Wedding at Marriott - Maximize points
 

My fiancee and I are thinking of having our wedding at a Marriott hotel in Michigan. I am currently a Platinum member with Marriott. Any tips for how to maximize the number of points I will receive for holding my wedding at a Marriott?

Congrats on engagement !!

Double check with hotel but I assume that paying for the wedding with Marriott credit card will get you a lot of Marriott Points.

Also, I see you're SPG Plat - call Marriott and see if they will status match you, and maybe even mention "I'll be dropping a boatload of money at your hotel for my wedding" - because then you'll get 15 points per dollar spent, instead of 10, so that would make it even better.

negotiate with the hotel. Paying with Chase Marriott CC should work and getting points per $ spent can be negotiated.

Catering your wedding with or without guest rooms means you will be signing an event contract. Make sure that the terms of earning points is noted in the contract. You will earn 3 pts/dollar spent, up to 50K points.

Rewarding Events

This is what I had them write in my contract:

I would recommend not booking the rooms as part of the event, especially if your catered event exceeds $16667. Then you can also get points on up to 3 guest rooms in your name. Note: merge the folios when paying the bill for the rooms so that you will get credit straight away without having to go back to Marriott and complain that one of your rooms didn't get credited.

Using a Marriott Rewards Premier Visa to pay for everything will also get you an additional 5pts/dollar spent.

Wedding at Marriott - Maximize points
 

I'm having mine at RC, and I am getting the 50,000 from the minimum spend alone. I used my MR Visa for the charges, and I've already gotten a little over 100k points for the F&B, tax and service charges. It's working out for us - and our deluxe suite is comped.

If you have a lot of guest staying you could get a room block as part of the event and negotiate to get points for all the rooms.

Get the Marriott credit card and you'll get 5 extra points per dollar spent.

Per the T&C of Rewarding Events you will only get a Max of 50K points. Go to the link I provide in my previous post (#4 above) to view and read the T&C.

That is why, in my previous post, I suggested that if they reach the maximum Rewarding Event points, which is real easy to do on almost any significant event, then book 3 of the rooms separately to get points on those. You are only allowed to get points on a max of 3 rooms.

Plat bonus
Meeting planner points
Room /stay/ night credits upto 3 each
3 in your name
3 in your wife's
3 in each of your parents / inlaws / friends
See about getting all bumped to plat for more bonus
Fall mega bonuses, for all
I would also speak with the sales and or general manager about additional local point bonuses they can offer

All in, this shoul cover your honeymoon!

Congrats!!

Honeymoon Help!
 

Hi Everyone!

i have been a lurker for a while now on FT, and been reading through older threads on various Marriott resorts/hotels that FT members have recommended. I recently saw that Marriott is going to be devaluing some of the hotels and wanted to book some choices now so I can lock up the point price.

I will have about ~250k points in Marriott and ~150k points in chase UR that i wanted to use to have a honeymoon without really spending any out of pocket money.

I needed help with narrowing down a place that FT member's recommend for August 2014, for about 5-6 days. I live in Northern Virginia near Washington DC (Dulles airport would be ideal) and wanted to honeymoon on the same coast (looking at central america, carribeans, bahamas) in early part of august (and still avoid any possible hurricanes).

As of now, I have come up with Curacao and Aruba as choices, but am not sure if I am missing anything - or if other's recommend a better way to use my points.

We're both in our mid 20's

Thanks in advance!

Do you have a list of what properties are available using points for the dates you want? That will be the biggest factor since August 2014 isn't that far away.

Consider a travel package (270,000 and up) if you need airline points/miles to get you there as well.

Do you mind going someplace warm (aka a beach resport) in August? What do you like to do? Give us some ideas of past trips you really enjoyed - that will help a lot.

A few locations with Marriott properties that come to mind:

- Grand Cayman
- St. Thomas, USVI
- Buenos Aries
- Mexico City
- Boston

All have different flair, but to be more helpful, we would need more detail.

As of now I have come up with Marriott Curacao (120,000 points for 5 nights), JW Marriott Cancun (140,000 points 5 nights), Aruba Marriott Resort (160,000 for 5 nights), or JW Marriott Guanacaste Costa Rica (120,000 points for 5 nights). As of now, all of these have rooms available w/ the aforementioned points.

I was looking into travel packages as well, to avoid having to use my UR points - but was I was confused as to how many miles I would need? (i know, newbie question). Care to shed any light?

We both prefer to leave the US and be out of the country. We don't mind the "heat" especially after this year's winter in the DC area! out of the list you have come up with, I did at St. Thomas. USVI on the other hand I have read is "boring". What we are looking for is somewhere that is nice, has a lot of activities available (some examples that we would be up for: rain forest excursion, snorkeling, beaches, nice sunset, ATV, Zip/lining, paragliding). neither of us drink, so we don't care for the bar scene if that helps.

Thanks again! :)

edit: She also prefers I pick the place and surprise her >_<

I never pulled the trigger on a package but looked briefly at them yesterday to see if they can offset some of the upcoming devaluation.

They get you 7 nights in one place but you seem content with the 5. And a boatload of miles on various carriers. But I seem to only fly Southwest and have no idea if the others are restricted, capacity controlled, blacked out, etc. Definitely better people out there that can advise you better.


http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi

Those are all nice places to visit. You could also add the Casa Magna in Cancun (100k points/5 nights) and the Renaissance in Aruba (120k points/5 nights).

Information about Marriott's Travel Packages is available at https://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi.

The reason people like Travel Packages is that they allow you to trade a set number of points from MR to one of several airline programs at a 1:1 exchange rate. (+10% bonus if you trade to UA!) That's a pretty good bargain for MR points. It's arguably less special for you since a) you already have a bunch of UR points which you can trade 1:1 to several airlines, and b) you said you're looking for a 5 night trip, not 7. But if you're willing to do a 7 night trip, consider "topping off" your MR account with just enough UR points to buy a travel package. That's how you can maximize the value of your MR points.