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Marriott Bonvoy has officially launched its two-way transfer partnership with Nectar, a collaboration first announced last October.

What are the transfer rates like?

Frankly, terrible.

Here are the transfer rates between the two programmes:

• 2 Marriott Bonvoy points = 1 Nectar point
• 2 Nectar points = 1 Marriott Bonvoy point

Let’s assign some approximate (and simple) values to the different points in order to show what a bad deal this is.

1,000 Nectar points are worth at least £5 off your shopping at Sainsbury’s/Argos/etc. You can sometimes do better than that though, so that’s a conservative floor value.

1,000 Marriott Bonvoy points are worth about £6, so to keep things simple, let’s conservatively call that £5 too.

Therefore, £5 worth of Nectar points (1,000) will get you £2.50 worth of Marriott Points (500).

In the same way, £5 worth of Marriott points (1,000) will get you £2.50 worth of Nectar points (500).

Basically, you lose about half the value of your points regardless of which direction you transfer in. Unless you have extremely specific circumstances (eg. very points rich and very cash poor, maybe?) it’s genuinely difficult to think of scenarios where completing a transfer would make sense.

If you value Marriott points highly, you could argue that the rate isn’t quite so bad in that direction, but you would still be much better off just buying them from Bonvoy during one of the frequent sales/bonus offers anyway.

Why you might still want to link your accounts…

Marriott Bonvoy and Nectar are currently offering two bonuses for linking your accounts:

1. New to Marriott Bonvoy? Get 500 Nectar Points for Joining
   • If you don’t already have a Marriott Bonvoy account, you can earn 500 Nectar points simply by signing up through Nectar. There’s no need to stay at a Marriott hotel to qualify for this bonus.
2. Earn 500 Nectar Points on Your First Three Cash Stays
   • After linking your accounts, you’ll receive 500 Nectar points for each of your first three Marriott Bonvoy hotel stays in any programme year. This offer is available to all members, regardless of how long they’ve been with either programme.

Bottom line

Flexibility and opportunities to use your points the way you want to use them are good things. That said, the transfer rates here are so bad that it makes the whole arrangement a bit pointless. On the plus side, you might be able to bag a few quid’s worth of free points from the bonus offers.

What do you think about this new transfer ‘opportunity’?

Images: Marriott/Nectar