Can others share ways they earn extra Marriott rewards pts?

So far I have the Chase signature credit card, plat status, do the gift cards, but want to rack up points toward lifetime status. A million short of my goal.

Hey - great question - kinda in the same boat...
Do gift cards earn points?
I will try getting my wife the chase card - so that her purchases can count towards points as well..
How do you get lifetime status? Never read or heard about that...

I earn a lot of points by shopping via internet and clicking through Marriott's portal to various internet retailers. Whenever it's feasible (e.g., if I can find a reasonably priced internet retailer that gives points and that has either free shipping or reasonably priced shipping), I shop online. (And then I spend my weekends "unshopping" - packing stuff up to mail back or returning it to stores in my area.) In addition to clothes, books, etc, I also do most of my drugstore shopping at drugstore.com, which offers 6 points per $ spent, and most of my wine shopping at wine.com (3 points per $ spent).

This is a particularly good option at Christmas, since it means you don't have to go into crowded stores to get your shopping done, and sometimes you'll be ordering something for shipping to a recipient's address.

I probably earn about 2500 points per month most months and about double that in November and December.

good idea - do you start this shopping experience you describe at marriott.com?

earn a lot of points by shopping via internet and clicking through Marriott's portal to various internet retailers. Whenever it's feasible (e.g., if I can find a reasonably priced internet retailer that gives points and that has either free shipping or reasonably priced shipping), I shop online. (And then I spend my weekends "unshopping" - packing stuff up to mail back or returning it to stores in my area.) In addition to clothes, books, etc, I also do most of my drugstore shopping at drugstore.com, which offers 6 points per $ spent, and most of my wine shopping at wine.com (3 points per $ spent).


By unshopping you mean returning the items in hopes you still get the MR points!? If I read that correctly that shows low morals (to me) and a lot of time spent to earn some MR points that simply are not worth that much money. Maybe I mis-understood your post!?

As to your second point of shopping through the MR portal you should be careful. A lot of times those portal shopping sites have higher prices than you can buy on other websites so the small amount of points is hardly worth it... in fact, you lose actual money. I realize some people value points more than money but I prefer money to points.

Everybody has to buy flowers at some time in their life - either love or death ... flowers usually accompany that sort of thing. This year the son of a close co-worker died - and I happend to be on Marriotts mall and clicked thru 800flowers link. I didn't notice it was 35 points per dollar until the credit showed up in my marriott statement. Zowie - I earned over 3000 points just for buying flowers I would have spent money on anyway.

a guilty pleasure.

I just got a credit card offer for MR that is giving 50,000MR points after first transaction. I'd call that a pretty sweet deal.

Also - don't forget to sign up for the MR Promotions link in your account ... I don't even remember sigining up for this one - and just found 10,000 bonus points in my account this morning for: JW/MHR 10,000 BONUS PTS PROMO

Don't know what it is -but I am not going to compalin either Just keep your eyes peeled for opportunities.

You misunderstood my post. I expect to lose the MR points if I return things. I just meant that, during the week I order things by internet and things arrive by post (I live in a doorman building). On weekends, I take back to stores or mail back the stuff I don't like.

Also, shopping online (and making sure I get MR points for it) isn't really a waste of time for me because it's far more (maybe a little too efficient ) for me to shop online than in bricks & mortar stores. I work about 60 hours a week (including on the weekend), so there just isn't that much time to go to stores. I live in Manhattan, I don't drive, and stuff that I order arrives quickly at my building during the week. I can hand things back to my concierge for pick up by the mailman, FedEx etc. So the little extra time I spend comparison shopping (see 3 below) is worth the MRs.

Marriott has two shopping-related links. One is Skymall and I agree that it often has prices that are higher than what you'd pay if you went directly to the retailer. That's NOT the one I use. The other one is the "ShopMyWay" mall. This is just a portal/link to retailers' websites. It's not a place where you buy things. Once you click through to the internet retailer's website, the prices are exactly the same as if you had gone directly to the retailer's site instead of clicking through ShopMyWay. So far I've only found a few things to watch out for:

1) I don't shop at internet retailers with high delivery charges or return fees. A lot of internet retailers have lowered delivery charges, introduced flat fees, or have free shipping promos (especially at Christmas). Some offer free returns. I factor in how much it would cost me in subway fares/time spent versus the delivery cost and potential return costs and decide if it's worth it.

2) Occasionally, if you click through the marriott link to the retailer you can't use a promo code for a discount. Sometimes, the promo code disappears but then you can manually re-enter it during the purchase price. There have only been one or two situations where I haven't been able to use a promo code.

3) I comparison shop between internet retailers that are part of Marriott's portal and those that aren't. I'll use the Marriott-linked retailer if the price difference is insignificant, but will stick with the other retailer if it has better prices. One area where this is often the case is Amazon (not part of any hotel or airline's portal as far as I know) versus Barnes & Noble, Borders etc (which are part of Marriott's portal). Amazon often (but not always) has much better prices, so I don't buy from B&N if the price on Amazon is better.

4) You have to be disciplined about returning stuff that you don't like or that doesn't fit. (That's a risk of internet shopping, not of using Marriott's portal.

5) I've had good experience with points posting. You do have to be careful, though, not to use the "back" button when you've gone from the portal to the retailer site. I usually shop on the retailer site, put things into the shopping cart, then open a new window, go to marriott.com, click through the portal, go directly to the shopping cart, and check out. (If necessary, I re-enter a promo code before payment.)

Happy shopping.

1) Maximize all promotions including megabonus. All points count.

2) attend marriott time share presentations. you get between 10-20K points, and can do more than one of these per year.

3) Diner's club and or American express points can be transferred into Marriott rewards. Even if you just get the bonus points for getting the card and then turn them into points, you might be ahead.

4) consider sweeping points from ceratin airline accounts you don't use much to MR points. you may not have any, but investigate any small ones you have. I have transferred some from my AA account.

5) Buy a MVCI week. You can get a lot of points for doing this, but I realize that's a big purchase just to get points. Some of us have done this and did get more points this way.

Billy

Do any of you know if you get points for buying gift cards (Nordstrom for example through the shopmyway link? I know sometimes those points type things don't pay out when buying gift cards. I sent an email to shopmyway, the other day, with no reply yet. Thanks, in advance, for any help!

How do you do #3 (with Amex) & 4?

It's ugly, but the details are here:

http://www.webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/

Billy