Hotels

Marriott ditches award chart March 29th

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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

St Regis Maldives Overwater Villa

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

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

 

 Affiliate link via Card Ratings

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based. 

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

1 Comment

  • Enjoy Fine Food October 30, 2021

    Nice, clear summary

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