotel chain AND Bonvoy points transfer to other point systems. In fact, Bonvoy has more transfer partners than Amex, Citi and Chase combined!!

This creates a unique situation, similar to Chase Ultimate Rewards points. There are nearly no flight or hotel situations that Bonvoy can’t solve. For this reason, we tend to use other hotel points (Hilton in particular) and save our Bonvoy points for unique situations, especially if you want to travel to any exotic locations.

The challenge is the value isn't great on transfers. We'll generally only use transfers for a points top off to buy a flight. Otherwise, we'll use our Bonvoy points for hotel rooms, especially in those hard to book places since Marriott has the most hotels globally.

Where Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful Fits In This Point Ecosystem

The Bountiful and the Bevy are essentially the same card offering the same sign-up bonus and benefits. The main difference is that the Bountiful has a $4,000 spend in 3 months to earn the bonus while the Bevy has a $5,000 requirement but gives you 6 months to do it. After that, the benefits match up the same. The Boundless is the next step down in that it only has a $95 annual fee. But as long as status isn’t your main priority, it has a better sign-up bonus (100k points after $3k in purchases over 3 months PLUS $150 statement credit after your first purchase) and offers a free night’s stay each year (though it is capped at 35k points). You do only get Silver Elite Status with the Boundless vs. Gold with the Bevy and Bountiful, but if status is what you care about, you might as well get the elite Marriott card, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. Though the $650 annual fee is high, you receive automatic Platinum Elite Status, 25 Elite night credits, and one free night up to 85k points, along with a few other nice credits to make up for the high annual fee.

Personal Experience

We're not much into the Marriott point system. For the $250 annual fee, and the below-average point redemption structure, you're far better off getting a World of Hyatt card from Chase.