I've accumulated points for a bit -- that's worked fine. Now I'm considering using some, and am seriously confused.

The subscreen that pops up at Marriott Rewards has two tabs, one of which is titled "Hotel Reward Categories" -- and a category 5 hotel is shown as 25,000 points for a hotel reward for a free night (or 20,000 for a PointSavers.)

The other tab says "Hotel Reward Tiers" -- and a hotel tier 5 (highest it goes) is 70,000 points a night.

I am undoubtedly missing something very obvious, but I don't understand the difference between "categories" and "tiers," and I have no idea how I'm supposed to interpret these charts.

I also can't figure out how to search for all Marriott properties in a given city to see what category they're in -- the search seems to be oriented toward showing me all category 1 hotels in every state, or a separate search for all category 2 hotels,...when what I'm really trying to do is see all properties by category in Scottsdale.

Overall, this is not making much sense to me, so any assistance would be appreciated.

I have used points many times and can't say I really understand what you are seeing. Generally if you enter the city on the find and reserve screen, check the box for a points reservation it will then give you a list of properties. You can sort by distance from the location, "cost" in points etc to select a property.

The "cost" will vary based on the property and reward availability, points savers are typically the cheapest and lower category hotels are of course less points.

This link gives you standard points cost by hotel category, I don't think there is a direct relationship between brand and category as their are other factors that determine this. For example I stayed in a Renaissance which I'd have expected to be a Cat 6 which turned out to be a Cat 4, apparently because property/land in the area is cheaper than many locations.

Bascally do your search and find a property that meets your needs based on cost, location and quality. If you are having trouble it may help to post where you are searching so others can try to observe the behavior you are seeing and advise accordingly.

Chris.

I think the tier is for Ritz Carlton. If you do a search on Marriott Rewards hotel category, then you should be able to get a page where you can see hotels by category.

Lupine - You are just looking at the basic chart. Go to front page of marriott, put in your details and then click the check box for use marriott rewards points.

You will then get results. Note, it will only show hotels with availability for the date range you selected. If you want to further narrow it by category, on the left side on the filter, the last option is by hotel reward category.

The tiers are for ritz carlton's.

Cheers.