Long story short, my friend stayed at a Marriott in Thailand recently and had a service recovery offer of 5K points for the fact that their coffee machine was filthy. (You don’t want to know.)

She is wondering if she should take the 5K points or press for more.

That got me thinking, how much does it actually cost a hotel to issue 5K points to a guest? I assume the hotel actually has to pay Marriott to issue those points?