Marriott Bonvoy is about to become even less valuable on the redemption side after announcing it would eliminate award charts in 2022. Just how bad these will these changes be?
Marriott Eliminates Award Charts, Adds Dynamic Pricing
Currently, all Marriott properties are subject to an award chart, which ranges from Category 1-8 with off-peak, standard, and peak pricing. You’ll pay anywhere from 5,000 to 100,000 points per night. That itself is not ideal, but at least there is some transparency and you know the upper bounds of what an aspirational resort like the Al Maha.
But starting in March 2022, Marriott will switch to dynamic pricing and eliminate award charts. Marriott promises that in 2022, 97% of properties will still price award change between current peak and off-peak rates. However, starting in 2023 there will be no caps and we can expect to see rapid inflation of award pricing, particularly at hotels and resorts that are popular throughout the year. (that’s my prediction, anyway)
Marriott’s aim is clear here: cut its reimbursement costs at franchise hotels, particularly when those hotels are expensive and full.
The move mimics what Hilton and IHG have already implemented, much to the detriment of their members.
Marriott has not explained it formula for pricing hotels and resorts, but has said that it will not be strictly correlated to the price of the hotel. Award rooms will still be limited.
Time To Earn And Burn?
I don’t see an urgency to earn and burn…just yet. Certainly, if you are thinking about staying at one of Marriott’s most aspirational properties like the St. Regis Maldives or Al Maha, pricing will likely rise next year and therefore you do want to lock in something sooner rather than later.
The 3% of properties that will rise in price will be those properties that currently provide the most outsized value: count on it.
But don’t rush to burn your stash of Marriott Bonvoy points. With Marriott promising that 97% of hotels will remain with in the current range next year, I expect there will be time to strategically burn your point and then evaluate your loyalty going forward.
CONCLUSION
Marriott Bonvoy will eliminate award charts and move to dynamic pricing beginning in 2022 and fully in 2023. Those hoping that certain high-end properties will come down in price during the off-season will likely be disappointed.
Meanwhile, Hyatt could not have asked for a better day for its peak and off-peak pricing to go into effect. No one is going to be complaining about charging 35,000 per night for a top-tier property when Marriott is about to do away with limits. And we know that we’ll soon see Delta-like rates…it’s only a matter of time…
image: Marriott (St. Regis Maldives)
Does anyone else feel this will be a massive technology challenge for Marriott? The more complex award pricing becomes in the travel industry, the more difficult it is to manage with technology. Even relatively tech-savvy travel vendors like UA struggle with this. I’ve seen first hand how difficult it can become for the airline to manage award tickets with complex change histories–the accounting becomes hard to follow as there is no longer a “correct” amount. Imagine how much of an issue this will be for a tech laggard like Marriott whose integration with Starwood’s IT took years and lots of headache.
Beyond the negative implications to those of us seeking outsized value from rewards programs, I believe this decision portends material implementation headaches for Marriott. Yet another reason to stay away!
Yet another example of how Marriott hates their customers. A capable management team would find ways to draw customers by providing value rather than cut anything that smacks of being beneficial to the guest.
With Marriott’s ongoing war on value for customers, I’ve been straddling the fence on whether to reach lifetime Platinum. It would have taken a lot of money and effort but was sorely tempting. With this latest slap in the face, I’m out. I’ll use them where necessary but will no longer exert any effort to stay with Marriott. Funny, I’d thought that the entire premise of a loyalty program was to entice people to use your company rather than another. This move is just one of many that does the diametrical opposite. I’d love to hear the new CEO explain how driving away loyal customers is good for the company.
+1 on this decision not being a way to nurture customer loyalty. the Choice they’ve clearly made as a business to value hotel owners as a stakeholder group more than hotel guests. At the end of the day, Marriott is actually a B2B company. They seem to have made the call that pleasing hotel ownership groups is a higher ROI strategy than rotating towards guests. It feels incredibly short-sighted to me.
The world would be a lot simpler if hotels and airlines adopted a Jetblue style rewards program with mostly fixed redemption value with the occasional promotion. The clarity and continuity would allow every party to know what to expect long term from the program. Those that earn points from the co-branded credit cards would know exactly what they are worth.
The current Bonvoy system heavily favors Marriott with the the free night certificates being limited to categories and having peak making them unusable for intended properties. The 15K allowance to use these free night certificates makes the 4 I have in the account more useable for a property I actually want to stay at. The co-brands should do away with the free night awards and just offer a fixed point amount.
The way this community and the business community view Marriott is different than most guests. People generally are happy with the rewards program. They earn something for nothing. They aren’t aware of the opportunity cost and reward program arbitrage. For them, free points are free points. The business travelers who stay in crap box Marriott properties don’t actually make Marriott a lot of money. When they use their accumulated points to stay at a 5 star resort with their families, those hotels aren’t earning money nor is the chain. The free breakfast is a money loser. Opening up unsold Suites has increased housekeeping and service costs as hotels need to bring in more people for a shift past a certain occupancy threshold. The people in this community who maximize the Suite Awards and use points earned from the co-brands and promotions (like conference promotion) aren’t putting profit into Marriott. The people who are most loyal to Marriott aren’t necessarily the most profitable for them.
The time seems off. They are trying to recover from the worst time in their industry and customers will start traveling and many will be without any status so they will make a decision on where to spend their money. I will definitely not make any effort to spend mine on Marriott properties.
Few companies hate their end customers more than Marriott
I hate to say this, but I agree with UA.
Now let me go throw up.
Where is the major story and analysis of the changes to AA vantage today?
Sounds like you can be EXP with $200k in CC spend, granted giving up a few thousand in cash back.
This is awesome news
Thank You Marriott Bonvoy
The reason this happens is the internet and blogs like this. Anytime there’s outsized value it gets exploited at an exponential rate vs 10- 20 years ago. And that’s fine…deals come and go. But the internet has changed the pricing dynamics.
At this point, miles and points has become a way, for the majority of users, to defray the cost of travel instead of rewarding loyalty. Why is anyone shocked Marriott is going this way? I never stay at Marriott so have no skin in this game. But I do go to Disney and have seen the same outrage. Less fortunate people complaining that this luxury vacation is out of their reach. Well, that’s because they don’t really want u as a customer.
This game has always been get the best deal you can. It’s never going to be as good as it is today.
Are my 7 day stay certificate extended till end of next year? The change does not show up yet.
Congratulations! You’ve been Bonvoyed!
Al Maha is obviously not representative given its small size and full-board room rates, but it is an interesting property nonetheless. I can’t recall what the specific redemption rates were under SPG, but they were very high and well above standard rates. Then when SPG and Marriott merged Al Maha came under the standard redemption structure, which meant that it was actually a better value for points with Marriott than with SPG. There was a brief period in early 2019 when Al Maha tried to charge for meals on reward stays (upward of $400/person/day), but Marriott reversed that so that all reward stays were full board. I had two wonderful 3-night stays at Al Maha after the merger, one at the 60,000 points/night rate that was briefly available post-merger and one at 85,000 points/night right before Covid.
I considered these to be excellent value redemptions and will not be surprised at all if Al Maha (ironically) reverts to SPG level pricing once variable redemption rates go into effect. Also, I don’t know what occupancy levels are but given how few villas there are and its popularity among locals as well as visitors, other than the blistering summers I’d assume occupancy is consistently pretty high.
Just date a flight attendant!
Empty promises. Burn ASAP.