American Express replaced the welcome offers on three of its business cards this month. Two of them pay more and ask for more. One pays more and asks for exactly what it asked for before.
The pattern is worth a minute of your attention, because a bigger headline number with a bigger spending requirement attached is not automatically a better deal, and on one of these three cards it is measurably a worse rate on the money you have to add.
What changed
The Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card was offering 75,000 Marriott Bonvoy points after $6,000 in purchases in the first six months. It now offers 100,000 points plus a Free Night Award after $8,000 in the same six month window. Marriott's own card page puts the end date at November 4, 2026. The annual fee is $125.
The Hilton Honors Business Card was offering 130,000 Hilton Honors points after $6,000 in six months. It now offers 150,000 points plus a Free Night Reward after $8,000 in six months. Hilton's own credit card page puts the end date at January 13, 2027, and shows the rest of the Hilton lineup refreshed to the same date. The annual fee is $195.
The American Express Business Green Card was offering 15,000 Membership Rewards points after $3,000 in the first three months. It now offers 25,000 points after the same $3,000 in the same three months. American Express is publishing the change on its own product page with the old number struck through. No end date has been published. The annual fee is $95.
Who this affects
If you already hold any of these three cards, nothing about your card changed. Welcome offers go to new accounts, so your annual fee, your earning rates, your statement credits and your elite status benefits are all exactly where they were yesterday. There is nothing here for you to claim and nothing you need to do.
The people this matters to are the ones deciding whether to apply, and the ones who were already planning to and now have a deadline. Two of these three offers expire, one of them in under two months.
It also matters if you are the person other people ask about cards. The Marriott and Hilton offers look straightforwardly better in the headline, and for one of them that impression is right. For the other it depends on a number nobody puts in the headline.
What to do about it
Start with the only question that decides this: can your business actually put $8,000 on a new card inside six months, on spending you were going to do anyway?
If the answer is yes, both offers improved and you can stop reading this section. If the answer is no, or if reaching $8,000 means inventing spending to get there, the rest of the math matters.
Here is what the extra $2,000 buys on each card.
On the Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card, you are being asked for $2,000 more and paid 25,000 more points plus a Free Night Award. That works out to 12,500 bonus points per $1,000 of extra spending, which is exactly the rate the offer pays across the whole $8,000. The extra spend earns at the same rate as the original spend, and the free night is added on top of that. This offer got better without any hidden trade.
On the Hilton Honors Business Card, you are being asked for the same $2,000 more and paid 20,000 more points plus a Free Night Reward. That is 10,000 bonus points per $1,000 of extra spending. The old offer paid about 21,700 points per $1,000 across its whole $6,000, so the money you are now being asked to add earns at under half the rate the old offer paid on the money it already asked for. Put the other way round: at the old rate, $8,000 would have produced just over 173,000 points. This offer pays 150,000, so the Free Night Reward has to be worth about 23,000 Hilton points before this is the better deal on points alone.
One thing that softens the Hilton picture: that extra $2,000 also earns the card's ordinary rate. At 5 points per dollar on non-Hilton purchases, $2,000 brings another 10,000 points with it, which roughly doubles what the additional spend produces. The Marriott card earns 2 points per dollar on other purchases, so the same $2,000 adds 4,000 points there.
The Business Green change needs no analysis. Ten thousand more points, same $3,000, same three months.
If you are weighing whether a planned expense could clear one of these requirements, the big purchase planner on The Points Pro will price that for you.
All of that math tells you what these offers pay. None of it tells you whether the same card has paid better before, which is the question that decides whether today is the day to apply. Each card page carries the card's full sign-up bonus history, so you can put this offer next to every version the card has run: Marriott Bonvoy Business, Hilton Honors Business, American Express Business Green.
The fine print
The two dated offers are the ones to watch. The Marriott offer ends November 4, 2026, which is under two months out. The Hilton offer runs to January 13, 2027. The Business Green offer has no published end date, which is not the same as permanent.
Spend windows are where these bonuses are actually lost, and they start at account opening rather than at approval or at first use. If you do apply, add the card and its opening date to your wallet and The Points Pro will email you as the window runs down. Sign-up bonus emails go to every signed-in member, so a free account covers it.
Two more details worth knowing before you plan around either free night.
On the Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card, the Free Night Award in this welcome offer is a different award from the one you receive each year after your card renewal month. They arrive at different times, and their redemption limits are not the same. Read the offer terms for the welcome award rather than assuming it matches the annual one, because the annual award's limit is the one printed on most card summaries.
On both hotel cards, a free night still leaves you responsible for resort fees where the property charges them, and award availability is a property-level question rather than a program-level promise.
Finally, welcome offers on all three of these cards move several times a year. The numbers above are what is on the table today, not a permanent feature of the card, which is why the offer history above is worth two minutes before anyone applies on your recommendation.
We monitor these three cards and will post an update when any of these offers or their end dates move.
More changes like this one, as they happen: follow The Points Pro on Facebook.