New Amex Card COMING! + HUGE Referral Bonuses

In this video we have a rumor of a new Amex hotel credit card. I love a good rumor video. Trademarks were just filed. We'll tell you all about that in a moment. Then we have some big referral bonuses that you can get for inviting your friends to sign up for Amex cards up to 45,000 points. That's almost as much as a welcome bonus on many credit cards. And then we have a sneaky little way to get some huge welcome bonuses with Bank of America credit cards as well, so stay tuned for that. Hey, credit warriors. Welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shifu, and on this channel I cover U.S. credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, but let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Silo, the brokerage where you can earn credit card-style points on your investments. They've just launched a new entry-level plan and doubled the points earning caps, but more on that later. So Marriott Hotels has just filed this trademark. Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Business. You can see the date of the filing is August 28th, 2026, so this was just filed. And you can see that this trademark is for issuance of credit cards, processing of credit card payments, credit card authorization services, credit card transaction processing services. So very likely we are looking at a business version of the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card, which is an American Express card and happens to be the premium option in Amex and Marriott's lineup of co-branded cards. Now there is an interesting situation with this, since Marriott actually has cards issued by both Chase and Amex. When Marriott and SPG Hotels merged, it must be about, I don't know, 10 years ago now? I'm showing my age by saying this, but they had a deal that Amex and Chase could both keep issuing co-branded Marriott cards, because Amex originally issued the SPG card, but then it became branded as Marriott, so they had to make a deal. And so their deal was Chase would focus on mid to low tier cards and Amex would focus on the high end and business cards. So that's why when you look at the lineup of Marriott co-branded cards right now, we have a no annual fee card from Chase, then a $95 annual fee card, also from Chase, and then when we get to $250 annual fees, it switches to Amex. Actually, Chase does have a comparable card in this tier, the Bountiful. It's also $250, but it's not here, promoted on Marriott's site. And then when we get to the premium cards, it is only Amex, and the business card is only in Amex too. Chase closed down applications to their old Marriott business card. So Amex is now enlarging that portfolio and coming out with a premium business card. What benefits do I think this card will provide? Well, if we look at the Brilliant, it is a $650 annual fee, but you get a $300 dining credit and a Marriott free night worth up to 85,000 points after your card's renewal. You get Marriott Platinum Elite status and Priority Pass airport lounges. It's a lot of stuff, and there's a lot more I could mention, actually. So would it just be a business version of the Brilliant with the exact same benefits? Well, maybe that's one route they could go, although I would expect at least the point earning categories would be different. Obviously, it'll still give you a bonus on Marriott spend, but maybe instead of restaurants and flights, you might have some more business oriented categories. If you look at Amex's mid-range Marriott business card, it gives you a But the mid-level business card, in other ways, is actually quite different to the mid-level personal card. So maybe there will be more differences on the high-end card, too. For example, on the mid-tier business card, you get a 7% discount on bookings at Marriott hotels, something the personal mid-tier card does not provide. Maybe this new business card could give us a 10% discount or more. Hey, give us more. Anyway, guys, it's still just a rumor at this stage. But hey, a trademark has been filed. And we did already have rumors about this earlier in the year since Amex sent out a survey asking about a new Marriott business card. And the survey asked if people would be comfortable with an annual fee of around $600. And it looks like people said that they would be comfortable with that since they have decided to do a business version of the Brilliant and the Brilliant personal card annual fee is $650. The card will probably not be released till next year, I'm guessing, maybe early next year, but we'll report on it when we have more information. Let me know in the comments what benefits you would like to see on the new card. All right, let's move on to talking about some huge Amex referral bonuses that you can get right now. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about Silo. Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo. Well, there's a reason for that. It is the investing platform that enables you to earn points on your stocks. It's like what Bilt has done with earning points on rent. But for investing this month, they launched two big updates that make the platform much more useful and accessible. The first is Blue Rewards, a new entry level plan that costs just $95 per year. That's the same annual fee as a mid tier credit card. It lets you earn half a point per dollar each year on up to a $50,000 portfolio that works out to as many as 25,000 points per year paid monthly. Silo have just launched their travel portal where you can use Silo points to book travel at one cent per point with over 300 airlines and hotel chains. It's a really cool interface and make searching and booking travel an absolute breeze. In my opinion, the booking experience is better than most big banks. Not naming any names. America. This is all in addition to up to 500,000 points on your portfolio balance each year and an up to 250,000 point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially 750,000 points in your first year. That's their Labor Day bonus, and it's only available until the end of the month. So if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, you can click my link in the description or go directly to silomarkets.com slash Ben to get started today. So if you have an American Express, platinum or gold card, check your account because Amex is currently targeting some cardholders with unusually high referral bonuses. Normally, Amex referral bonuses are somewhere around 10,000 to 15,000 points. But right now, some platinum cardholders are seeing offers as high as 45,000 membership rewards points per successful referral, and some gold cardholders are seeing 40,000 points. And these can add up very quickly because Amex allows you to earn the referral bonus up to five times per calendar year on an eligible card. So theoretically, if you had that 45,000 point platinum offer and maxed it out five times, that would be 225,000 membership rewards points. That's worth like, you know, 4000 on something dollars if you value it at two cents per point. I'm surprised that they would still allow you to do it that many times with this elevated bonus, but it seems that they do. And you know, that's a lot of points for just sending someone a link basically. But what if your friend doesn't want the gold card or the platinum card or whatever one you have a link for? Well, here's the part that a lot of people don't realize about this. The person you refer, all right, if you have the gold or platinum, the person you refer does not necessarily have to apply for the same Amex card that you referred from. For example, let's say you have the platinum card and you get offered that 45,000 points for a referral. You send your platinum referral link to a friend, but your friend doesn't want the platinum. Instead, they might navigate through that referral page since the referral page has the platinum at the top, but then it gives you multiple other cards. Perhaps they apply for the Amex Blue Cash Preferred or a Hilton Amex or a Delta Amex. This is a screen recording here of my platinum referral link, and you can see that you can literally apply for any card from it. If they apply for any card from that page and they get approved, you still receive the 45,000 points attached to your platinum offer. And that makes these elevated offers much easier to use because you're not limited to finding like five people who all want an $895 a year platinum card. It's probably easier to find someone who wants this no annual fee Hilton card than the platinum card, but you still get 45,000 points. So if you have an Amex platinum or gold, log into your account, go to the refer a friend section and see what Amex is offering you. Remember, this is targeted. I checked mine and I've done so many referrals in the past that I think Amex hates me. I cost them a lot of money. They don't offer me any referrals on my gold card and on my Schwab platinum. The offer is a $100 statement credit. But if you are targeted for 40,000 or 45,000 points per referral, that could potentially be one of the easiest ways to generate a very large membership rewards balance right now. All right. Lastly, we have an easy way to get some huge Bank of America bonuses. Okay, right now, Rakuten, the very popular online cashback and points portal is offering extra points when you sign up for credit cards from Bank of America, Citi and Chase by first clicking through the Rakuten landing page for that card. The Citi Strata Premier is offering an extra $100 cashback in addition to the welcome bonus that you get from Citi on the card. The Chase Inc Business Unlimited is offering an extra $100 back. The Chase Freedom Unlimited is $25. Okay, that's kind of a comedy bonus. But right now we have an amazing bonus on a couple of Bank of America cards. The Customized Cash is offering $150 from Rakuten. Once you click through, you'll see that the card currently has a $200 welcome bonus. So that brings you up to $350. But the real big one is the Bank of America Travel Rewards credit card. $375 from Rakuten. Then click through, and you're offered 25,000 points, which has a value of $250. So together, that's going to be $625, which is amazing. Just FYI, you have to be earning cashback, not Amex or built points through Rakuten to see those deals. Otherwise, you'll just see no points like you see here on my account, because I have mine set to Amex membership rewards. So if you want to jump on any of those, go over to Rakuten and check them out. If you're not already a Rakuten member, sign up through my link in the description for a $50 bonus after you make your first purchase at any store Rakuten links to. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Don't forget, if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, use my link silomarkets.com slash Ben to claim your last chance to get up to 250,000 bonus points. Please subscribe if you're new. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.