Costs & Pricing

Metric	Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card	Engine X
Annual fee	$125 (no first-year waiver published)	$0
Employee card fee	$0; up to 99 Employee Cards	$0; unlimited physical and virtual cards
Purchase APR	Prime + 12.74% to Prime + 21.74% (marketing 19.49%–28.49% variable at Prime 6.75% as of 1–2 Sep 2026). Placement by creditworthiness at opening. No intro APR.	N/A — charge card. No purchase interest if paid by due date. No published purchase APR range. Marketing “0%” means no annual fee plus charge-card float until the due date, not an intro APR.
Intro APR (purchases)	Not offered	Not offered (not a revolving product)
Foreign transaction fee	$0	$0 (International Transaction Fee: $0 / None). Ordinary Visa FX conversion still applies (rate not separately itemized).
Late payment fee	Up to $39; will not exceed Minimum Payment Due	$40 per late payment

Rewards & Value

Metric	Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card	Engine X
Base earn rate	2 Marriott Bonvoy points per $1 on other eligible purchases (no published cap). Card-side points only — Marriott member-stay points are a program overlay, not a card rate.	1.5% back in Engine points on Qualifying Card Purchases (everyday / off-Engine spend, including flights even if booked on Engine)
Welcome bonus	Up to 125,000 Bonvoy bonus points: 75,000 after $6,000 eligible purchases + 50,000 after an additional $3,000 ($9,000 total) within the first 6 months of Card Membership (live public offer, 3 Sep 2026). Rotates — 3+2 Free Night Awards have appeared in other cycles. Offer end date not printed on the Business page.	20,000 Engine points after the company activates an Engine X card and completes $2,000 in Qualifying Off-Platform Purchases within 30 days of first Card activation. Off-platform = card spend not booked through Engine.com. Engine travel bookings do not count. Employee/additional-card off-platform spend does count (company-level). First-time Engine X customer; one bonus per company. Offer ends 11:59 p.m. ET, 31 December 2026 (incentive terms updated 1 Jun 2026).
Redemption value	Issuer does not publish a cent value. Do not invent one. Industry write-ups often use ~0.6–0.9¢ on paid-night replacement; airline transfers often lower. Do not assume 1¢.	Official cents-per-point not disclosed. Points have no cash value and are redeemable only through the program. Checkout shows a point-to-dollar value before confirm. Secondary (TPG, 20 Aug 2026): statement credit described at ~50% of booking value — unofficial; do not hard-code 1¢ or 0.5¢ as issuer fact. Disclose user-selectable factor: 1.0× if redeemed for Engine bookings; 0.5× if using TPG’s statement-credit haircut.
Transfer partners	Marriott Bonvoy airline partners at ~3:1 (not Membership Rewards). Not transferable to Amex MR.	Not offered (no Chase/Amex/airline transfers)

Credit & Eligibility

Metric	Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card	Engine X
Personal guarantee	Required in substance. CMA: Basic Cardmember and Company jointly and severally liable for all charges, including Employee Card use.	Official apply page: “We also do not require personal guarantees.” Program terms: company is the liable party. Owner KYC still collected. Confirm no hidden guaranty in the Issuing Bank Terms accepted at offer.
Credit check	No personal-score impact to learn if approved. Personal score may be impacted if approved and the Card is accepted. Business credit may be impacted on submit.	Official: no hard pull, will not impact personal credit score. Soft-pull vs none-at-all on a bureau file is not separately named. Last-4 SSN is for identity verification (CIP), not described as a full credit pull.
Employee cards	Up to 99 at $0 AF. Spend limits, merchant-type limits, real-time alerts, freeze/unfreeze, account graphs. Liability remains on Basic Cardmember + Company.	Unlimited physical + instant virtual, including 1099 / temporary workers. Spend controls by employee, project, expense type, category, merchant, transaction. Physical cards ~8 business days. Company remains liable.
Product type	Revolving business credit card (not a charge card; not a spend-management / net-terms product)	Business charge card + spend-management card (pay-in-full each cycle; assigned line of credit; no revolving APR). Not a consumer credit card. Sibling: Direct Bill (credit line limited to Engine hotel/flight/car bookings — not this card).

Pros & Cons

Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card

Pros

• $125 fee with an automatic annual Free Night (≤35,000 points) that can exceed the fee if redeemed against a high cash rate
• Complimentary Gold Elite + 15 ENCs without 25 paid nights
• 4X on four real small-business categories (worldwide restaurants, U.S. gas, U.S. wireless, U.S. shipping) with no published cap
• Up to 99 employee cards at $0 with limits and alerts; $0 FTF
• Apply-to-decision path that does not hit personal credit unless the Card is accepted

Cons

• $125 fee with no statement-credit offset; 35k Free Night cap plus dynamic pricing and resort fees
• Points are Marriott-locked; airline transfers are 3:1
• Purchase APR 19.49%–28.49% variable and no 0% intro — a poor revolver
• Personal / joint-and-several liability
• No lounge access, no Global Entry/TSA credit, thin trip-insurance stack vs premium Amex business cards

Engine X

Pros

• $0 annual fee and $0 employee/virtual-card fees
• 6% (scaling to 10%) Engine points on Engine hotel and rental-car bookings — unusual on-platform travel earn at $0 fee
• No personal guarantee and no hard personal credit pull (official apply language)
• Charge card + Autopay + spend controls + unlimited cards for employees and 1099s; travel booking, policy, and folios in one dashboard
• $0 foreign-transaction fee in the fee table

Cons

• Elevated earn does not apply to flights or off-Engine hotels; marketing “up to 10% on travel” is broader than the legal category
• Pay-in-full charge card; $40 late / $40 returned-payment fees; no revolver
• Points have no cash value; official ¢/point not published; statement-credit value may haircut vs booking (secondary)
• Sole proprietors ineligible; U.S. entity + EIN required
• No published lounge, TSA/Global Entry, or card-insurance benefits guide; product is new (Mar 2026) so limit ranges and servicing quality are thinly documented

Verdict

Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card

This is the live U.S. Marriott business cobrand — not Bevy/Brilliant, not Chase Marriott Business (closed to new applicants), and not the Canadian $150 / 5X/3X/2X card. It pays when the firm actually sleeps Marriott and uses the Free Night. A hotel-agnostic shopper should use Ink Preferred, Business Gold, or a $0 2% cash card instead. Do not put Bonvoy member-stay points in the card earn column.

Engine X

Engine X is a TMC + charge card, not Direct Bill and not Ramp/Brex. Most SMBs stay Silver (6% / 1.5%). Skip it if travel will not move onto Engine, if you need revolving credit or transferable miles, or if you are a sole prop. Confirm the live 20,000-point offer (through 31 Dec 2026) requires $2,000 off-Engine spend within 30 days of first card activation.