Marriott Bonvoy

Marriott Bonvoy is the loyalty program of Marriott, the world’s largest hotel chain group of 30 brands and close to 8,000 properties worldwide. Bonvoy boasts close to 120,000 million members.

Our 2 cents

Marriott Bovoy is a relatively recent creation, which came out of the merger between Marriott Rewards and the much beloved Starwood Preferred Guest Program (SPG). If you are a traveller, chances are, you are already a member of the program. Marriott brand hotels are ubiquitous, and SPG was one of the most successful and generous hotel guest programs with a fiercely loyal following. The new Marriott has such a large footprint that it does not need to try as hard. Marriott branded credit cards are quite popular on the coattails of SPG Amex, but the value proposition of the Bonvoy pales in comparison to its SPG predecessor. You would get the most value out of the program by earning the points on and redeeming them for stays at Marriott properties. AmEx Membership rewards and Chase Ultimate rewards are Bonvoy’s transfer partners. Just like with Hilton Honors, holding AmEx Platinum makes you eligible for Gold status which you should enroll in, but it comes with fewer benefits than Hilton Honors Gold.

I would not normally transfer the points from AmEx Platinum and Chase to Marriott unless the redemption value is close to a penny per point with about a 20% margin in either direction. The very best value redemptions are for the top of the line luxury properties on busy high season dates as you can get as much as 3 cents per point in value. One of the more attractive features is not having to pay hotel taxes (since your stay technically costs $0, the tax is also $0). Hotel taxes in the US routinely reach 17 to 20%. In some international destinations like Mexico, it is almost 30%. In addition, most properties do not charge you those pesky resort fees or destination fees on stays that are booked with Bonvoy points. Finally, you also get the 5th night free when redeeming your points. Again, you get value when staying at top luxury properties on busy in-season dates. If you have a premium card like Amex Platinum where you are automatically upgraded to Gold status, you get your Gold benefits on reward stays too (only the limited benefits, the real benefits start at platinum level).

Is transferring hotel points to airline partners a good idea?

Generally, it is not a good deal as you do not get a good exchange rate and the transfers are not instant. By the time points arrive in your account, the award you were looking to redeem may not be available anymore. Transfering to airlines may make sense in certain circumstances when you need to transfer to an airline which is not a direct partner with one of your credit cards or when you are using points to get a particular award. Some of Marriott transfer partners (i.e JAL, Aeroflot and some others) are not available through any other US travel program. You can transfer Bonvoy points to airline partners at 3:1 ratio in most cases. You also get a 25% bonus for every 60,000 points you transfer. If you have lots of Amex reward points and would like to transfer them to American Airlines which is not a direct Amex partner, you would transfer 300,000 membership rewards to receive 125,000 American Airlines points. AmEx often runs a 40% bonus offer for transfers to Marriott Bonvoy (about 4 times a year in my experience). If you transfer when the 40% deal is active, you only have to spend 216,000 Membership reward points to get 125,000 American Airlines.

Before you jump on that deal, check out American Airlines’ partner British Airways Avios. They are a direct partner with Membership rewards, as well as Chase and Citi at 1:1 ratio. Membership rewards run 40% bonus with British several times a year as well. So the same 216,000 points will get more than double miles with them and you can still redeem British Airways points for American Airlines flights (except standard award equivalent flights, which means availability is not as easy to come by as it is on American itself). Don’t forget to check on redeeming points through alliance partners before transferring them to hotel points to top up an airline account. In my experience, there are some occasions I can remember when it was worthwhile to transfer points from AmEx via Mariott Bonvoy to airlines were to JAL and to Turkish Airlines since both of these programs have low awards level requirements in business class and had better availability for award seats on their own flights then partners.

Another useful feature I alluded to above is that Marriott allows you to transfer points between Marriott Bonvoy accounts with no fees (something airlines or credit cards do not allow in their own programs). Both accounts have to be in good standing and open for 30 days with qualifying activity or 90 days without it. There is a 100,000 annual limit. There is no requirement that the owners of the accounts have to be related or share an address. So this is a backdoor into free point transfer from your credit card program to a 3rd person when you need to top up some other account.

My biggest issue with transferring points from Bonvoy to the airline is the time that it takes. In 2019, our colleagues at TPG (thepointsguy.com) site experimented with transferring points to different airlines and here are their results:

When deciding to convert Marriott Bonvoy points to airlines consider the following:

Transfers are rarely a good deal outside of a certain narrow set of circumstances

Consider checking alliance partners of the desired airline who are direct partners of one of your credit card programs. Don’t forget to check redemptions through Chase Travel and amextravel.com. You can redeem points through those on a penny per mile basis (Chase Sapphire Reserve gives you 50% bonus, Amex Business Platinum rebates 35% on certain awards).

Given the long transfer times, only consider transferring only when there is ample award availability or hold on awards are allowed. Personally, I would stick to redeeming points for expensive hotel nights only.