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For Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite members and above, Nightly Upgrade Awards (formerly Suite Night Awards) can be one of the most valuable perks in the program. Earned as an Annual Choice Benefit, these awards give you the chance to confirm an upgrade to a premium room or suite before arrival — potentially turning a standard stay into something far more comfortable.
But like many elite benefits, the fine print matters. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to earn, find, and use Nightly Upgrade Awards so you can get the most value out of them.
Page Contents
How To Earn Nightly Upgrade Awards
Only Marriott Platinum Elite and Titanium Elite members qualify for choice benefits, though Ambassadors can, of course, use them as well. Each year following earning elite status, these elites can choose one benefit. One of the options is five Nightly Upgrade Awards.
There are seven choices for your Annual Choice Benefit as a Platinum. They include:
- Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
- Save $1,000 on a bed from Marriott Bonvoy Boutiques
- Gift Marriott Bonvoy Silver status
- Donate $100 to the Arne M. Sorenson Hospitality Fund
- Donate $100 to UNICEF
- Donate $100 to the World Wildlife Fund
- Add five Elite Night Credits to get you closer to earning Titanium.
The most valuable choice benefits at the Platinum Elite level are adding elite night credits and Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Titaniums have two additional options at 75 elite nights to choose from. They include:
- Receive a Free Night Award (up to 40,000 points)
- Gift Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite Status
At Titanum, I would recommend choosing the free night award over an additional five Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Nightly Upgrade Awards expire on December 31st of the year that you earn them. And, if you're worried about them expiring without you realizing, AwardWallet Plus tracks their expiration dates automatically.
Related: Choosing the Most Valuable Marriott Bonvoy Annual Choice Benefits
Marriott Bonvoy status from credit cards
Marriott Bonvoy has four personal and one business credit card offered by American Express and Chase. Each card provides 15 elite night credits per year, except the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card. It provides 25 elite night credits.
When you hold at least one personal card and one business card, you can earn a total of 30 elite night credits (or 40 if you have the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card and the Marriott business card). You can only earn elite night credits from one personal card, no matter how many you hold. That's 30 of the 50 elite night credits necessary to reach Platinum Elite Status and earn Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Some Bonvoy credit cards come with complimentary Silver or Gold Elite status, but only one comes with complimentary Platinum Elite status: the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card. While this seems ideal, you still need the requisite number of elite night credits (50 or 75) to choose an Annual Choice Benefit from the list above. Just receiving Platinum Elite status automatically isn't sufficient.
However, this card does provide an annual Earned Choice Award if you make $60,000 of purchases in a calendar year. One option on that list is Nightly Upgrade Awards, so there exists another path to unlocking this benefit, though turning down a Free Night Award (up to 85,000 points) is a hard decision to make.
- Earn 185,000 Marriott Bonvoy® bonus points after you use your new Card to make $6,000 in purchases within the first 6 months of Card Membership.
- $300 Brilliant Dining Credit: Each calendar year, get up to $300 (up to $25 per month) in statement credits for eligible purchases made on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card at restaurants worldwide.
- With Marriott Bonvoy® Platinum Elite Status, you can receive room upgrades, including enhanced views or suites, when the stay is booked with a Qualifying Rate at hotels that participate in Marriott Bonvoy, subject to availability upon check-in.
- Earn 6X Marriott Bonvoy® points for each dollar of eligible purchases at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy®. Earn 3X Marriott Bonvoy® points at restaurants worldwide and on flights booked directly with airlines and 2X Marriott Bonvoy® points on all other eligible purchases made on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card.
- Free Night Award: Receive 1 Free Night Award every year after your Card renewal month. Award can be used for one night (redemption level at or under 85,000 Marriott Bonvoy® points) at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy®. Certain hotels have resort fees.
- Each calendar year after spending $60,000 on eligible purchases on your Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card, you will be eligible to select a Brilliant Earned Choice Award benefit. You can only earn one Brilliant Earned Choice Award per calendar year. See https://www.choice-benefit.marriott.com/brilliant for Award options.
- $100 Marriott Bonvoy® Property Credit: Enjoy your stay. Receive up to a $100 property credit for qualifying charges at The Ritz-Carlton® or St. Regis® when you book direct using a special rate for a two-night minimum stay using your Card.
- Fee Credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®: Receive either a statement credit every 4 years after you apply for Global Entry ($120) or a statement credit every 4.5 years after you apply for a five-year membership for TSA PreCheck® (up to $85 through a TSA PreCheck official enrollment provider) and pay the application fee with your Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card. If approved for Global Entry, at no additional charge, you will receive access to TSA PreCheck.
- Each calendar year with your Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card you can receive 25 Elite Night Credits toward the next level of Marriott Bonvoy® Elite status. Limitations apply per Marriott Bonvoy member account. Benefit is not exclusive to Cards offered by American Express.
- Enroll in Priority Pass™ Select, which offers unlimited airport lounge visits to over 1,200 lounges in over 130 countries, regardless of which carrier or class you are flying. This allows you to relax before or between flights. You can enjoy snacks, drinks, and internet access in a quiet, comfortable location.
- No Foreign Transaction Fees on international purchases.
- With Cell Phone Protection*, you can be reimbursed, the lesser of, your repair or replacement costs following damage, such as a cracked screen, or theft for a maximum of $800 per claim when your cell phone line is listed on a wireless bill and the prior month's wireless bill was paid by an Eligible Card Account. A $50 deductible will apply to each approved claim with a limit of 2 approved claims per 12-month period. Additional terms and conditions apply. *Coverage is provided by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG Company.
- $650 Annual Fee.
- Apply with confidence. Know if you're approved for a Card with no impact to your credit score. If you're approved and you choose to accept this Card, your credit score may be impacted.
- Terms Apply.
- Rates & Fees
- 6X points on purchases at Marriott Properties
- 3X points at restaurants worldwide, including takeout and delivery
- 3X points on flights booked directly with airlines
- 2X points on all other eligible purchases
Related: How To Earn Marriott Elite Night Credits
How To Find Nightly Upgrade Awards in Your Account
Annual Choice Benefits become available shortly after earning Platinum Elite or Titanium Elite status. Marriott states on its website that you'll receive a congratulatory email within 48 hours of earning status. The email will contain a link to choose your benefits. If you do not choose your annual choice benefits, Marriott will automatically assign you Nightly Upgrade Awards.
You'll find that Marriott clearly notes how many Nightly Upgrade Awards you have left in your account.
Related: The Complete Guide to Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status
Track your Nightly Upgrade Awards with AwardWallet
You can also keep track of your Nightly Upgrade Awards with AwardWallet. Add your Marriott Bonvoy account to your AwardWallet to keep track of your Marriott Bonvoy points balance, progress towards elite status, how many Nightly Upgrade Awards you have available and when they expire, and more.
How To Use Nightly Upgrade Awards
You can apply your upgrade awards to an existing reservation made with points or cash. Ensure the reservation is attached to the Bonvoy account from which you'll redeem the free Nightly Upgrade Awards. Log in to your account and choose the trip you want to apply an upgrade award to under My Trips.
Click on “Start Upgrade Request” in the gray shaded box that now outlines how many Nightly Upgrade Awards are required for your reservation. The next page will show your reservation details and the options available to you, if you're able to apply Nightly Upgrade Awards.
In the case of this reservation at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, there are six rooms available to use my nightly upgrade on. There are suite options, as well as base level rooms with a high floor or better view. That's a change from the previous Suite Night Awards. You have more room types to choose from, but now they include non-suite options. I like the option to select giant suites like the two-bedroom Bi-level suite in the example.
After choosing your room, you have to click the button labeled Submit Request to finish. If accepted, your upgrade will clear within three days of check-in. That's another change, as Suite Night Awards previously cleared within five days of check-in, meaning you might know about your upgrade sooner. In my years as a Marriott Platinum and Titanium, and now Lifetime Platinum, it is hard to say if Nightly Upgrade Awards will actually clear. Sometimes, they do, especially on one-night reservations. Other times, they never clear, but I still receive an upgrade to the room I was hoping for at check-in. And, of course, there are stays when an upgrade never occurs!
What stays are eligible for using Nightly Upgrade Awards?
Nightly Upgrade Awards can be used for eligible stays, one per night. An eligible stay is any stay on which you would otherwise earn Bonvoy elite night credits. This includes stays booked through Marriott's website and mobile app, paid stays, Cash & Points stays, points stays, stays redeemed with free night certificates, and Marriott STARS rates through a travel agent.
Third-party bookings, such as those made through an Online Travel Agent (OTA) such as Priceline, are not eligible for Nightly Upgrade Awards.
What hotels are eligible?
You can use Nightly Upgrade Awards at many of Marriott's over 30 hotel brands and collections. They are not available to use at the following brands, however:
- All-Inclusive Resorts
- Bulgari
- Design Hotels
- Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy®
- Marriott Executive Apartments
- Marriott Vacation Club
- Marriott Grand Residence Club
- The Ritz-Carlton Club
- Ritz-Carlton Reserve
- The Ritz-Carlton Residences
- The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection
- Sheraton Vacation Club
- Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy
- The Phoenician Residences, a Luxury Collection Residence Club, Scottsdale
- Westin Vacation Club
- MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy
Sometimes, independently owned Marriott Bonvoy properties may not accept Nightly Upgrade Awards. Unfortunately, you may not know if the hotel you're booking accepts them until you've already booked and then try to redeem the award. You could call the property ahead of time to see if they would accept your upgrade awards or not.
Note that Nightly Upgrade Awards are eligible at EDITION and Ritz-Carlton properties (unless listed above), while the previous Suite Night Awards weren't in the past.
What rooms are eligible?
According to the terms of Nightly Award Upgrades, you can use upgrade awards for premium rooms and standard suites. However, individual properties decide which rooms to make available for these awards, so rooms you expect to see in the list sometimes aren't.
Nightly Upgrade Award requests for an eligible room can clear as early as five days before arrival for all brands except for EDITION, the Ritz-Carlton, and the St. Regis. These three brands begin clearing Nightly Upgrade Awards three days before arrival. Upgrade availability is checked each day until 2 p.m. local time one day before arrival. If there is no upgrade available, your awards will be credited back to your account.
Awards must be used for the entire stay. Thus, if you have fewer awards available than the number of nights in your reservation, you can't use them for that stay. Upgrade awards are not guaranteed and can only be canceled and redeposited to your account if you cancel the whole reservation.
When applying a one of these awards, be sure that the rooms you request still have what you need, such as the number of beds required for your party.
Final Thoughts
The ability to upgrade your hotel stay as an elite status or credit card benefit is fantastic. For me, credit card points already unlock travel experiences for me and my family that we otherwise couldn't afford. Elevating my hotel experience by upgrading my room for no additional fee is right up there with airport lounges on the list of benefits I enjoy most. Every small convenience helps in the overall experience.
While some bemoan the shorter lead time before check-in with the new Nightly Upgrade Awards, this hasn't reduced how much value I get from them.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (Rates & Fees)
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