Currently, Marriott Bonvoy offers a 40% bonus with the purchase of 2,000 or more Marriott Bonvoy points, and even 50% if you purchase at least 40,000 points (+ 20,000 bonus points)! The promotion runs until March 23, 2022 06:59 CET. You can redeem your points in numerous hotels or transfer them to many frequent flyer programs. You can buy max. 100,000 (+ 50.000 bonus points) per calendar year.
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Buy Points
Note the applicable conditions:
- A maximum of
50,000100,000 points can be purchased per calendar year. Including the current bonus, the limit amounts to 150,000 points. - New Bonvoy members can buy points after 30 days if they have at least one account activity
- Points cannot be returned or refunded
Points can be bought in increments of 1,000, and the bonus applies from 2,000 points onward. Here are the bonus tiers:
- 40% bonus for 2,000 – 9,000 points ($0.89 cents/point)
- 45% bonus for 10,000 – 39,000 points ($0.86 cents/point)
- 50% bonus for 40,000 – 100,000 points ($0.83 cents/point)
Effectively you’ll only pay US$8.33 (~€7.70) per 1,000 points including the discount.
Please buy points only if you have a redemption plan. Marriott may devalue points at any time, move hotels into higher categories, or restrict redemption options such as conversion to frequent flyer miles.
Redeeming points for hotel stays
Marriott Bonvoy has a total of 8 hotel categories. For some time now, there are Peak & Off-Peak subcategories for each one of the individual hotel categories. Thus, on a day with a low occupancy rate, a hotel can cost less but on a day with a very high occupancy rate, it can cost significantly more.
If you book the night with purchased points, here are the prices that you’ll have to pay for off-peak/standard/peak:
Category | Points | Price |
1 | 5,000 7,500 10,000 | US$44 (~€41) US$66 (~€61) US$88 (~€81) |
2 | 10,000 12,500 15,000 | US$88 (~€81) US$109 (~€101) US$131 (~€121) |
3 | 15,000 17,500 20,000 | US$131 (~€121) US$153 (~€141) US$175 (~€162) |
4 | 20,000 25,000 30,000 | US$175 (~€162) US$219 (~€202) US$262 (~€242) |
5 | 30,000 35,000 40,000 | US$262 (~€242) US$306 (~€283) US$350 (~€324) |
6 | 40,000 50,000 60,000 | US$350 (~€324) US$438 (~€405) US$525 (~€485) |
7 | 50,000 60,000 70,000 | US$438 (~€405) US$525 (~€485) US$612 (~€566) |
8 | 70,000 85,000 100,000 | US$612 (~€566) US$744 (~€688) US$875 (~€809) |
Sweet Spots: The Best Redemption Possibilities
The best way to redeem your points at the best value is to book award stays at hotels with very expensive cash rates, as is the case with almost all hotel loyalty programs. A good example is the St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort. Cash rates start at around €1,200 per night, but as an award stay, one night at a standard rate could cost you only 85,000 points = US$708 (~€655). Resulting in savings of almost 50%!
The only problem is that you can only buy a maximum of 50,000 100,000 points per calendar year. So you might have to use points collected through hotel stays, buy the points over two calendar years, or transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards, for example.
It gets even better when you use the Fifth Night Free Benefit: If you book at least 5 nights as an award stay, every 5th night is free! For example, at the St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort, the price is essentially only 68,000 points/night = US$567 (~€524), a saving of over 50%!
You can find availabilities on the Marriott Bonvoy website. Please note that you should not buy any points without a plan to redeem them; hoarding points is not recommended as they can be devalued at any time!
Transfer Points to Frequent Flyer Programs
Fortunately, Marriott has kept the option of transferring points to many frequent flyer programs after the merger with Starwood. The usual conversion ratio is 3 points to 1 mile:
Among them are many programs such as United MileagePlus (10% bonus!), Aegean Miles+Bonus, Delta SkyMiles, Emirates Skywards, Asiana Club, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer…
In addition, for every 60,000 points transferred, you get a further 5,000 miles on top. If you convert 60,000 points into (usually) 20,000 miles, you will receive 5,000 miles as a bonus = 25,000 miles. This increases the conversion factor from 3:1 to 3:1.25.
Sweet Spots
If you buy 120,000 points for the price of US$879 (~€813) and convert them into 50,000 Asiana Club miles, you can book a Lufthansa First Class award flight to the USA for 50,000 miles + €200-300 in taxes & fees. In the best-case scenario, the First Class flight will only cost you roughly €1,100!
Comments (2)
Oops…Marriott merged with Starwood (Sheraton), not IHG.
Oops, thanks for pointing out that mistake. Fixed it