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Even though hotel points are subject to the same inflationary pressures as a regular currency, most hotel chains manage to avoid obvious “devaluations” to their award chart. Instead of changing the number of points required for a specific award category – although sometimes more expensive categories are added on top – most hotel chains resort to a much more subtle strategy. The chains simply make “annual award category adjustments” – moving hotels from one category to another – and give their members some advance warning to let them make award bookings at the current price.

Now, some hotel chains are more clever than others. They move enough hotels DOWN a category such that the changes appear to be mere adjustments that even out over time. Other hotel chains simply take the opportunity to sneak through a pretty substantial devaluation.

Marriott Rewards has announced the list of hotels that are changing award categories on 6 March, 2018. You can find the full list by clicking here.

BTW, here’s a reminder of Marriott’s award categories…

The news is so bad that Marriott has resorted to some fancy statistics to say that:

• 74% of their hotels will stay in the same award category (errr…. thanks?!?!)
• 21% of their hotels will move up in award category
• 5% of their hotels will move down in award category

21% of Marriott’s hotels is a lot of hotels! And, moreover, Marriott Rewards has priors…

• In 2012, 500+ hotels moved up, only 100 or so moved down
• In 2014, nearly 1,000 hotels moved up, only 200 dropped
• In 2015,  1,000+ hotels moved up and roughly 300 dropped
• In 2016, 560 hotels moved up and 240 dropped
• In 2017, 50% more hotels moved up than dropped

Why Does It Matter?

With Marriott Rewards, there is a fairly substantial distinction between Categories 1-5 and those above it. When Marriott runs a Megabonus promotion offering a free hotel night – such as this recent one in autumn 2017 – you earn a free night at a Category 1-5 hotel (and you can’t even add some points to stay somewhere nicer). So, when any attractive hotel moves from Category 5 to Category 6, this is a pretty substantial reduction in the value of a Megabonus certificate.

The other great Marriott Rewards option is a Travel Package that I have written about before. Again, the option that gets you maximum miles for the fewest points involves staying for seven nights at a Category 1-5 hotel.

What Can I Do?

Well, first of all, you need to take a long look at the list. (and I’m sure that somebody at InsideFlyer UK will get around to highlighting a few hotels, but I did notice the JW Marriott that Joe recently wrote about)  Then you need to book whatever Marriott award nights you think you might need during the rest of 2018.

One of the nice member-friendly elements is that Marriott Rewards allows you to book award nights BEFORE you have the points. Then, once you’ve accumulated the points (or a free night certificate) you can call Marriott and attach an award certificate to your booking. So… assuming you are organised enough to cancel them in time, you can make hundreds of speculative award bookings for any hotel that is going to move up a category on 6 March.

Conclusion

One of the things that Starwood Preferred Guest loyalists – such as myself – most fear about the likely merger of SPG and Marriott is the category creep devaluation that Marriott seems so fond of. 2018 might be the last year where the two programmes remain separate, so I recommend that you really concentrate this February and spend those SPG/Marriott points before any hotels start costing more…

What do you think? Any hotel adjustments that particularly disappoint you?