Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.

Marriott Bonvoy has announced its annual hotel category changes. You can find the full list of which hotels will cost more Points and which will require fewer here.

Note that the changes do not come into effect until 3rd March 2021, so you can still book at existing rates if that works out better for you.

Overall, the changes are quite modest, with just 201 hotels changing – 150 going down a category and 51 going up. When you consider that there are about 7,500 hotels that are part of Marriott Bonvoy, 201 moving to a different category isn’t very significant.

From a UK perspective, there are few things to be aware of though.

The bad news is that The Langley (which some readers will have enjoyed when flying to/from Heathrow) is moving up a category for the second year in a row. From 3rd March, it will be a Category 7 property, requiring 45,000-70,000 Points per night.

The other changes are more positive. The following hotels are all moving down from Category 4 to Category 3 (13,500-20,000 Points per night):

• Delta Hotel Milton Keynes
• Moxy Edinburgh Airport
• Moxy York

Elsewhere in Europe, most of the changes are positive too (eg. Moxy Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, and the Sheraton Istanbul City Centre, both moving from Cat 4 to Cat 3).

Bottom line

There is nothing to get too worked up or excited about here, though from my personal point of view, the Moxy York getting cheaper is useful.

The bigger question is why are so few hotels changing category? – you would think that with most of the world still locked down, it would make sense to see more widespread category reductions…

Have you spotted anything interesting in the changes?