Other Hotel Programs - Hotel for Miles/Points

Looking to rent a hotel in Malibu for a wedding for 2 nights from Aug 6th.

I have American Air miles

With Marriott, I do not have enough points.

Any tips

With Marriott, I do not have enough pointsDo you have the Marriott Premier Visa card? If not I do believe there is a 50K point sign-up bonus right now. And if you know anyone else who doesn't have that card, they can sign up for the points as well (i.e. spouse, significant other, friend, etc.) Marriott will allow any two persons to combine points if needed for an award. So you might be able to snag upto 100K Marriott points. And even you already have the CC, you might know someone who has some extra points that they may be willing to loan or let you have.

With the CC, there might be a timing issue as your stay is about a month away, so you might not be able to get the points posted in time for your stay. (Marriott allows one to make an award reservation even if they don't have the necessary points at the time of the reservation, but expect to have them before the actual stay dates.)

As for American miles, I do believe you can use AA miles for hotel rooms and even car rentals. Check out Use AAdvantage Miles (http://www.aavacations.com/use-aadvantage-miles.asp). For specifics around using AA miles for hotels, you will probably get better answers if you ask that in the AA forum as that is where the AA miles experts hang out.

Do you have the Marriott Premier Visa card? If not I do believe there is a 50K point sign-up bonus right now. And if you know anyone else who doesn't have that card, they can sign up for the points as well (i.e. spouse, significant other, friend, etc.) Marriott will allow any two persons to combine points if needed for an award. So you might be able to snag upto 100K Marriott points. And even you already have the CC, you might know someone who has some extra points that they may be willing to loan or let you have.

With the CC, there might be a timing issue as your stay is about a month away, so you might not be able to get the points posted in time for your stay. (Marriott allows one to make an award reservation even if they don't have the necessary points at the time of the reservation, but expect to have them before the actual stay dates.)

As for American miles, I do believe you can use AA miles for hotel rooms and even car rentals. Check out Use AAdvantage Miles (http://www.aavacations.com/use-aadvantage-miles.asp). For specifics around using AA miles for hotels, you will probably get better answers if you ask that in the AA forum as that is where the AA miles experts hang out.

Thanks for the post.

I had Marriott CC in 2009 - used my free night cert for my graduation.

Will they let me have another free night stay - if I re-apply?

Secondly if I re-apply and got the CC - I don't travel as part of work anymore - where are some good places to use the card? Using Fidelity CC because of their 2% reward.

Does Marriott have any no annual fee card as well?

I think that over the last few years, Chase has gotten better at tracking who has had a card in the past and who hasn't, but if you canceled your previous card back in 2009, they may not track that far back in terms of re-offering the sign-up bonuses.

There are actually three different Marriott branded Chase CCs in the US. They all come with an initial Cat. 1-4 free night cert and some bonus points. The Premier costs about $65/yr (and you have to pay it even for the 1st year.) You will get a Cat. 1-5 free night cert annually after the 1st year. (That free night cert will normally more than pay for the annual fee.) It also comes with 15 nights added to your yearly totals (for elite status purposes.) It also gives you 5pts/$ spent at Marriotts, 2pts/$ spent at certain vendors like restaurants and other "travel" related vendors.

The other two cards (base personal and a business card) come with something like a $30 annual fee, but you get the 1st year free. They don't have an more free night certs after the initial sign-up cert. You will get fewer points at Marriott hotels and only 1pt/$ everywhere else. So you can get one or both of these, get the sign-up bonuses, and then cancel the card after a few months without having to spend anything for the card itself. These cards come with fewer nights toward elite status as well (10 nights I think.)

In the past, Chase would let you get all three and have the sign-up bonuses for all three. But I'm not sure that they will normally hand out both version of the personal card to the same person. But it might not hurt to try and see.