Marriott Bonvoy made some major announcements today.
Key points to note
- Elite status earned in 2019 or 2020 will be extended to February 2023. Members will see this extension reflected by December 2021.
- Points expiration is paused till December 2022
- Free Night Awards and Suite Night Awards expiring between 3 January 2022 and 29 June 2022 will have a new expiry date of 30 June 2022.
- From early 2022, you will have the ability to combine Free Night Awards with up to 15,000 points to redeem for nights at more expensive hotels.
- From March 2022, there will be no more award chart, no more hotel categories as Marriott Bonvoy moves to Flexible Point Redemption Rates.
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Flexible Point Redemption Rates
This is a huge change to the hotel loyalty program. By removing the award chart, Marriott Bonvoy will adopt dynamic award pricing like Hilton Honors.
Will it now cost me more points to redeem?
While an award night can still be booked the same way it always has been, the redemption rate of an award night is now more flexible. That means when there is more availability at the hotel – during slower periods, for instance – redemption rates may be lower. In general, the range of points required to redeem a stay at a hotel will be the same as they are today.
While they are saying that “range of points required to redeem a stay at a hotel will be the same as they are today”, it’s hard to imagine that there will be good off-peak award availability at Marriott Bonvoy sweet spots like The Ritz-Carlton Maldives and Al Maha Resort Dubai.
The huge worry is the line in the article that states “the amount of points needed to redeem a stay will be more flexible and will more closely align with hotel rates”. That really sounds like the death of sweet spots.
Bottom line
What a poor timing to have posted the Marriott Bonvoy sweet spot article just yesterday! Consider locking in those sweet spots in the coming weeks before they are gone.