About a year ago, Marriott Bonvoy removed eight award categories and switched to dynamic pricing. Instead of award categories (which have a range of points you have to use in one night), dynamic pricing gives the super-chain the ability to charge at its discretion for award-winning stays .
Since other travel providers often use dynamic pricing to devalue their loyalty programs, we feared the worst knowing that Marriott would follow suit.
Marriott is committed to keeping 97% of hotels in their previous category pricing range through 2022. But now that we’re into 2023, what’s happened to the value of Marriott points?
During the last year, we conducted three phases of data collection for various hotels in the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio. To calculate the number of coins per point members can redeem, we removed taxes on cash stays (since you don’t have to pay taxes on rewards stays) and divided the percentage Cash rate for point price. We ran the test for every night for the next five months.
While our sample size doesn’t take into account Marriott’s huge portfolio, we can back it up numerically. our pricing Marriott points at these properties.
Here’s what we found.
You’ll need more points for an award night
When we run our second data collection in July 2022we realize that the Marriott hotel needs more points in April 2022. At first glance, it’s easy to assume that an increase in prize prices means a devaluation.
But rather than directly discounting Marriott points, the rewards hike is largely due to a spike in hotel prices as business and leisure traffic recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. As the cash rate increases, the prize ratio follows. This trend has continued in our most recent data collection. Most importantly, our average per-point exchange data remained the same across the three samples.
With the prize rate increasing with the cash price, Former grade 8 Marriott hotels often cost over 100,000 points per night. Find rooms for less than 120,000 points per night at The St. Regis New York during peak tourist days in the fall is difficult.
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Assuming this trend continues, we can expect Marriott bonus nights to increase if the cash rate continues to rise.
Related: Awards program devaluation is affecting luxury and premium buys the most – here’s how
Marriott points are not depreciated
While some properties have appreciated or disproportionately decreased in value due to dynamic valuation, overall, the value of Marriott points has remained unchanged.
Below is the value of Marriott points over five months, based on data from 17 hotels. Data is displayed as cents per point:
| April 2022 | July 2022 | February 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa | 1.08 | 1.26 | 1.09 |
| West Hollywood Version | 0.58 | 0.59 | 0.76 |
| Westin Denver International Airport | 0.66 | 0.61 | 0.70 |
| South Moxy Miami Beach | 0.61 | 0.96 | 1.03 |
| The resort of St. Regis Maldives Vommuli | 1.80 | 1.63 | 1.51 |
| SpringHill Suites by Marriott Springdale Zion National Park | 0.75 | 0.41 | 0.67 |
| Sheraton Grand Seattle | 0.48 | 0.47 | 0.52 |
| Marriott Chicago Oak Brook Inn | 1.24 | 0.84 | 0.96 |
| Le Meridien Dallas, The Stoneleigh | 0.97 | 0.94 | 0.91 |
| Waikiki . Beach Resort & Spa | 0.78 | 0.60 | 0.72 |
| Aruba Marriott Resort & Casino Stellaris | 1.01 | 0.88 | 0.89 |
| West Amsterdam | 0.82 | 0.88 | 0.74 |
| London version | 1.04 | 1.00 | 0.73 |
| Moxy Paris Prison | 0.41 | 0.75 | 0.49 |
| West Tokyo | 0.47 | 1.17 | 0.64 |
| West Singapore | 1.17 | 1.17 | 1.73 |
| The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Grand Cayman | 0.89 | 0.99 | 1.35 |
| Average total | 0.87 | 0.89 | 0.91 |
Related: The 26 best Marriott hotels in the world
bottom line
Dynamic pricing is volatile — your Marriott points may be worth it x Today and y in a few months. Furthermore, their value will vary by property.
In the case of these properties, our cumulative average shows that Marriott has not devalued its points. However, be prepared for sticker shock when you see cash prices and points for your next tropical vacation.
Although Marriott has yet to devalue its points overall, our data shows that there is a lot of uncertainty in the redemption of Marriott points. For example, Marriott’s scores at The Westin Tokyo were 45% less valuable in our February 2023 tests than in our July 2022 tests. Meanwhile, at Moxy Miami South Beach, they were 70% more valuable in our February 2023 tests than our April 2022 tests.
The unpredictability and magnitude of these bonus changes make me pessimistic about the long-term outlook for Marriott points.
In other words, if you are holding a large amount of Marriott pointsnow is the time to redeem them.
