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We have seen all sorts of deals this year when it comes to buying points. Marriott has a deal, which if used strategically, could be quite advantageous for future travel. I’m a big fan of purchasing any kind of point as long as you have a redemption in mind, and can save money by doing so. With that said, Marriott has put forth a compelling offer that ends December 22nd, 2020.
Buy Marriott points with a 50% bonus
Normally I’m not a huge advocate of purchasing Marriott points because they traditionally limit the maximum per year to just 50k. Besides shoring up for an award night, there isn’t a lot of potential for arbitrage. This time…it’s different. Marriott is offering a 50% bonus on 150k points, meaning you could walk away with 225k total points.
The price? $0.0083 per point
This opens up a lot of potential in my mind to seize some great opportunities on high priced properties around the world. Particularly when you hit them during off peak.
Where could this make sense?
Let’s use a Category 7 hotel as an example. Solaz is a swanky new Luxury Collection hotel in Cabo. It rings in as a category 7 which means if you can catch it during off peak pricing, you’ll be able to stay for 50k points a night. Remember, all Marriott members get a 5th night free, so you could stay 5 nights for 250k points. This could be a cool spot for you use those 5 nights that were offered on the Marriott Boundless card earlier in the year. But…let’s take a look at how buying points could save you tons of cash.
Here’s what a 5 night stay looks like with cash. Note these are all non-refundable, 30 day cancellation rates, excluding taxes.
If you look at what it would cost for a standard room with cancellation options…voila – $692 a night.
200k points costs $1750 vs over $4k when taxes are included, and space is wide open in January
As you can see… in terms of points, the entire calendar is open at off peak.
In fact the rate varies through the year, but again next fall…the entire month of September is off peak.
Overall
Certainly you need to crunch the numbers and make sure it works FOR YOU. But if you have that special redemption in mind this could be a way to make it work for much, much less.
So I should pay to get Bonvoyed now?
All my points will be burned soon, they’ve become garbage points with the constant devaluations. Will focus mainly on hyatt and secondly on Hilton.