Archie of Seal The Deal Travels broke down Marriott’s free night award devaluation.
While Marriott eliminated its award charts, that doesn’t mean the Bonvoy program can’t give members advance notice that they’ll be making major changes to the points price of a free night at its hotels, or at least communicate with members at all about their decision to gut the value of points. Yet they chose not to respect their members this way. That leaves us to analyze the data ourselves.
Even though there are no more award charts published, Marriott’s architecture still uses award categories in pricing its hotels and continues to do so with the devaluation. They’ve just adjusted their pricing bands within which they assign points prices to free nights at each property. These categories appear online in a hotel page’s metadata.
So Archie went and looked at hotel these bands have changed, just how broad the devaluation is, and how deep.
| Category | Min/Night (1st half of 2025) | Max/Night (1st half of 2025) | Max/Night (2nd half of 2024) | Change on Cap % | ||||
| 1 | 5,000 | 18,000 | 16,000 | 12.50% | ||||
| 2 | 10,000 | 28,000 | 25,000 | 12% | ||||
| 3 | 15,000 | 36,500 | 36,500 | 0% | ||||
| 4 | 23,000 | 55,000 | 50,000 | 10% | ||||
| 5 | 35,000 | 76,000 | 69,000 | ~10% | ||||
| 6 | 40,000 | 88,000 | 84,000 | ~4.7% | ||||
| 7 | 50,000 | 105,000 | 102,000 | ~2.9% | ||||
| 8 | 52,000 | 140,000 | 130,000 | ~7.7% | ||||
| 9 | 88,000 | 152,000 | 132,000 | ~15% |
In addition, certain ‘special’ properties have seen their pricing change as well. The first one that I had flagged was J.W. Marriott Masai Mara which topped out around 132,000 points per night last year but now ranges from 192,000 to 236,00 when it’s available.
Credit: Marriott
The St. Regis and Ritz properties in Maldives used to go up to 164,000 points but now top out at 198,000. The Ritz-Carlton Reserve Nujuma prices up to 327,500 points per night, and North Island in the Seychelles has gone up around 50% with pricing as high as 605,000 points per night.
The series of devaluations since the Bonvoy program first launched is hard to fathom. I’ve struggled to think of a positive thing that Bonvoy has done to make the program better since then. About a year ago I asked Marriott to give me some examples, they promised to do so, but ultimately chose not to. It’s quite sad, really.
Not even worth chasing point’s, ,and stays anymore! It’s obvious they only value a business traveler with millions of points & no choice
As a former employee of Marriott, I don’t understand the loyalty of Marriott members anymore.
The point of this article is just one example of why I say this. Marriott turned corporate ever since Mr Marriott died. Consistent is one thing but a rip off is another.
Bonvoy no more.
I’m a lifetime platinum elite and transferred all my miles to United. Their points are useless and I can also find equivalent hotels for less $$. Cancelled my Credit card too.
We’ve been Bonvoy’d, yet again.
Points rates nearly doubled at some of the properties I was following closely.
As mere lay consumers, we have little-to-no recourse here–petition the FTC to do something–yeah, not under this administration. All we can do is bring our business elsewhere, and maybe, in the aggregate, that affects supply/demand, and they change course, but that is all very unlikely.
Please do not do this, Hyatt–you’re the only hold-out, so far.
Would be interested in broad understanding of devaluations since the start of Bonvoy. e.g, if the first year of Bonvoy, I stayed at Al-Maha for 240k points for 5 nights over the Christmas/New Year holiday period. Now, that same stay is 608k, which represents just over a 150% increase in 5 years. I assume many other hotels have suffered similar levels of increase. There’s simply no justification Marriott can provide for that.
@khatl
This feels like 2018 all over again, following the Starwood merger, where awards were capped at 60K, then doubled overnight. Marriott is simply ‘too big to care’ these days.
And that’s why Marriott is my hotel chain of last resort.
Gary, your table column headings are confusing to put it nicely.
Big deal. I never spend time at Category 8 or 9 properties and rarely Category 6 or 7, so the increases are in line with what I would expect, given how devaluations go.
You people with your hair on fire about the Maldives and such properties just kill me — I have no desire to fly around the world and then catch a private airplane for yet another island with a sandy beach. Woo Hoo!
Can find that closer to home with far less difficulty, much less having the time to spend to go there wasting 2 entire days just getting there!
I have no desire to vacation with the glitterati!
Boo Hoo for You!
It sucks. But what other points program offer the same level of properties than Marriott?
Hilton got better with SLH. Hyatt got worst….and very limited number of properties.
At the end of the day this is going as the airlines loyalty miles….we are going to get 1 cent per mile most of the time.
@HADLEY V. BAXENDALE
(Sounds like someone’s never been to the Maldives…)
Most of us ‘with (our) hair on fire’ about that are upset because we know what we’re missing.
I hope you get to give it a try some day–you won’t be disappointed.
The 35k FNC’s – which are pretty much the only reason to be holding any low-end Marriott card – just became even less usable. Almost every major urban area has few/no desirable options – even when setting low standards, like a Springhill Suites.
I’m LT Plat now, but does it really matter anymore.
We’ve come a long way from Starwood, unfortunately.
I only stay at Marriotts twice per year to burn the free night 35K certs from my old Amex and Chase cards as I can usually find some lousy airport property where they will work. I guess I’m now closing the cards. It’s a relief though to be completely done with Marriott. Thanks for the shove.
@HADLEY Some people are just born to stay at Four Points and Fairfield Inn properties…
This is disappointing, for so many reasons. I’m a Marriott Lifetime Gold member, have been Platinum that past couple of years and missed Titanium by about three nights this year. I’ve always appreciated the Marriott perks like upgrades and lounge access – those actually mean a lot when I travel. But these new redemption values are ridiculous. Among other things, it means that my “free night” certificates will only cover about half the cost of a night at a property where I would typically stay. That’s not ok. I’m not sure this will push me to other hotel chains but it certainly weakens my loyalty.
As a former employee, this makes it harder to pitch the loyalty program. The hotel brands are starting to go down hill too. Everything that made Marriott Bonvoy special is no more! I use to love what MB brought to the table but now it’s not even worth the loyalty program.
I’m tired of wasting Mr time chasing points. I can’t even find a decent hotel to use with my free night certificate. I’m cutting up my credit card too!
I am a Lifetime Titanium with over 2,000 nights just with Marriott alone. I used millions of points and have saved a lot my points for RETIREMENT only to find out I’m getting screwed.
Since Bill passed – they have gone overly corporate and have forgotten the loyal business travelers built their brands for them. I have numerous examples of reduced of lack customer service caring and and the ability to escalate an issue. As Doug said…“free night” certificates will only cover about half the cost of a night at a property where I would typically stay. That’s not ok” He’s right ! They’re no longer rewarding loyalty – but penalizing us.
Omni’s been courting me hard and bending over backwards with Customer Service and nice perks.
Best to y’all
I’ve been mostly using my points when I see a good value, but I’ve made no real effort to add to my stockpile for some time. They’ve mostly gone towards cheaper hotels when there wasn’t a lurking status-boosting offer somewhere in the mix (since I /do/ like retaining Titanium status). I’ve still got a stack of paid nights with Marriott most years, but this just makes it easier and easier to park my business over at Hyatt.
The credit card FNA is still worth having, but they’re at a real risk of that value slipping away and me just deciding to consolidate the credit lines over to other cards.
Why does anyone do business with Marriott? They are thieves.