Points Inflation
 

Hi!,

I stay in Marriott properties an average of 80-100 nights/year. It obviously generates a good deal of points.

Lately, I am finding these new dynamic redemption rates ridiculous. The rates for London hotels have moved over the past year from 30,000 points/night to 100,000. Seriously? The devaluation is excessive. A year's worth of points, won't even buy a weekend in London.

Which properties are you referring to? I just searched for this weekend and the vast majority of properties are available for under 100,000 a night, and there are multiple properties that are 100,000 or less for the entire weekend.

For a random January weekend, there are several properties available for 30-40k a night. Even the Edition is 85k a night. It seems perhaps you may just be looking at a bad weekend.

Checking a random date 2 weeks out 10/15-10/16 I see:

Sheraton Grand London Park Lane 69k
London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square 71K
The Park Tower Knightsbridge, a Luxury Collection Hotel 67k
St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel 72k
London Marriott Hotel Regents Park 46k

Yes, some of these have gone up. They are all reasonable FS properties at much less than 100k a night.

Yes we are all getting bonvoy'ed. I struggle to find availability to get the "reasonable or expected value" out of the points. It is leading me to make other decisions regarding my loyalty and initiate a long term divorce from Bonvoy. (Approaching the end of the tunnel known as lifetime plat is a major factor)

But resistance is futile. All roads lead to the balance sheet and the outstanding points balance is too juicy of a liability to not write down. The grass might be greener, but their own devaluations are inevitable.

And yet, the thread immediate before this one shows insane value
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...-marriott.html

As long as there are award programs, there have been and will continue to be some people claiming they cannot get any value out of them, some getting astronomical value out of them, and some (most of us?) who find a good value using points some times and not others.

Exactly, you'll find these same discussions on the Hilton, IHG, and each of several airline forums.

Hyatt has been a bit more stable lately (but this is not to start yet another "Hyatt is the best program if the limited footprint works for you" discussion).

My response to this is to earn-and-burn, not building up more than 100k-200k in each program. Diversification also helps. For two recent trips, there weren't any decent Bonvoy redemptions to be made. Instead, I found nice SLH properties at attractive Hilton points rates.
I don't throw Marriott the majority of my business, but am also opportunistic and consider multiple chains when booking cash stays.

That's just how it goes these days, unfortunately. Using points to stay at desirable locations and properties for good value is practically a unicorn these days. There are exceptions, but more and more I find myself preferring to pay cash for the hotel and transfer my Marriott points to non-US airlines for business class international airfare. Example: 240,000 MR points gets me a ~$5k business class seat. It's hard to beat that value by redeeming at desirable Marriott properties.

Yes hurricane price fixing is a great every day data point. I would really like to look at the back of the door to see if that price is over the "Maximum Room Rate" on the door. My gut says no, but given that it's augusta, maybe they have it astronomical for Master's week.

Getting a Marriott on points within 20 miles of Taylor Swift concert or most scheduled events is ugly.

I find it fascinating that people here are both surprised and appalled that redemption prices have gone up. Cash prices have gone up, too, so we're earning more points on paid stays. And are there a lot of industries in which prices haven't gone up over the past few years?

Obviously, a lot depends on where you're staying. Personally, I prefer LC and StR properties, and I rarely stay in the U.S. I think that StR Doha is a bargain. Just checked a random night for this coming January. Cash rate of USD $310, bonvoy redemption at 40,000. It's a magnificent property, with both hard and soft products superb. Others are not such bargains, I'm thinking of StR Rome, where I was for a week in July. But, yes, prices have gone up and undoubtedly will continue to do so. No surprise there.

I know that others will disagree with me and have different perspectives. That's OK, there is no objectively correct view. Like the umpire, I call what I see. Someone else will call it differently.

It is reasonable to expect points prices to increase as cash prices have jumped. It maintains some level of equivalence and also yes those higher cash prices are also putting more points into the system.

But it is certainly much more of a game now. Last week I booked one night somewhere for 22k points. The following night it would have been 46k points, even though the cash price was only around 10% higher.

It has become more work but for as long as points don't have a fixed cash equivalent value, there are still opportunities to leverage dynamic pricing in our favour.

All of my upcoming points bookings in Bucharest and Venice are more than 1 CPP.

No, but the thing is that redemption price growth has outpaced general inflation in some cases (hello, IHG!). In other cases, the earn proposition has deteriorated tremendously. Some industry insiders suggest that the move to redemption based award mileage earning decreased point issuance by three-quarters! That's huge, effectively meaning a quadrupling of award prices.

Marriott hasn't been the worst offender in this game but they've certainly managed to reign in on opportunities providing outsized value.

I think a lot of this is driven not by adjusting the earn-and-burn proposition along with general inflation. Instead, it is driven by miles and points sales being hugely profitable. So hotel chains and airlines sell a ton of miles. But redemptions are supposed to be primarily for rooms (or seats, respectively) that would otherwise have remained empty, with both rooms and seats being perishable goods. Burn rates for aspirational redemptions have gone through the roof in trying to ensure that the highly profitable miles/points sale business does not cannibalize the traditional sale of cash tickets/rooms.

In other words, those miles/points sales through credit cards and such jack up the nominal outstanding miles/points liabilities. With much less growth in award seat/award room inventory, the redemption price must adjust for the market to clear.

I don't have a problem with any of this. They're running a business. These programs don't exist primarily to provide us with free rooms/flights. They exist to make money for the companies. Look at airline mile redemptions. It's much harder and more expensive to redeem miles now because cash load factors are much higher. If you're in QRPC, you know that it's harder than ever to get seats at the regular redemption rates, you have to use the ×2 rate much more often. Cash airfares are much more expensive, too, rising faster than inflation.

Aspirational redemptions? I don't expect them to be cheap, or even reasonable. They're aspirational. Same as cash prices for the The Apartment on EY.

It's a demand/supply market. Airlines and hotels use their prices (among other things) to manage demand. Sure, they could fill their seats/rooms immediately by cutting their prices in half tomorrow morning. But that's not their goal. They try to find a balance. If their prices go up too much, that will reduce demand to an unacceptable level. And I'm sure that all of the major hotel chains and airlines have banks of MBAs modeling this stuff and figuring out the optimal pricing, both cash and redemption.

I have an upcoming booking in January at a 2.5 cpp rate - there are good redemptions out there. Even some of the London redemptions can be o.k., depending on current cash prices

It is no worse a data point than the OPs chosen date where, allegedly, all of the hotels in London are 100k points per night (including ones that were allegedly 30k per night last year).

Cash prices are up, occupancy rates are at historic highs, especially in major cities, so stands to reason that redemption cost would be up as well...it truly is a supply and demand business. If occupancy rates go down, cash prices will go down and there will be more slack in the system which will allow for more, and more reasonable, redemptions. This is especially impacted by the 'no black-out dates' policies...which mean that there are almost always rooms available for you to redeem into, you just might not like the prices!!!

There are also pretty significant swings in the award prices these days. I signed up for the 5x50k CC bonus and utilized all the certs in Switzerland this summer, getting around $2500 value. But it wasn't a sure thing and I had to wait for points prices to drop before I could use them. I also re-checked every booking every few days for price drops, and was able to claw back about 20K points. A snapshot on any one day would have yielded far less value.

I think what they are doing these days is curve balancing their room availability. When they have more availability than is ideal a certain number of days before, they drop the award prices. If they are above the curve because of an event or just a busy period, award prices stay high.

The cash prices have also skyrocketed. They arent going to keep points the same when cash increases

This right here is a strategy I use on every single points redemption I make anymore. Over the Christmas/NYE holiday my wife and I spent a month in Thailand, staying exclusively at Marriott properties. Of the three properties where I chose to use points I was able to lower the initial number of points for all three five-night stays by nearly 60,000 points. I would simply check each day and grab the better redemption if it appeared. A lot of it was reclaimed 1,000 - 2,000 points at a time, but it all added up.

Here are the three properties names, initial points outlay for a five-night stay, what my final points outlay was and finally the savings in points. It being the holidays the cash prices were quite a bit higher than "normal", so even at the initial booking of each hotel I was getting around 1 cpp return, and it only got better from there.

Marriott Chiang Mai 167,000 - 146,000 = 21,000
Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit 168,000 - 148,000 = 20,000
Renaissance Koh Samui Resort & Spa 168,000 - 149,600 = 18,400

Total Savings = 59,400 ($498.96 @ .0084 per point)

Did it take a bit of extra effort, sure, but with how easy Marriott makes it to "change" rooms to claim a better price/redemption, I never had to spend more than three minutes each day on the task.

I was just reflecting this morning on Bonvoy, the great redemption values I've been getting lately, and how dynamic pricing has not been the gutting of the program that many of us expected.

All my redemptions recently have been over 1 cpp and quite a few have been in the 1.5 to 2 cpp range. Considering that the generally accepted valuation has hovered around .7 cpp since the SPG acquisition, I consider that pretty decent.

I would love to see some of the bloggers with spare time and the need to generate content to generate CC referrals, would be to look at point values domestically vs internationally. I'll echo that finding good valuations for my (few and far between) INTL stays have proven easier.

My personal stays tends to be at limited service properties in "summer towns" during the off season. It's infuriating when trying to redeem because the points floors seem to be based on summer peak rates (say 30-40k/n) when winter cash rates are $120-150.

If it says anything about my stays, I hit Titanium this year on $6900 spend over 34 paid nights.

Since even before SPG.

The problem was that the original premise used London as its base. Rates for points (or cash) there are hardly the barometer of the program as a whole - not even the rest of the UK or Europe for that matter. I'm holding a series of points reservations in both places that I'm very pleased with. The unrealistic points rates I've come across are mostly on this side of the ocean at low to mid-level properties.

TBH, I've rarely seen good redemptions in London over the past year or two (even with inflated cash rates and GBP exchange rates). That doesn't mean they never happen, but it's not like London has a lot of "aspirational" properties anyway as they all have their issues.

I'm in a Junior Suite at Town Hall at about a US penny a point (40k) later this month. No Platinum breakfast benefit since it's a Design Hotel, but I'm not paying 15-20k MR a night for a free breakfast at someplace like Park Tower Knightsbridge (which is also a decent cpp redemption). Close to some great bars, the hotel actually has a Michelin-starred restaurant, and I prefer the East End anyway. So very happy with that London redemption (returning guest, their base room I've stayed in before is pretty comfortable, but I'll be in a room somewhat above that).

Anyway, yes, dynamic pricing means points cost goes up some with cash cost. I would say that a lot of the upper tier London hotels like Edition, County Hall and W are now out of reach for the Brilliant/Ritz 85k cert, even with a 15k points boost.

OP here. I am sure that there may still be some good redemptions someplace. But, I have tended to do this in London. So, in the example that I gave in March, 2025, rooms are averaging 85-1000,000/ night. My comparison is other redemptions that Ihave done at half that, same time of year, same hotels.

I just looked at several random dates in March and that's not the average price, and many properties are in the 40-60k range. The W is regularly 80k a night, the St. Ermin's is regularly 77,500k, the Sheraton Park Lane and Bankside are regularly 75k, the St. Pancras is 65k.... Residence Inns, several Marriotts, and Design properties are in the 40-55k range.

Are you talking about the Edition? Because that was not available for 50k last year. And the Residence Inn Tower Bridge was not 25k last year.
Perhaps you are looking for 2 night stays and mistaking the rate for both nights as a single night?

Some data points of rates cited in the master London thread :
2019: Residence Inn Kensington - 40k
2020: Bankside 40k
2021: JW Grosvenor House or St Pancras Renaissance 50k, Edition 70k, Marriott Canary Wharf 35k
2022: Montcalm East - 50k; Marriott Park Lane 100k, Sheraton Park Lane 75k
2023: Sheraton Park Lane -57K ; JW Grosvenor House 65K ;

Rates for March 14, 2025:
Sheraton Park Lane - 77k (2k/2.5% higher than 2022 report; 20k/35% higher than 2023 report;
Bankside- 74k (34k/68% higher than 2020 report)
JW Marriott Grosvenor House - 83k (33k/66% higher than 2021 report)
Marriott Park Lane - 88k (12k/12% <lower> than 2022 report)
St Pancras Renaissance - 64k (14k/28% higher than 2021 report)
Montcalm East - 57k (7k/14% higher than 2022 report)
RI Kensington -47k (7k/17.5% higher than 2019 report)

None of these properties has doubled in price since 2023....or even since 2021 (i.e., when borders were closed)

Be that as it may, but there clearly is points inflation outpacing cash rate inflation.

Marriott is creating huge points liabilities through their own CC's, other credit card and airline miles conversion bonuses etc. The frequent traveller is losing out versus the high CC spender. As always, airlines are further along in this process than hotel chain and other loyalty programs.

Now don't give me the usual "take your money elsewhere" crap. Yeah, I am acting as a free agent whenever I can. Programs are becoming less rewarding (again, airlines are leading the way and other loyalty is taking cues from it).
But there is considerable market concentration, it's not a highly competitive market where I can easily avoid all things Marriott (or Hilton).

Just because you feel that doesn't mean it's true.

With respect specifically to Marriott points, I do not find that to be the case.

These "Marriott points are worthless" threads crop up regularly, typically sparked by a single instance of frustration that there are no points bargains at a particular destination on a particular date. As can be seen by the many contrary responses, that's really not true as a general proposition. There are still many excellent uses for Marriott points, which have overall held their value relative to cash prices. It's actually a bit surprising to me that the value's still there, as there are plenty of instances of traveler loyalty programs where points have been materially devalued (e.g., UA, BA).

Just because I feel that also doesn't mean it's not true. Kind of a moot point you're making.

I guesstimate value has roughly halved since Marriott started introducing dynamic pricing. I rarely redeemed at less than 2c back then. We had roughly 70% inflation since then.

As I'm sure youre aware there has been a shift to using loyalty programs more as marketing tools than loyalty programs per se. If Marriott can capture wallet share from a high spending market segment and keep them engaged for little cost, they are delivering value to the shareholders. I don't think many would argue it's not in their best interest.

Generally speaking I am going to take actual data points over vibes-based guesstimates.

Not to mention that Marriott's customers are not only the people invested in their cards but their licensees who own the hotels Marriott customers stay at.

I'm not sure what is "moot" about my point.
But to clarify, my response was to your assertion that there "clearly is points inflation outpacing cash rate inflation." That is not "clear," even if you get the sense based on your own anecdotal experiences.

How did you calculate your conclusion that there has been "roughly 70% inflation" in award pricing since 2022?

In case, for some reason, my data about London based on FT was inaccurate, I went through my own files and picked six Marriott reservations made before the switch to dynamic award pricing at random and compared the prices I paid with prices for the same date in 2024 or 2025

Points bookings:
Lisbon Marriott- June 2022: 45,000 June 2025: 46,000
Menmo Principe Real- June 2022: 45,000 June 2025: 46,000
W Algarve - June 2022: 60,000 June 2025: 68,000
Westin Melbourne- December 2022: 40,000 December 2024: 34,000

Cash bookings:
Sheraton Vancouver AIrport - December 2022: 246 CAD member best flexible rate December 2024: 273 CAD member best flexible rate
Hotel Trio, Healdsburg - October 2022- cash rate 323.31 (prepaid, tax inclusive) October 2024- cash rate 448 (prepaid, tax inclusive)


This data, along with the London data does call into question whether it is "clear" that points prices are raising faster than cash prices.

So that would mean that point redemption prices have roughly doubled since then, yes? Not in Bangkok.

I have two upcoming redemptions in Bangkok at very good value - 22k at LM Suvarnabhum and 51k per night at the new RC.
It seems you are confusing SPG points with Marriott points. SPG were properly valued around 2 cpp, which is why they converted to Marriott at 1:3. Note that this was fully consistent with a valuation of Marriott at just under .7 cpp, which is where they have been consistently pegged for the past six years or so.

I think the main (valid) gripe point is that this has made the CC night certs somewhat less useful. Being able to top them up by 15k helps a lot, but there's still some loss of utility as some properties slide out of even that range.

That's a red herring. Nobody was discussing what's in the best interest of Marriott corporate. We were discussing a customer's subjective points valuation over time. [Value is always subjective but just to be clear as most bloggers and many FT'ers do not know that.]

I just checked rates again for the Marriott Grosvenor House in early May.

Two nights in a King room is listed as 188,000 points/stay. Cash price was £608/night. Points plus cash was £585 +95,000 points.

The points are worthless! 95,000 points are worth £46!

Interesting take...doesn't that example also suggest that 188,000 points is worth 608 pounds?