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Here We Go Again – More Marriott Award Changes Coming March 5 and Most Are Increasing in Price

  • Jason Stauffer

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    Marriott has announced additional hotel award chart category adjustments for this year.  And, as always, far more hotels are increasing in price than going down.  This is in addition to the ~60 hotels that are moving into the new Category 8.

    These changes will take place on March 5, 2019, so if a hotel you want to book is going up in price, you’ve still got some time to book.  Later this year Marriott will be adding peak and off-peak prices to their award, but we don’t know when that will happen yet.

    If you want to know when they are starting peak and off-peak pricing, subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll let you know right away.

    Very few Marriott hotels are decreasing in price, but a few, like the Hotel Bristol, will be better deals soon

    Marriott 2019 Award Category Changes

    The nice thing about these changes is that you’ve got just under a month to make plans.  And Marriott has a full list of every hotel that is changing categories – you can check it out here.

    You can book Marriott hotels 50 weeks in advance, so it’s easy to lock in savings on any travel plans you have through February 2020!  I’ve already written about booking any hotel moving into Category 8 before the changes take place.  And the same applies here.

    Most Marriott hotels have good cancellation policies that allow for penalty free cancelations as long as you cancel a few days before check-in.  But some properties will require you to cancel up to 30 days out, so be sure to review the details of your booking before you confirm anything.

    If you don’t have enough points to book the award nights you want, you can do a “Points Advance” and borrow what you need.  You’ll just have to earn those points back at least 14 days before check-in.  Joseph details how to use the Points Advance and other tactics, like combining points between accounts in this article.

    You can also transfer points from these programs to Marriott at a 1:1 ratio:

    Any hotels you’re planning on booking in the next month?

    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! :)