If you need to cancel a reservation booked using a free night certificate, follow the process in this post before cancelling to avoid potentially losing your certificate. If the certificate is lost it should be re-enstatable by Marriott customer service, but it may take a while and require some extra work on your part.

Certificate “top-off” is available as of April 30th: and discussed in a separate thread. Marriott has announced that starting “in early 2022,” members will be able to combine free-night certs with up to 15,000 points when making redemptions. See the FT thread discussing the 10/26/21 announcements and Marriott’s FAQ for current info.

EXTENDING AN EXPIRING CERTIFICATE:

• A blogger reported that as of 12/7/2023 Marriott removed the internal tool to extend an FNA, so it may or may not still be possible.
• Your best chance for an extension is to call Marriott within 1 month of the expiration and consider having a specific property and date in mind to book. It's not necessary but even without one in mind, pick something you might use and change it later. 1-800-MARRIOT
• Most importantly, have a good reason for needing the extension, like illness or injury.
• If granted, the new expiration date is 1 year from the date of the request. You cannot get a 2nd extension on the same certificate, meaning the maximum life of a certificate is 2 years.
• If not granted, some have luck by calling later a few times.
• In 2022, Marriott seemed to deny all extension requests except a few exceptions such as here, here, and here. They may be allowing some again in 2023.

Before 18 Aug 2018, Chase issued certificates good for specific categories of hotels. Post 18 Aug 2018, all certificates have been converted or will be issued at a specific level of points. SPG AMEX and Ritz Carlton credit cards have also begun to issue certs.

25K points - lower level certificates
35K points - higher level certificates
50K points - luxury level certificates

Marriott will introduce peak and non peak levels for hotels after 1 Jan 2019. Certificates will be capped at the points level where they can be redeemed rather than for a specific category of hotel. Thus, if a hotel is 25K at the non peak level and the peak level is higher, it cannot be booked in the peak level window.

Nine co-branded credit cards offer an annual free night worth up to 85,000 points:

• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card (formerly Starwood Preferred Guest Luxury Credit Card from American Express) - up to 85K (Second with $60k spend)
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless (formerly Rewards Premier Plus) Credit Card - up to 35K
• Marriott Bonvoy Premier (formerly Rewards Premier) - up to 25K
• Marriott Bonvoy from American Express (formerly Preferred Guest) - up to 35K
• Marriott Bonvoy Business from American Express (formerly Preferred Guest Business) - up to 35K
• Marriott Rewards Business Premier Plus Credit Card - up to 35K
• Ritz Carlton Rewards - up to 85K
• Marriott Bonvoy Bevy - up to 50k (with $15k spend)
• Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful - up to 50k (with $15k spend)

Things to know:

1. Amex credit card free night certificates are issued 2 months after the anniversary date of the credit card. For example if the Brilliant fee posts 7/1, the certificate is available in your Marriott account on 9/1. Chase FNA certificates can appear much sooner, within 1 week.
2. The certificate expires one year after it is issued. You must complete your stay by the expiration date.
3. Can NOT be combined with a 3-night award to get a "Stay for 5, Pay for 4" award.
4. Can be used for a standard room only
5. Cannot be used for "redemption with cash upgrade" or any points and cash combination
6. According to Marriott's terms, points reservations can be gifted to another person but certificates earned from a credit card cannot. This means the certificate owner (cardholder) must check-in even if someone else is listed as a guest on the reservation. In some cases a property has given leeway and allowed just the guest to check-in anyway without the certificate owner present, but it is risky to depend on this.
7. If you use "top-off" with a certificate and the room price later decreases, you can modify the reservation to rebook the same date and recover the difference in top-off points.
8. If you made a reservation with a FNA and want to know its expiration date, you can find it by editing the reservation as described at this link.
9. If you downgrade the Amex Brilliant to the $95 Amex Bonvoy card, you can still get your anniversary FNA.

How to use:

• Search for a points booking at an eligible hotel and the option to use the certificate a replacement for some of the required points should appear during the booking process
• Some have had trouble booking certificates from the 2020 credit card offer to get 5 free nights. In that case, try this website for booking: https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/red...free-nights.mi
• Officially Marriott allows gifting of points awards but not gifting of free night certificates from credit cards. For the latter, your name will still need to be the reservation. Whether the property requires you to be present for check-in may depend on the hotel.
• If you have 2 certificates of different value and try to redeem one, the Marriott website offers the one expiring first. If that's not what you want, work around this issue by making a dummy booking with that certificate. Then book the real reservation with the desired certificate. Then cancel the dummy. Be sure to pay attention to any cancellation terms since a few properties are more strict than others.

Older archived notes below:

NEW EXTENSION OF CERTIFICATES announced in October 2021:

• Free night awards, Suite night awards, and travel certificates will be given a new expiration date of June 30, 2022
• The Marriott Bonvoy app shows the original issue date of your free night certificates. Go to Account -> Free Night Certificates to find the issue date in small print above each certificate. It's unlikely you have a certificate that won't be extended. If you don't see the issue date in the app, you'll have to wait for the actual extension to happen to check the new expiration.
• Expiration of points is paused through December 31, 2022. At that time, your points will only expire if your account has been inactive for at least 24 months
• In March 2022, Marriott will eliminate hotel categories and use variable point pricing for awards. Only a small number will be affected at first, so you won't see an immediate sweep of all properties at once.

PREVIOUS EXTENSION announced May 2021:

• "Starting May 6, members who had a FNA with an original expiration date in 2020, or which will expire before January 2, 2022, as part of their Cobrand Credit Card Benefit, Annual Choice Benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to redeem it through January 3, 2022.
• Please note that FNAs with an original expiration date before 2020 will not be eligible for the additional extension. Members do not need to take any action because the system will automatically update their account with these extensions on May 6, 2021."
  

PREVIOUS EXTENSION announced in 2020:
The expiration date on certificates this year is pushed to 1/31/21.

• “...Members who currently have an active Free Night Award (FNA) expiring in 2020 as part of their credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to use it through January 31, 2021.”
• Expiration dates will be updated by the end of April, giving priority to those expiring soonest.
• If yours will expire within just a couple days, contact a Marriott representative here by private message.