SPG Amex and Marriott points | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

Thanks, Peter. I'd never met anyone who had a Marriott Visa issued by Chase, or even a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express for that matter, until now as the cards were quite "niche"-ey. That said, great to hear about this preferred conversion offer and, if Starwood is using American Express globally and not just in Canada, could potentially mean Marriott's likely looking at standardizing their affinity credit card relationships under the American Express banner. They may also be considering adding the Marriott brand names under the Starwood preferred member brands and consolidating Marriott Rewards under Starwood as they only said they'd "evaluate" keeping two loyalty programs, this could make sense as a way to build the Starwood brand while maintaining the Marriott International corporate name.

The only two downsides I see to the SPG American Express credit card, aside from the annual fee, which Marriott's Visa also has, are: (1) the foreign currency charge of 2.5% that Marriott Visa customers currently avoid, which might be neutralized if the rewards ratio is 2-2.5% greater than SPG's and (2) American Express accepted by a vastly diminished number of merchants worldwide and their global market share (in terms of points of acceptance) is at its lowest in decades with the loss of the global Costco credit card partnership.

That could explain why Amex is now launching new standalone credit cards at a rapid rate, its latest "no annual fee" credit card in Canada being a line of credit-type card with really low interest rates (i.e., 6-9% or so), its Essential branded card:

https://www.americanexpress.com/ca/en/content/essential-credit-card/?filter=Personal-customer,Noannual-customer

This will compete with the line of credit cards from the "Big 5" with bigger "perks" and also the TrueLine MBNA card.

Cheers,
Doug