For the first time, I've hit 250,000 Marriott Rewards points. I'm debating how to use them and am soliciting expert opinions for an awesome trip. I've had a super crappy year (lost a parent this year, after losing the other within the last 3 years, and I'm emotionally spent), and I'm thinking about a tropical place -- possibly a Ritz? I need a really special trip and plan to take my boyfriend along. I've never been to Hawaii and to a lot of the well known resort destinations - Cabo, Key West, Aruba, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos, etc. Most of the time I've ended up on the Carolina beaches, as I live in SC. It's time to take it up a notch and do something special.

Sorry to hear about your year . Hopefully a nice vacation will help. I see two options here.

One is to redeem a Marriott travel package (Cat 7 is 260,000 for 7 night cert + 55,000 miles; Cat 6 is 250,000 for 7 nights + 77,000 miles) and use the miles to help pay for your travel. Link: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi

The other option is to get 5+ nights at a high category Marriott or Ritz. Keep in mind with these you get the 5th night free when you use 4. Link: https://www.marriott.com/rewards/poi...dType=Standard

You could do up to Marriott Category 9 (45k/night - 180k for 5 nights), or up to Ritz Tier 4 (60k/night - 240k for 5 nights) which would both get you into some very nice places. I've found a lot of luxury hotels have been bumped up to Category 8 or 9 so maybe the Category 6/7 options wouldn't be the way to go.

Marriott examples would be the Renaissance San Juan (8), Renaissance Aruba (8), Marriott Stellaris Aruba (9), Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort (9), Wailea Beach Marriott (8).

Ritz examples would be the Ritz San Juan (4), Ritz Aruba (4), Ritz Kapalua Maui (4).

If you're hard pressed for miles or can't do the cash flight I'd do the first option but if you are really looking for luxury I'd try to redeem at a higher end Marriott or Ritz in the latter option.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, rdurlabhji. Very helpful!

Have you even been to any of those properties? Any favorites on that list?

Appreciate the sympathy on my year, too. I'm ready for 2016 and know there is better karma ahead.

I've been to both the Marriott's on the Cayman Island (the Marriott resort and the RC.) Hands down the RC is a major step up in luxury. I'd expect that to be the case in most locations that have both a Marriott resort and an RC resort. If you want to "step it up a notch", I'd look at the RC options.

But there are some other things that could affect your decisions. Are planning on traveling alone? With a spouse? kids? friends? For example, if you are traveling with the whole family, someplace with suites might be more helpful (i.e. St. Kitts has a Marriott timeshare on the property with the hotel and it is possible to find 1, 2 and sometimes even 3 bedroom properties for very reasonable point awards.)

The best value for your points is a Travel Package. It includes 7 nights at one hotel at 6x the nightly points rate (plus one night free) plus a certain number of airline miles purchased at a 1:1 rate. It's the 1:1 transfer of MR points to airline miles that makes these packages such a deal.

The downside for you right now is that most of Marriott's resort-y hotels are Cat 7, 8, or 9, which means the packages with max miles cost a lot more than 250k points. So you'd either need to wait to earn more points or just book a package that transfers some lower number of miles, like 60k instead of 120k -- which is still a good a deal, just not the best deal.

If you can't stretch your points far enough for a travel package, look at doing a stay of at least 5 nights somewhere. The point of staying 5 nights is that, on points, the 5th night is free. So you could stay at a Cat 8 hotel, 40k points/night, for just 160k points for 5 nights. You can stay longer, of course. A 7 night Cat 8 stay would be 40k x 6 = 240k points. A 6 night Cat 9 stay would be 45k x 5 = 225k.

I only have personal experience with San Juan on that list - most of my leisure travel takes me to Europe or Asia, and most of my business travel takes me to far less exciting places.

I stayed at the Marriott Stellaris and walked through the Renaissance there. The atmosphere at the Marriott was definitely more lively/loud because of more bars, more families, and the attached casino. The Ren was a quieter and decidedly more elegant. Per a friend this is the same in Aruba too. Grand Cayman is a much quieter destination overall than either San Juan or Aruba.

I've personally not needed the pampering of the Ritz so couldn't justify the extra $/miles for it, but that depends on what you want to do on your vacation. If you are just looking to relax and be pampered at the hotel then the Ritz is the best option IMO.

I'm in my mid-40s with no kids, and I would be traveling with my boyfriend. So I'm looking for something less family oriented and more on the couples/fun side.

I tried to check into the Travel Packages you all are describing with the airlines miles, but apparently I'm not eligible as a Marriott Gold? Not enough status?

I've stayed a few times at the Ritz in Charlotte and that was fantastic. Done some other Ritz properties that were nice, but that may be the nicest one I've stayed in so far. So I think I'm willing to cough up the points to get that fluffy Ritz bed and marble bathroom on this rewards trip.

I stayed at the Ritz in Bali which was very nice. It was my first time at a Ritz and being a guy who grew up in The Bronx, I don't think I can handle that level of class. I can hold my own towel as I walk to a pool chair!

I like JW Marriott's a lot. The one in Phuket looks really nice (Category 8, which you have enough points for). You're right on the beach and seems great for couples.

I'm sitting on 400K right now and am looking to burn some as well!

As others have said, the Marriott travel package is fantastic. I redeemed that a few times and prob saved several thousand dollars so far.

My favorite beach Ritz property was the one in Cancun. They had outstanding service and their club lounge was fantastic.

No elite status requirement for a TP award. Check out Travel Packages.

Here is the link. I'm unaware of any status being required to redeem for a package.

I do agree with others that in general a TP award can well provide the most "value" out of Marriott points. And I've said more than once, I do feel the Marriott TP awards are possibly the single best hotel award among all hotel programs.

With that said, I can say that I don't always use my points to order TP awards. I do order other awards. It really depends on what your needs are for a particular trip. In the OP's case, it sounds like the OP would like to take a vacation at a nice Marriott/RC resort fairly quickly. Given the OP only has 250K, unless the OP can find someone or someones to gift some extra points or possibly apply for a couple of Marriott VISA cards and get the bonuses quickly, I'm guessing a TP award might not be the best alternative. Nice beach resorts really aren't found below Cat. 7 which means 330K for a TP award with 120K miles. It might be hard to get the extra 80K very quickly.

If you can't get the points quickly, then you might be better served by focusing on finding the best luxury hotel and location. With 250K, you could get a 5 night Tier 4 RC. There are a number of top end Marriott hotels (Cat. 9) and some nice RCs you could get with the 250K. Of course you would have to still figure out how to get there, but you would be spending 5 nights in some of the best hotels Marriott has to offer.

I'd be looking at the RC in Aruba (or the Marriott there.) Maybe some of their Hawaii properties. Even the Marriott on the Cayman island is Cat. 9 (though the RC there is a Tier 5 and would take a bit more than 250K for 5 nights.) ^

Travel packages are the way to go. You can buy an additional 50K points if you don't have enough points for the travel package you want.

You can get up to 132K miles on United with the 10% bonus, and that's close to getting two RT coach tickets to Asia. Just get the united Visa, and you have an additional 30 - 50 K United miles. If you are careful on the routing, you can stopover somewhere (like tokyo, or hong kong) and also spend a night or two coming or going at a gateway, like San Francisco. Intra asia flights are usually cheap, and mileage for award tickets intra asia is also quite low. If you have some FF miles built up on either United or American, you can find some good bargains flying around asia.

Thailand is amazing. Many of the hotels are cheap enough to pay for, and even if you want to use points, they tend to be lower categories and better than north american properties.

There are three category 5 hotels in Thailand: Bangkok Marriott Hotel Sukhumvit, Renaissance Bangkok Ratchaprasong Hotel and Pattaya Marriott Resort & Spa. The lounges at the first two are amazing. I haven't stayed that the Pattaya Marriott, but have stayed in Phuket at the JW, the Ren and the timeshares. All are amazing properties.

True, it's a long way to go. I would not recommend going for just a week. If you have 2 to 3 weeks, this is the place to go. You can find very good rates, and if you stay at a non-resort hotel (in Bangkok) you will be amazed at the lounge.

Just my 2 cents.

Billy

OK, one of these days I will make it to Thailand.

With that though, I think the OP was asking about beach locations and none of those 3 Cat 5's you mention are listed as "beach" hotels on Marriott's website. In checking it looks like Marriott lists 5 hotels as "beach" hotels. Unfortunately, 4 of the 5 are all Cat. 7 or above. That means the OP would have to come up with another 80K of points before they could order a Cat. 7 TP with the max miles.

There is one Cat. 4 hotel, Rayong Marriott Resort & Spa, that would only be 270K points. I don't know anything about that resort and specifically why it would be so low a category. Could be due to remote location or could be due to not being as nice a resort as the others. Maybe someone could comment on that resort.

But in general, I would tend to agree that traveling that far for a 7 night vacation can be hard on a person and a longer vacation, 10+ nights, would probably be better. But doing that would require either more points or more out of pocket cost from the OP. Not sure they wanted to spend a lot of money on the vacation (which is why I was focusing on closer beach properties where the OP could focus on a higher Cat/Tier hotel/resort.)

One more beach location, in Florida no less, is the Harbor Beach Marriott in Ft. Lauderdale. It is a very nice property on its own private beach location with a very nice pool to boot. Flying there should be fairly easy and quicker than most other "tropical" locations and you'd get a pretty nice resort/spa to stay in. Plus you would be a quick drive or water taxi ride to a number of very nice restaurants and other activities.

Haven't been to the Scrub Island Marriott in the BVIs but it looks quite nice from the pictures.