Marriott may be on the verge of announcing an end to blackout dates and capacity controls for award night redemption, as well as other benefits.

Loyalty Traveler writes that Marriott posted an announcement about changes to their program coming in 2009. In addition to an end to capacity controls (matching Starwood and Hilton), the annoncement included pay for 3 award nights and get the 4th free and an increase in Platinum elite bonus points earned for hotel spending.

Loyalty Traveler wonders what will become of Marriott’s award chart which includes substantial discounts for progressively more redemption nights, speculating that 4th night free will mean more points required for the first three.

The announcement was pulled from the Marriott website after a few hours, and Marriott now says they have nothing to announce at this time. But if this was a bit early out of the chute, there’s clearly something close to this in the works.

This may be one more reason that Starwood is planning to come out with new benefits.