 Hello everyone, this is Amit Don of AmitDon.com Today I'll have another episode of unboxing and brief review video and I'll be opening the Marriott Bonfoy American Express parade card which I have this right here. Before I start with the review and unboxing I'd like to talk about a little bit about myself. I'm a parade card, reverse points and international travel experts. I have 20 plus parade cards and 800 plus parade scores and there are many other reviews you'll find online. The difference between my review and 99 percent other review you'll come across online or on youtube is that they're working for the parade card companies and selling you parade cards and they're giving you dishonest and biased opinions so by the parade cards that I apply for the parade cards using the links provided in the article or in the description. So basically I'm not gonna get any honest or true review but my reviews are totally unbiased, honest and non-affiliated because I do not provide any affiliated links or I do not take money from anyone. Today I'm going to be opening up the Marriott Bonfoy American Express parade card and I have actually I'm going to be using a different format today for the first time. I have prepared some index cards which I have it right here and whenever I'm going to going through some points than or some main features I'll be using their index cards to make things more you know clearer and better. So let's look at the envelope. The envelope we have is fairly simple and we'll just you know take out the package from inside the envelope. I'll put this here and you can see that this is just a like you know very simple packaging and the parade card is going to be in here so which I'll just you know set it aside for now. And then we have here a standard parade card agreement and important information. So in here you're going to find like you know everything you need to know about the parade cards and the minimum payment and the rear structure and everything. But instead of going through this brochure or booklet I'm going to be using my own charts or own index cards so I'll just set this aside here. And the next thing I have here is that the information folder or information box. So here you're going to find the standard information about the parade card and interest rates you know minimum payment how interest rates are calculated also of information. So I'm just going to set this aside for now and we'll start talking about the parade card. So the first thing I'm going to talk about is the annual fee. So the annual fee is 120 dollars and the arm rate of the Marriott Bon Voy American Express is there are two different structures. So first you spend one dollar on Marriott properties and you get five points per dollar. And then if you are using this card everywhere else then you're going to be using you're going to be getting two points per dollar. And these points are Marriott Bon Voy points which you know Marriott Bon Voy is right now the largest hotel chain in the world after buying the Sheraton hotel chain. So you're going to have lots of flexibility and options about these points and I'll talk about this more later. So now let's talk about the benefits. I'm going to give you some highlights on the major benefits and then we'll talk about more at the end. So the basic benefits of the card is that you get a free anniversary night every year. And the anniversary redemption night cannot exceed more than 35,000 points. And actually I do have an example of this because I'm going to be staying at the Delta Toronto in downtown. And I'm going to show you how much for my free nights how much the hotel is going on and what is the reason that you know if you want to keep this card only for this feature which is a free anniversary night. And then you also get 15 elite night credit every year. So what it means that you know by default you're going to be granted silver elite status plus 15 elite night credit. So if you just I believe if you spend 10 more nights then you're going to be get gold status. So that's another benefits except these the card doesn't have actually too many benefits. So I'll set this aside and let's move on to the next point. So let's talk about a little bit more about their earn points or earn rates. So I'm going to show you like you know how this works and whether this is a good card to use for everyday spending or not. So as I mentioned before that per dollar you're going to be get five points or two points five points on married properties and two points on everything else. Now the beauty of married bond by points is that you can convert them to 40 plus airlines and yes airplane is included at three to one ratio. So what it means that for each three married points you're going to get one airline points for most of them including airplane. Some of them might have a different ratio but I'm going to like you know go into that. So basically the major airlines for example avios airplane or other airlines you're going to get one point per each three married bond five points. But married throws in a bonus 5000 points if you redeem 60 000 points at a time. So what it means that if you're redeeming 60 000 points then instead of getting 20 000 airline points you're going to get 25 000 airline points. So if you're using the airplane as an example so for each 60 000 points you're going to be getting 25 000 airplane points. So if you do that math then for each dollar spent on this card for everything else I'm not going to consider the married properties because if you have this card then most of you will be using it for everything else. So each dollar is going to earn you two points which comes to 0.83 airplane points given the fact if you are taking the bonus 5000 point bonus and you're doing 60 000 points at a time. I do not recommend redeeming or transferring or converting lesser than 60 000 points because you're going to lose on the 5000 point bonus. So let's say if you are doing that and if you are converting two points based on per dollar spent then your per dollar means 0.83 airplane points which falls short of the other airplane cars in Canada. For most of the airplane cars you have in Canada is going to give you one airplane point per dollar. So here you're going to get only 83 if you are doing the bonus transfer. So that's why this is not a good card to you know earn or to use for everyday spending or for everything else but if you're using for unmarried properties then definitely you can get the points worth. So now let me just you know do a quick comparison between the Marriott Bon Voy American Express and the American Express Cobalt car. American Express Cobalt car is a better car in terms of your spending if you are doing it at the selected categories where you're going to get five points per dollar spent on American Express Cobalt car. So what happens that you know for each American Express membership your select points which is earned by Cobalt then you're going to earn it's going to convert into six Marriott points. So if you do the math that means that per one American Express Cobalt point translates into 1.2 Marriott points. So if you're using it for the five time categories on Cobalt car then you're going to be earning six Marriott points per dollar spent on the Cobalt car which in other word for each dollar on Cobalt car you're going to be getting 2.5 airplane points with the 5,000 point bonus you know if you do the conversion from Marriott to airline points. So the way it works you're going to have to do transfer from Cobalt to Marriott and then Marriott to airplane or other airlines with the 5,000 bonus and what it means that if you're using a per dollar you are spending a dollar on the Cobalt card on five times categories then you're going to get 2.5 airplane points per dollar spent which is the highest in Canada comparing if you're spending one dollar on Marriott points then you're going to get only 0.83 airplane points considering the bonus. So that's why for everyday spending do not use this card but use rather Cobalt card or any other card which is higher earned ratio than 1.2 0.83 Marriott points or I'm sorry 1.2 0.83 airplane point for example one Cobalt one dollar spent on Cobalt is going to get you 2.5 airplane if you are doing it on the five times category. So now I'll talk about how to use Marriott points. Marriott points actually there are lots of ways you can use it there is more than one way to redeem Marriott points the first thing you can do is that you can directly redeem Marriott points to Marriott hotel properties and the redemption value you're going to get for this redemption is so so it's not that good not that bad it's kind of in the middle and the other way you can redeem Marriott points is to use flight redemption directly from Marriott website not through the you know airline website or after converting the airline points so Marriott has that option to do a redemption for flights and if you do that if you're reading for flights directly from Marriott website then the redemption rate is going to be very bad so this is the oldest redemption rate you're going to get and the third option you have is that you know you can convert Marriott points to 40 plus airline points which is the best option to get so number one and number two converting to hotel redemption or converting to flight redemption through Marriott websites I do not recommend these two you're going to be wasting your points so if you want to get the best value of your points then always convert to the airline points for example airplane avios or other airlines with the bonus 5000k and that's how you should always be converting Marriott points to the best use so the next thing i'm going to be talking is the insurances provided by this card so the card actually does not have many insurances it is a very poor card when it comes to benefits and insurances so for example it has a travel accident insurance $500,000 and car rental and theft and damage control insurance and then you have the baggage delay insurance which is only $500 flight delay $500 and hotel motel burglary $500 so as you can see that it doesn't have any trip interruption, trip cancellation and travel medical and all other travel insurances which you should always have when you're doing traveling so for insurances or benefits this is not a good card and i do not recommend this card now let's look at what this card is missing so as i just mentioned that travel medical trip interruption trip cancellation and it doesn't provide you any concierge services in general most of the american express cards are very poor in terms of parts and benefits they will never give you concierge services unless you are paying like you know a higher no fee for the platinum cards or higher really higher end cards but you can get concierge services in most of the $120 anal fee card and then another feature this card is missing that there's no zero foreign transaction fee so each time you're going to be using this card to purchase anything non-canadian you're going to be paying a 2.5 percent foreign currency transaction fee so for that reason i do not recommend this card to buy any foreign transactions or to do any foreign transactions so this is not a good card to have for other for parts and features except the annual anniversary hotel line now let me show you the card and then i'm going to give you a solid example why you should keep this card so the card is going to be right here and so here is the mario bonvoy american express trade card so lately they have been removing the card number and everything from the top of the card and they're putting it on the bottom but they're not like you know kind of raised numbers or letters like in the in the past so this has uh this is very good for doing like in trade card reviews because i don't have to hide the numbers and everything and it looks i think a little bit better to being blank on information so this is how the card looks like so this is the mario bonvoy american express trade card okay now let me talk about whether you should have this card or not if you appreciate staying in mario chain of hotels only once a year where you know the value can be 250 dollars or around 200 to 300 dollars then definitely you should have this card and if you're staying in mario properties you know or when you're traveling you're staying in mario properties a lot then definitely you can have this card you should have this card the reason because of the anniversary bonus night you're going to get each year one night free and the cost or the redemption value for that night which is going to be which is going to be paying off your 120 dollars annual fee and you're going to be on the plus side for example you're looking at the booking confirmation of delta in downtown toronto and when i booked this free anniversary night redemption so the room i got was going for a 250 dollars on the market so i paid an annual fee of 120 dollars so i was on the plus side just for using only one feature of this great card so to sum it up this is a very good card if you're staying at mario properties or if you consider getting a free night and if you like to stay you know nice hotels because you're going to be paying you're going to be getting it for free which is going to be more than 120 dollars but this is not a good card for everyday expenses or everyday spendings and this is not a good card for travel insurances or other travel benefits such as concierge services for zero foreign transaction fee but this is a good card for staying for those who stay a lot at mario properties or who appreciate to you know get a one annual free night every year so i don't mind keeping this card or holding this card forever paying 120 dollars per annual fee and i'll be only using this just for the free anniversary bonus night so this is the quick review and unboxing of the mario bonnville americans great cars on this channel i do travel videos and other videos so i experienced my travel and share with you and from time to time i'll update you with my great score which is 800 plus and i have lots of great cars so thank you for watching and forget about subscribing this channel forget about liking this video there will be more videos coming up so i'll see you shortly