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During its recent rebranding exercise, Marriott updated its policy for transferring points between Marriott Bonvoy accounts. The previous policy allowed members to transfer up to 50,000 points per year, with an exception for one-time transfers that were to be used immediately for a redemption. The updated Marriott transfer policy is now hard-coded into the system and allows you to transfer up to 100,000 points per year to another Bonvoy member, and Marriott has done away with the one-time transfers. 
The Fastest Way Of Increasing Your Marriott Bonvoy Account Balance
Marriott makes it simple to earn a substantial number of rewards points through stays and points promotions. If you find a fantastic deal that you have to book, but don't have enough points to make it work, there are a couple of ways to fast track your points earning efforts significantly, the first of which is to apply for one of the Marriott co-brand credit cards.
Possibly the fastest way to increase your points balance, however, is to transfer points from another account, typically from a friend or family member. A common side effect of collecting points and miles is that it rarely happens alone. When you announce to family and friends you have booked a seven-night stay in a 5-star hotel, flying first class, and it cost you little out of pocket, most of us wind up educating our families and sometimes our entire social circles on collecting points and miles.
Note: You are not required to have all the points in your account at the time of booking the award stay. You can book the award using an e-certificate giving you time to transfer points (which can take a few days to make it into your account).
Transferring Marriott Bonvoy Points To Another Account
Marriott will let you transfer up to 100,000 points per year to any Marriott account you choose, provided that account is in good standing and has been open a minimum of 60 days.
“…a Member can transfer up to a maximum of 100,000 Points per calendar year to another Membership Account as long as both Accounts are in good standing and have each been open for at least sixty (60) days. A Member can receive up to a maximum of 500,000 Points per calendar year from other Membership Accounts as long as the Accounts are in good standing and have each been open for at least sixty (60 days).“
If your account has been open less than 60 days, you can still initiate or receive a transfer if the account is at least 30 days old and you have rewards activity in your account such as a qualifying stay or other points earning activity.
Prior to the SPG merger, Marriott members could also initiate a one-time transfer that exceeded the annual transfer limit, provided the points were redeemed immediately for a free night award. AwardWallet has confirmed with Marriott Rewards that this is no longer the case, and the 100,000 point limit on transfers is a hard cap. You can receive transfers from multiple accounts, up to 500,000 points per year, but you can no longer exceed the 100,000 point transfer limit when sending points from your account to other members.
To initiate a transfer, call Marriott Rewards Guest Services on 1-801-468-4000 (it pays to have both sets of account information handy).
Do Points Transfers Extend the Expiry Date of Marriott Points?
At the beginning of 2016, Marriott updated the points expiration policy to exclude transfers as a qualifying activity, meaning members that don't have any qualifying activity for 24 months will forfeit all accumulated points in their account. It is important to note two of the events here that do not count towards maintaining active account status.
- Gifting or transferring points to another account
- Receiving gifted or transferred points
See our extended post on Marriott Bonvoy points expiration for all the details.
Final Thoughts
Marriott's points transfer policy has been well thought out to avoid members abusing the transfer rules. The 100,000 limit for transfers from an account is enough for lower category redemptions and topping off accounts that are just a few thousand short of a travel goal. And the 500,000 limit on receiving points enables families with points spread across multiple accounts to consolidate their points into a single account to redeem for an extended stay, or, to take advantage of one family members' elite status.
Full details on point transfers can be found at Marriott.com (section 2.8.).
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Thanks for clarifying the rules. Was able to transfer points from my wife’s account (which was expiring) to mine!
Is it better for my wife to merge Bonvoy accounts with mine or just gift 100K points and keep her own separate account? She has about 160K points and I have about 460K and am Gold Elite. If she merges accounts with mine do all 160K points come with it?
You can’t merge accounts belonging to two different people. Only transfer the points from one to the other.
I am about to try and consolidate some of the points earned from other members of the family, and I wondered if anyone had any luck circumventing the 100k limit via uncombined accounts (ie anyone who has their previous SPG and Marriott linked but not combined).
It would work something like this:
A (former SPG) 100k > B (former SPG)
A (Marriott) 100k > B (Marriott)
then have B either do an internal transfer between the linked accounts or combine them to access the full 200k.
I’m pretty certain it would work with unlinked accounts, but didn’t know if Bonvoy’s IT would flag the linked nature and create a hard cap of 100k in total for the two accounts.
Sorry…I mean can either the account owner with the points or the one receiving them make the transfer (assuming either has both sets of acct info)?
Points can only be transferred from the account holding the points. You cannot initiate a transfer from the account receiving the points.
Does it matter whether it is the point receiver or receivee requesting the transfer from Marriott? Thank you
Sorry Pam, not sure I understand the question. Does it affect the number of points you can transfer or receive?
Sorry bout that, I mean can either the account owner who is giving away the points or the one receiving them arrange the transfer (assuming either has all the info needed on the other)?
With SPG you could transfer any amount of points that you desired with no limit, from ONE member to another (who shared the same home address). 5,000,000 points if you wanted. Also, the transfer used to be done online, and there was no charge.
100K a year is nothing, even 500K is too low and you would need 5 members to transfer the points.
SPG was by far a much better program than Bonvoy, what a pity.
Can you get around the 100,000-mile cap by:
A -> B 100
A -> C 100
B -> C 100
with C ending up with 200?
No, as the ‘from’ account can only transfer 100K points. If A + B both had 100K, they could transfer that to C as you can receive up to 500K points per year.
good to know that this can be used to get “reimbursed” for friends/family.
Thanks for the info, this is useful. Interesting that there is a minimum amount of time the account needs to have been open for.
Marriott just announced that they are rebranding their rewards program to Marriott Bonvoy effective February 13 and combining the Ritz and SPG into this new program.
quite useful for Gold/Plat. members to top up other accounts. Good to know.
Does Marriott ever allow transferring free nights from one account to another vs points?
No, free nights are non-transferrable.
We have a Marriott stay in the near future and I wanted to prepay so that we could apply that toward the spend on an SPG American Express card. I’ve had to contact different people and jump through various hoops able to make that happen. At the moment, it seems that I have to fill out a form authorizing the credit card to be charged prior to arrival and I can prepay. One person told me that it would be through a third-party and yet another agent told me it would be direct to Marriott. Crazy confusion. Why does this have to be so difficult?
I don’t necessarily like this policy. I thought the legacy SPG policy was better where you could share unlimited points between you and your partner (provided you share the same address). I think Marriott should allow greater than 100K transfers for folks living at the same address.
Great to share points.
Could come in handy. Thanks for the heads up. Merry Christmas.
thanks for the info
I did not see the option to combine accounts from web. I called the number 801-468-4000 and get it done.
Thanks for the information on how to combine Marriott accounts. There are always some things that can only be accomplished with a phone call.
How do you make this work? I have tried without success
Lots of guidance in the article itself, including this key sentence: “To initiate a transfer, call Marriott Rewards Guest Services on 1-801-468-4000 (it pays to have both sets of account information handy).”
This is good news. Too bad their IT department doesn’t keep up with changes and allow this to be accomplished on the website.
I know, it really is shocking
had to convert my marriott points when they started the expiration dates, so no go for me.
It sounds like such a pain to call in. Are there plans to implement an online transfer program?
I want this too!
Thanks a lot for providing all the info. I guess I got a good agent. Just tried it and it worked with no issue…
Great article, Amex earn for me is still the easiest for these points.
Great info thanks.
Thank you for clarifying this information.
Good information and positive update by Marriott. Wish they would allow unlimited between people in the same household though.
With the points from the “29 Days” promo just posting – I think ITS THE PERFECT time to attempt a family transfer to mop up the odd 1000 or so points .
I called them today and after a crazy hold the agent had no idea how to do this and transferred me to someone else who kept on saying limit was 50k. Marriot must really get their act together!
Thanks for sharing this. I took advantage of this option.
I’m glad transfers can be made and certainly respect the desire to put a cap in place to prevent abuse.
The detail and recap here is very much appreciated. Which one of the rewards plus hotel and air packages do you consider to be best value? I’m making the assumption that the Rewards Plus with United is better value than any of the other airlines
It depends on your goals and destination. There is no “best”
Useful guide. Now I just need more Marriott points ?
Thanks. Didn’t know about the e-certificate.
I’m confused. For $10 iI can transfer points from my husband’s account to mine? Seems less prohibitive than airline sharing miles
And if you have gold elite status, no fee. Yes, far less prohibitive.
I’m onto Marriot Reward team now – there’s no charge to transfer from any account no Gold+ status required
This is a great recap. I learned some new points to this program.
Wonderful news that Marriott upped the limit from 50K per year to 100K per year.
That makes a huge difference
Marriott points are great to transfer to airlines thanks to them absorbing the SPG airline transfer bonus!
Did this last week and it worked fine!
Although I agree, it would be better if one could do it online.
good update. thx.
Thanks for the guide!
The new Marriott transfer option is much more convenient than the old option.
Point transfer cap is too low @ 100k. Going to have to multiple family accounts to transfer & consolidate.
Talk about timing… With the points from the “29 Days” promo just posting to mine, and the wife’s accounts, I was just thinking to myself today that I’d have to look into this. Thanks for the answer!
Do the points need to be transferred in 1000 increments? Also does an old SPG account have to be updated to a Marriott account before the points can be moved?
There are no such thing as SPG accounts — they’re all Marriott accounts. My last transfer was before the merger and was not in a 1,000 point increment, but I’m not sure if that is a rule.
Thanks for this info, I hope it can be done online soon.
I think this would be a good way to get some airline miles for another users account. Transfer the Marriott points to them, then they can transfer those points to an airline. Or is that prohibited in the terms and conditions? The caveat being that it could take weeks for the points to be transferred to miles by Marriott.
I read the article and received a notice that I “commented too fast”. I’m not sure what that means, but it seems like you are trying to prevent people from leaving comments without reading the article, which I understand. However, if that is the case, it is clear you have your time filter set too short. What about people who are only interested in part of the article and read based on the section heading only what they are interested in?
So beneficial to have family sharing but it would be so much better if it could be done over the internet or with knowledgeable customer service reps.
I think the max cap for point transfer is too low.
They need to increase the cap by like 10 times.
Great clarification of these rules.
Too bad there is a fee (even if only 10$) but its good to know there is the option to transfer points – I didn’t realize there was. This will allow me to transfer points and then stay with status instead of my none status.
No fee if you have Marriott credit card. If you don’t have one get one for the sign up bonus.
transfer so long as all your other data does not go along with it
I have only dived into SPG points in the past. Maybe it’s time to start participating in other hotel chains’ points systems.
This is useful information to have. I was thinking of going with Marriott and this helped me make a decision.
Other than points earnt from stays, are there any other ways of extending your account?
Please give this a read: https://awardwallet.com/blog/do-marriott-points-expire/
Nice to have this option
To their credit, loyalty programs seem to be getting better with their allowances on points pooling. Kudos to them.
Thanks for the info!
I appreciate the update. I’m really surprised that Marriott hasn’t integrated points transfers into their website.
I’ll add Marriott to my ‘family pooling’ list, which contains Jetblue and Hyatt.
Thanks. I’ll add this to my ‘family pooling’ list that also contains Jetblue and Hyatt.
This is good information. Marriott should really allow this to be done on-line. There is no good reason to limit transfers to 100,000 points.
Online would make it a lot easier!
We just cashed out and abandoned Marriott. It’s too difficult to try and maintain both Marriott and Hilton and at the end of the day Hilton has more value in their credit card to us. It wasn’t great value but 66,000 Marriott points gave us well over 20,000 United miles plus a bonus. No regrets here.
Good advice in order to consolidate my account with the account of my friend.
I’m trying to transfer 100,000 points to my son as part of his wedding gift. The first Marriott Rewards agent I spoke to told me I could only transfer 50,000 points, so I provided my son’s account number and she quickly made the transfer. After I hung up I did some research and learned that the limit had been increased to 100,000. Thus I called back and got a different Marriott Rewards agent, Anita – – a huffy bureaucrat. She told me I could not transfer points to my son without him being present with me to authorize Marriott accessing his account! I told her I had just transferred 50,000 10 minutes earlier. She said the other agent obviously didn’t know Marriott policies. Gotta love the Marriott Team!! I plan to call again and see if there is a real “customer service “ representative. I am a Platinum Elite member.
Yes, limit is 100k per year. It used to be 50k, and most agents dont seem to know the new rules.
It happened to me as well, some agents transferred by me just giving the member ID, which i think shouldnt be possible.. whereas other agent asked for the person whom i was transferring from to speak on the phone.
And I do agree, since the merge, must agent dont know what they are talking about.
This was helpful, thanks!
What happens if you subsequently cancel a reward that you had points transferred for. Do they automatically go back to yours or the original account?
they go back into the account that booked the award; so yours.
Thanks for clarifying!
Any idea if it is possible? I havent had any luck recently.
I’m Plat Premium Elite. I’ve had two different PPE operators tell me they can’t transfer more than 50k points from my wife’s account to redeem a 240k award I have on hold – which took forever to clear. One operator hung up when I pusher to recheck. Second one I asked for supervisor transfer and ended up in hold loop – gave up after 10 mins. Really frustrating.
All agents assume that the limit is 50k, which was the case pre-merge. Now, if you check the T&C, it states a limit of 100k. And most importantly, the system allows it. I know because in September i transferred exactly 100k from one account to another. When we tried more, the system denied it, but under 100k it went through fine.
Would you send a link for that information please?
Share your points
Now you can share your points with any other member.
Transfer 1,000 points or more—up to a maximum of 100,000 points per year.
Just contact Member Support at (888) 625-4988 to start sharing.
at the bottom of the page https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/redeem.mi
Is there a fee to make the transfer?
$10 unless you have gold elite status or higher. With that level of status it is free.
So good only with a reasonable quantity of points.
Do you know if a member without a status initiates a transfer to a Platinum account, whether they need to pay 10 bucks? I guess it only works for free the other way round?
Is the transfer done for a booking ( after the limit transfer per user has been reached ) still allowed under the new terms ? I called twice today and agents were unsure, and i also checked the T&C and couldn’t find any references to it, unfortunately.
still allowed? I didn’t know it was ever allowed once you passed the limit.
Yep, it was allowed, check on this page, there is a extract from the old T&C.
Oh yes, you can do the once per year exception for a specific redemption — this has not changed. That is the only exception.
Actually it seems to have changed. It is nowhere to be found in the new T&C. I called yesterday as well, spoke to 3 diff agents, all said it was not possible.
That is counter to the discussions I’ve had. I haven’t had the discussion in the past month.
Just went through a similar experience. Should be easily accomplished on the website but instead, you have to call and waste far too much time sitting on hold. Love Marriot and the rewards program but I pray they update their online capabilities for the convenience of the customer
I have been on hold for almost an hour and a half trying to transfer 7,000 points from my account to my son in law who is trying to plan a surprise trip for his wife. Can someone help me?? I have his account number and mine. can I do this through e-mail??
You need to do this with Marriott directly. We aren’t Marriott, nor do we work for Marriott, so we can’t help. Sorry!
Thank you for this info. It helped in transferring orphan points that would have expired in my son’s no longer used account.
I am a Platinum and used my points on 2 recent trips. I am to receive 1/2 of the points from 2 other Marriott members…we used mine as I have Platinum and thought I had better upgrade power. If I use the points under their name/number can I still travel as a Platinum or will I only receive coverage for their status…one is Silver and one is Gold. Thank you.
You’ll receive YOUR benefits as you are the guest staying in the room.