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UPDATE: The booking window for off-peak pricing has closed.
In a customer-friendly move, Marriott just announced more program updates to encourage Bonvoy members to travel again. For a limited time, Marriott will make over 5,500 properties available at only off-peak award prices.
Also, Bonvoy members who earned elite status in 2019 will be gifted additional elite night credits. Although existing Marriott elite status has already been extended, this helps members towards earning higher status tier and additional Choice Benefits in 2020.
Off Peak Pricing
Since 2019, Marriott has utilized an award chart featuring seasonal pricing segmented into Off Peak, Standard, and Peak rates for free night awards. This chart splits all 7,000+ properties participating in the Bonvoy program into eight categories.
| Category | OFF-PEAK | STANDARD | PEAK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5,000 | 7,500 | 10,000 |
| 2 | 10,000 | 12,500 | 15,000 |
| 3 | 15,000 | 17,500 | 20,000 |
| 4 | 20,000 | 25,000 | 30,000 |
| 5 | 30,000 | 35,000 | 40,000 |
| 6 | 40,000 | 50,000 | 60,000 |
| 7 | 50,000 | 60,000 | 70,000 |
| 8 | 70,000 | 85,000 | 100,000 |
For a limited time, Marriott is making over 5,500 properties available at solely Off Peak award prices.
- Off Peak pricing is available for bookings made between June 15 through June 30, 2020 (promotional booking window)
- Promotional pricing applies to stays through July 31, 2020
- No Marriott Bonvoy properties will be priced at Peak award pricing for stays through July 31, 2020
A Marriott spokesperson shared with AwardWallet that there may be some markets offering a mix of standard and off-peak rates. This implies that all properties in some cities will be set at Off Peak, while other areas will have a mixture of Off Peak and Standard pricing.
Some noteworthy high-category U.S. properties that will be exclusively Off Peak for the promotional period include:
- The St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, Puerto Rico
- Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, Autograph Collection
- The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel
- The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay
Bonus Elite Night Credits
Many members are unable to travel this year. So, Marriott is gifting bonus Elite Night Credits to Bonvoy members who earned elite status from qualifying activity in 2019.
- Bonvoy members will have Elite Night Credits (ENCs) deposited in their account equal to 50% of the elite nights necessary for the elite status tier earned in 2019
- Members can expect these elite night credits to appear in their account in late July 2020
- For U.S. and Canada residents, these credits are in addition to the elite night credits earned from holding Marriott co-branded credit cards
- These Elite Night Credits will count towards Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime elite status
While Marriott has already extended current Bonvoy elite status through February 2022, the idea behind gifting ENCs is to “jumpstart your ability to move quickly to the next elite tier.” These ENCs can also help members qualify for the Choice Benefits offered after reaching Platinum Elite and Titanium Elite status at 50 and 75 nights, respectively.
Gift Platinum Elite Status
Marriott Ambassador Elite status is one of the most challenging hotel statuses to earn, requiring 100 qualifying nights and $20,000 in qualifying spent each year. To further reward these most loyal of travelers, Marriot has announced a new perk targeting them specifically:
“Ambassador members who earned status in 2019 and reach 100 ENCs this year will be able to share Platinum Elite status with a friend, family member, or loved one.”
Anyone who qualifies for this exclusive benefit will receive an email with all the relevant details starting in late July through the end of 2020.
Final Thoughts
Paying Off-Peak prices is much more attractive than Standard or Peak pricing. At the same time, cash rates may also be very low. So, make sure you're getting a value that you're comfortable with before booking a free night award.
Additional ENCs are nice as well, especially when combined with the 30 ENCs members can earn from holding both a personal and business Marriott credit card. However, this may manifest itself in an unusually large amount of Bonvoy elite members for the next year or two.
Most of the major hotel groups announced major program updates in response to the pandemic in early April. Unfortunately, the outlook on travel hasn't improved nearly as much in the last two months as we would have liked. Marriott is now the first hotel group to double-down on these major, customer-friendly changes to try to convince travelers to leave their homes.
That said, I feel Marriott could go further. When Peak/Off-Peak award pricing was first announced, Marriott stated that Off-Peak and Peak pricing would be based on hotel demand. Yet, this Off-Peak promotional window is only available through the end of July. Is overall demand for August and September high enough that Marriott couldn't have extended the window for another month or two?
In any case, it's great to see Marriott taking further steps for its Bonvoy members. Hopefully, some of our other favorite hotel programs follow suit in the coming weeks.
Are you more likely to book a Marriott stay for July due to off-peak pricing?
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I had heard that they may be changing the annual one free night award to a different redemption value than the current stated 35,000 points. Any thoughts?
I haven’t heard that rumor yet. Feel free to pass along any details you see on that!
All of this is ok, but first of all When Marriot change their loyalty program they suppose to combine SPG miles point to the new account Bon Voy. I used to have point and when they change it they “forgot” to add my miles so now they ask me to sent them all the documents I got to return my miles back. Conclution I have to start from cero again so I will change to another loyalty program who respect my earned miles
Well applying off peak rate for an ultra off peak period it’s not a super excellent promo.
Even though it’s a nice possbility for people who are able to go on vacation by July.
I’m trying to book several rooms for a family vacation in Quebec City. I’ve noticed that the cash rates are bouncing all over the place, but all the hotels are still applying Peak pricing on points, even though the points redemption values are more than 4X the equivalent cash rate. which are far less than recent summer rates. Almost all foreigners are barred from Canada due to Covid, so their pricing strategies are puzzling, at least to me. Quebec City is normally crawling with Americans, Asians and Europeans this time of year.
I have a 3 day reservation starting this coming Sunday that I used 180,000 points for. I checked the website and it is now 150,000 points. I called Marriott and they applied a 30,000 point credit to my account within minutes of my call. Thanks for this info.
Nice move by Marriott. I have 30 nights from the cards (personal + biz) then will get 25 from the above promotion gives me 55 – does that mean I get the benefit choice for 50 nights? I guess I’ll see in late July. Nice for actually not spending a night so far this year in a Marriott hotel.
This is welcomed news given the lack of demand during this time. Hopefully the off-peak pricing will be extended beyond July 31st, as this leaves little time to plan.
I think that people will start travelling no matter what month is… Taking advante of most company´s new home office flexible rules, you could travel and work anywhere in the world without the need of going to your office, or even beeing at the same time zone…
Most companys from Argentina are starting to think like this because of the 90 days quarentine that seems that will be at least 2 month more
Interesting move. I’m wondering if their trying to gauge how much demand would be for this. I’m hoping for low rates to gain points in my hotel programs for later. I know next summer I’m going to need some and I’m sure amounts will be higher then. I wonder how many complaints they got when it went out that elite benefits are not guaranteed right now?
Agree with manny comments already. If they are trying to be customer centric, then the duration of the offer should be ‘longer’ and a list of venues easily accessible.
However I do appreciate that elite status is being carried over.
Will the bonus elite nights also be provided to elite members who have the status thru the United Mileageplus or Amex Platinum card ?
That’s a great question. I don’t have an answer, unfortunately. I guess we’ll have to wait until July to find out.
I hope this offer is extended.
Great information. It could be useful
To be fair there’s no demand so everything is offpeak right now.
Good for them in actually doing this though.
I’ve been a Marriott member for years. They are a great hotel and these current offers are fantastic. We are going to book our summer vacation with them.
Hoping Hyatt to provide free elite nights as well!
This is a good opportunity to attract clients for Marriott. Once they merged with Sheraton, many brands are available so you can redeem your points almost anywhere in the world. I would take advantage of this offer.
I love Marriott. Just perfect relationship between quality and price.
It is great to see off-peak pricing at so many properties, but I agree this would have a bigger impact if the window was past July.
This is a smart move by Marriott to fill some empty rooms. I was able to rebook a couple of reward stays coming up to save 20,000 points!
I agree, too little validity time. Hopefully they will extend it from July to September to make it more interesting.
This will most likely happen due to the pandemic. There’s little to no mood for travelling right now, people are still affraid to be infected. Well… Most of them. Some just don’t care.
Just till the end of July…what a joke.
Marriott seriously needs to rethink this promotion.
This is a nice gesture for Marriott, but does it leave much time to make your plans and travel. Seems like it’s similar to fishing if you’ve got a boat ready to go, here’s the bait.
Unfortunately on the global scale, countries I’m interested in are still requiring a 14-day quarantine before you can enjoy your time visiting them. What’s the point of traveling to sit in quarantine?
This is a good thing. Just wish that they went beyond July 31.
It’s too bad, that this is only valid through the end of July. They should have done it through the end of August, for bigger impact.
Token effort by Marriott. Not going to move the needle significantly.
It probably achieves what they’re intending though. It generates some buzz, some publicity, and may jump start some revenue again.
Nice try by Marriott. This could encourage folks to start traveling again.
Now, let’s hope that the borders will be reopened soon.
I’ve seen this announced on basically every points blog but there doesn’t actually appear to be a full list anywhere of the 5500 properties?
Unfortunately, a list of the 5,500+ properties isn’t available. From some general searching, it seems almost all currently-open Marriott properties are pricing at Off Peak.
Brilliant, thanks, will start looking into what’s reasonable for us travel-wise.
“Gift Platinum Elite Status” could be quite useful as the benefit spreads the cheer.
Is there a complete list of hotels in the promotion?
I want to know what benefits i can get if join as a Mariott Bonvoy member and which are the 5500 properties available at off peak rates.see an extract from your post.
“For a limited time, Marriott is making over 5,500 properties available at solely Off Peak award prices.
Off Peak pricing is available for bookings made between June 15 through June 30, 2020 (promotional booking window)
Promotional pricing applies to stays through July 31, 2020
No Marriott Bonvoy properties will be priced at Peak award pricing for stays through July 31, 2020”
Marriott didn’t provide a list of all 5,500+ properties. And that’s understandable considering just how long that list would be!
If you haven’t joined Marriott yet, you’ll want to sign up through this promotion to get a free night after completing just two stays: https://awardwallet.com/blog/airline-hotel-new-member-bonuses/