Hotels

Marriott ditches award chart March 29th

a room with two beds and a balcony overlooking a river

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Marriott goes dynamic March 29th

If you’re looking to book Marriott properties, I’d get to it. Starting on March 29th, the award chart that Marriott currently keeps will be ditched in favor of a completely dynamic award system.

They first announced this back in late 2021, but Marriott decided to follow both Hilton and IHG down the path of dynamic award pricing. If you’re unfamiliar with that terminology, it basically means pricing will correspond more closely to the price of the hotel room. This is why you’ll see some Hilton hotels price at a Million points a night, and it also means that the trusty award chart will go away.

We can assume the St Regis Maldives is about to get a lot more expensive

a building on stilts in water
St Regis Maldives Overwater Villa

If you’re wondering…this is the current award chart and will cease to exist in a couple days

a screenshot of a hotel

How Dynamic Pricing will be integrated

The real damage looks to begin in 2023 when award prices will mirror the cash rate. Until then…this is what we can expect

  1. Award chart disappears March 2022 and rates technically go dynamic
  2. We’ve been told that 97% will range between the current off peak and peak
  3. 2023 all hell breaks loose lol – we go fully dynamic

Status Extension news:

  • Status is extended to 2/2023 whether you earned it in 2019, 2020, 2021
  • Ambassador Elite will pop back up to $20k and 100 nights in 2022 from the reduced $14k in 2021

Points Expiration

Points won’t expire until 12/31/22 – and only inactive points ( 24 months ) will expire at that time

Suite Night Awards

All Suite Night Awards that were due to expire on 12/31/21 will be extended to 6/30/22

Free Night Awards

If your Free Night Awards are due to expire between Jan 3rd 2022 and 6/29/22

  • credit card benefit
  • annual choice benefit
  • promo
  • travel package

These are extended to 6/30/22

You will be able to add 15k to Free Night Awards

Marriott will be adding in a cool new benefit that will allow you to extend the use ( not value ) of your Free Night Awards by throwing up to 15k Marriott Points. This means a 50k Free Night could be potentially redeemed for a property pricing in at 65k ( who knows how this dynamic stuff will price out ).

To think…I stayed at the St Regis New York for just 60k Marriott Points

a stuffed monkey on a ledge overlooking a large building

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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1 Comment

  • Enjoy Fine Food October 30, 2021

    Nice, clear summary

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