Marriott Bonvoy’s Award Chart for Flexible Points Redemptions in 2022
Joe Cortez October 26, 2021
Marriott International announced the changes in a press release on Tuesday, October 26, 2021.
Flexible Points Redemption Coming in March 2022
Starting in March 2022, Marriott will be abolishing the award chart for participating hotels across their 30 brands. Instead, each hotel will be independently priced, based on the actual cost per night in cash.
As part of the change, Marriott claims there will be several benefits for Bonvoy members. First, because the pricing will be directly tied to the daily room rate, more rooms will be available with rewards. The change allows hotels to manage their own inventory, giving owners the freedom to offer more rooms on points.
In addition, the company claims that nearly all of their hotels will retain their current points rate when then change takes place. Marriott says 97% of hotels participating in the Bonvoy program “will continue to range between their current off-peak and peak redemption rates for stays throughout 2022.”
Until the conversion takes place in March 2022, nothing changes for Marriott Bonvoy. Members can continue to book hotels using the current award chart, and their bookings will remain valid unless cancelled.
With the travel sector still recovering from the effects of the pandemic, the hotel will also extend loyalty status and points expiration for another year. Anyone who currently has status in the Marriott Bonvoy program will be able to keep it until February 2023, while the moratorium on points expiration will be extended through December 31, 2022.
Those who have free night awards or suite night award certificates will have longer to redeem them. Suite night certificates with an expiration date of December 31, 2021 will be extended for an additional six months, through June 30, 2022. Travelers with a free night award certificate set to expire between January 3 and June 29, 2022 will be able to redeem them through June 30, 2022. Members will also be able to combine free night awards with an additional 15,000 points, in order to book a free night at a more expensive hotel at a lower price.
Move Follows Trend of Hotels Extending Status and Points
Marriott’s move to extend status and points expiration dates follows other loyalty programs doing the same. Earlier in the year, Hilton Hotels announced they would extend loyalty status for Honors members through 2022.
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The writing is on the wall. Whatever 'big trip' you're saving brand-specific points for, now's the time to burn them. I'm making 1H 2022 my window to burn all my Skymiles, Bonvoy / Hilton / IHG points. Only thing worth holding onto (in my view) are credit card points. At least with those you have a minimum cash value and the freedom to shuffle into whatever loyalty program you need, as needed.
Could not agree more. Anything with dynamic pricing is going to become less and less valuable. Very sad to see the decline of these programs.
I am not totally moving away from airline loyalty but I am staying away from loyalty programs with dynamic pricing.
I am sure some loyalty programs will see this as an opportunity and start to give more value back to their customers - it is just a question of which one and when. Competition will hopefully return. Whichever consultant is pushing the current program changes will soon change tune and offer something different. Let's hope.
Definitely not good for consumers who enjoy using points for staying at elite properties. The days of saving points for a special stay somewhere might be gone... That is dissapointing. Time to pull out the Chase Saphire for more use....
When will free night certificates be extended so I can book in 2022?
Marriotts recent annoucement indicates this is not going to happen.
Well we will get hosed in this deal. Leaving it up to the local property to "manage" their reward inventory coupled with "mark to market" pricing only spells one thing MORE POINTS thus devaluing the program. I ahve contended that travelers are begining to look more rather than follow their "fathers" footsteps.