Do point costs fluctuate?
 

So I’m looking at a one night stay in San Diego end of June. I see several properties for 40k points. I’d like to wait until I get my 35k CC award. Which I get around February 1. Besides the chance of hotels selling out can they/will they possibly have an increase in number of points for a particular night?

It can change constantly, up or down

More details in the FT thread :
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...ard-chart.html

and Marriott FAQ :
https://help.marriott.com/s/article/Article-33250

which includes :

How frequently can Redemption Point values change?

Redemption Point values can fluctuate daily.

Which is why experienced Bonvoy FT'ers check their future reservations regularly. It can be tedious if you have many but profitable.

Correct, I've saved 10's of thousands of points on some individual reservations by checking weekly on far in the future stays and just hitting the update room button...

Just make sure the terms/fees don't change on you, or you are ok with the updated conditions

Here's an odd one I just experienced. I booked 5 nights at the Sheraton Cebu for 152K pts. It dropped to 149K pts so I modified the reservation. Then out of the blue it jumped to 217K pts. (The first 3 nights had gone from ~35K pts to 60K pts.) I figured that meant any further decreases were out of the question and the place had been booked for a wedding over the weekend, but no, 2 weeks later it dropped to 147K pts, so I collected those 2000 pts. :)

Similar for a Sherston Waikiki stay back on May. Small drops, collected my points, then it started going up and up, but a week before arrival it became a PointSaver?

Got back a big whack of points, last minute, Waikiki, go figure

They can change every day. I currently have three properties booked in Thailand for February/March 2026, and I check every morning sometime after 10 a.m. PDT, which is midnight in Thailand. I've already saved 76,000 points across the three properties.

Just this year I had the Westin Grand Cayman booked 5 nights for 379k and then it went on points saver so I rebooked for 299k.

I had other hotels go down much smaller amounts which prompted me to rebook.

While the points rates generally go up over time, it is still worth watching to see what happens. At least there is one benefit to dynamic points pricing.