The Marriott award chart: Use your points for stays at 7,000 hotels around the world

  • Joseph Hostetler

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    With 7,000+ hotels in more than 110 countries around the world, Marriott points are probably useful wherever you’re going. If you’re new to the world of free travel (or just want to know more), I’ll explain how the Marriott award chart works.

    It’s fairly straightforward: Standard free nights cost anywhere from 7,500 to 85,000 points per night, although the chain recently added peak and off-peak pricing. But it still isn’t as confusing as  the dynamic pricing employed by some hotels — changing points awards day by day based on the demand for rooms. With Marriott’s chart, the cost of an award night is determined by the hotel’s category and whether you’re traveling during peak or off-peak times.

    Essentially, it’s easy for anyone earning Marriott points from hotel stays or from the best Marriott credit cards, like the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card which is currently offering a bonus of three free nights (each night valued up to 50,000 points) after spending $3,000 on purchases in your first three months from account opening.

    Let’s look at the details of the Marriott award chart, and an alternative way you can use your points to help offset the cost of a stay.

    Leverage the Marriott award chart for a free stay at the ultra-luxury Ritz-Carlton New York Central Park. (Photo courtesy of Marriott)

    Marriott award chart

    With 30 different hotel brands, Marriott offers you choices ranging from more economical rooms at hotels like Springhill Suites or luxury stays at a Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis.

    I recently stayed at the Renaissance Koh Samui Resort & Spa in Thailand and it was one of my best hotel experiences ever. Our room had 25-foot ceilings, a canopy bed, one of the most beautiful bathrooms I’ve ever seen and a private pool right out the front door.

    Here’s a look at Marriott’s award chart, categories, and how many points you’ll need for a free night. You’ll have to do a search to determine whether your stay will run at the standard, peak, or off-peak rates. Marriott makes it easy to search for hotels and sort by category and cost of award nights here. Just filter by category.

    Peak and off-peak award chart

    Before we jump into award chart prices, let’s quickly talk about peak and off-peak pricing.

    Nobody knows how exactly Marriott determines which dates adopt peak and off-peak award prices. Marriott tends to change them without warning. You’ll have to research your exact travel dates to know how many points you need to collect — just be prepared to pay the peak prices if you’re:

    And you’ll have the best shot at off-peak prices for things like:

    The biggest caution with these vacillating price points is this: Using Marriott’s Points Advance feature will not secure the current price you’re looking at.

    Yes, Marriott will allow you to reserve a reward stay, even if you don’t yet have a sufficient amount of points — the only requirement is that you earn all the points you need within 14 days of your stay.  But in reality, Marriott is only allowing you to reserve award space. You can only lock in the current rate if you’ve already got all the points you need.

    In other words, if you use Points Advance to book an off-peak hotel room for 15,000 points per night, the rate may become 20,000 points per night by the time you’ve earned your points. You’re still able to book your room, but you may need to pay significantly more points to reserve it.

    Marriott redemption chart

    The gamut runs wide on Marriott’s chart, with potential to spend between 5,000 and 100,000 points per night.

    The Ritz-Carlton New York Central Park often prices at $1,200+ per night. It’s a Category 8 hotel, so you can expect to pay 85,000 points for a night. This means you can quite easily receive a Marriott points value of 1.4 cents per point when staying here (though that value will fluctuate with the room price).

    While using Marriott points at glamorous five-star hotels like this is one of the best ways to use Marriott points, I often receive more value from my points by staying at lower-category hotels. For example, I visit friends and family in Oklahoma with relative frequency. There are many Category 1 hotels, such as the Fairfield Inn & Suites Chickasha, which routinely charges $170 per night. However, you’ll only pay 7,500 points per night (I even found plenty of off-peak nights for 5,000 points!). Paying 7,500 points for a $170 room equates to an astounding ~2.2 cents each.

    Marriott Cash + Points award chart

    Marriott also offers Cash + Points rates that vary by category.

    Marriott PointSavers award chart

    PointSavers is an ongoing Marriott promotion that advertises up to 33% off the regular award rate. It isn’t marketed very heavily because it only applies to a small number of hotels and dates. Plus, hotels are added and removed from the list with no rhyme or reason.

    But it’s something to note because PointSavers rates can be combined with Marriott’s fifth-night-free benefit on award stays. Stacking savings like that could really add up.

    Marriott Hotel + Air packages

    Last, there are Marriott’s Hotel + Air packages.  With these packages, you can “buy” a certificate for a seven-night stay at a certain category of Marriott hotel and get airline miles too.

    This Hotel + Air package award chart applies to almost every participating airline. So, for example, for 315,000 Marriott points, you’ll get a seven-night stay at a Marriott Category 5 hotel and 50,000 airline miles.

    Marriott also has a special partnership with United Airlines and its Hotel + Air package pricing chart with United is a bit different. As you can see, you’ll get a 10% bonus on the United miles piece of the package.

    Earn Marriott points

    You can earn Marriott points with these Marriott credit cards:

    Marriott cards are issued by Amex and Chase and there are some convoluted application rules, so take a look at our Marriott credit card comparison guide to help you make sense of which card is right for you. You can also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points and Amex Membership Rewards points to Marriott.

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    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)
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