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The Marriott promotion for this Summer actually looks pretty good – well, at least compared to what Marriott has been offering recently anyway!
Between May 27, 2017 – August 30, 2017, members will earn 2,000 bonus Marriott Rewards Points per stay.
Members will also earn an additional 2,000 bonus Points by staying at different Marriott Rewards participating hotel brands – that’s 2,000 bonus Points for each different brand, starting with the second brand.
Registration isn’t open yet, but will be required.
Eligible brands include:
- Ritz-Carlton
- JW Marriott
- Edition
- Marriott
- Marriott Vacation Club
- Delta Hotels
- Autograph Collection
- Renaissance Hotels
- Gaylord Hotels
- Courtyard Hotels
- SpringHill Suites
- Protea Hotels
- Fairfield Inn and Suites
- AC Hotels
- Moxy Hotels
- Residence Inn
- TownePlace Suites
From a European perspective, I’d say about 8-9 of those wouldn’t be too tricky to stay at – although 2-3 are at the luxury end.
Good deal?
First of all, note that the bonus Points are per stay, not per night – so it obviously favours short (ideally 1-night) stays.
I value Marriott Rewards Points at ~0.7p each, so I would get a rebate worth ~£14 per stay. That’s ok, but obviously not great
If you can combine 1-night stays with hitting a load of different Marriott brands, then it gets more interesting. The additional 2,000 Points starts with the 2nd brand you stay at, so say that you had five 1-night stays at 5 different Marriott brands during the promotion, you would end up with 18,000 Bonus Points in total.
That works out as a bonus rebate of about £126 for 5 stays (if you use my, admittedly quite high, valuation of Marriott Points). That puts the promotion in a similar league to the current Accor promo, and makes it slightly less lucrative than what most people’s IHG Accelerate promotion targets are likely to be. Obviously there are hoops to jump through with all three promotions and which one suits you best will depend on a large range of factors.
Bottom line
The latest Marriott promotion isn’t earth-shattering stuff, but if you can make it work for you, then it has the capacity to be pretty solid – certainly a lot better than nothing!
Fingers crossed that SPG also come up with some kind of brand-based promo…
Chances are they will, I think!
I’ve a bunch of pre-paid reservations coming up over the next 3 months as part of a Platinum status challenge so I was sweating on whether the promo would appear.
I certainly hope that the bonus points can trigger for these stays.
Unfortunately, I’ll only be able to hit 2 of the brands (Marriott & Courtyard).
It turns out that the promo period doesn’t start until May 27, even though the registration opens before that.
Cheers! – amended.