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As we approach the end of the year, some of us are looking at our elite status situation and realizing that we haven’t yet met our goals. If you were hoping to reach high level elite status with Marriott, please take a look at our recently re-published post: 12 Shortcuts to Marriott Platinum Elite status (2019 edition). In this post, we’ll drill into one of the 12 shortcuts: get 10 elite nights by booking a meeting. Did you know that you can book Marriott meetings online? Prior to reading this post from Loyalty Lobby, I didn’t know.
Elite Status Overview
The sweet spot elite status, in my opinion, is Platinum Elite. This will get you the vast majority of the best benefits: 4pm late checkout, 50% point bonus, welcome gift, free breakfast at most properties, and lounge access. And, when you earn 50 elite nights you also get a Choice Benefit, such as 5 Suite Night Awards.
Marriott Meeting = 10 Elite Nights
Elite nights are usually earned from actual hotel stays (both paid and award stays count). However, as pointed out in our shortcuts to elite status post, there are many other ways to earn nights. One of those ways is to book a meeting. Once per calendar year, you can earn 10 elite nights by holding a meeting at a Marriott hotel. Of course, you don’t need a real meeting to make this happen. You could book a meeting room just for yourself.
I have friends who have negotiated meeting rates as low as $60 or $70 for an hour in a meeting room. That’s great, but if you’re not interested in calling around and negotiating, you can find rates online as low as $100 for half a day.
Whether you book online or off-line, make sure to avoid properties that don’t participate. Marriott’s website lists the following:
*The following brands do not participate in Marriott Bonvoy™ Events: Marriott Executive Apartments®, Residence Inn®, TownePlace Suites®, Design Hotels™, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, The Ritz-Carlton Reserve®, and Vistana properties.
Booking Online
Click here for Marriott’s Meetings and Events page.
This is an affiliate link. I think we’ll earn a small commission if you book a meeting this way. Thanks!
Step 1: Search for meetings near you (or someplace that you’ll visit)
Important: Make sure to enter 0 guest rooms otherwise the system will not let you book a single day meeting:
Step 2: Look for $200 prices
Depending on where you search, you may see several pages of results. Many results do not display prices. Keep scrolling and paging until you find a convenient option for $200. If you don’t find this option, you can try a different location.
Step 3: Reduce price to $100
Click “Book Now” and then alter the time-window to four hours or less. You should then see the estimated cost drop to $100.
Watch our for high fees
With all bookings you will also have to pay taxes, fees and potentially service charges. I sent an inquiry to the Auburn Hills property shown above to find out about these fees. I was told that I would be charged a 24% service charge and 6% in taxes. That means that this $100 booking would end up costing $130. That’s nuts. My guess is that it should be possible to negotiate a lower service charge if you explain that you don’t need any service at all. You’re happy to use the meeting room as-is with no setup and you don’t want any food or drinks brought to the room.
Wrap up
I don’t need any extra nights this year (I already have enough for Titanium status), but I figured that this could be helpful for those who are short 10 nights or less. Keep in mind that you may be able to do this cheaper by calling around, but make sure that the meeting salesperson agrees in writing that you’ll get 10 elite nights for booking the meeting. If you book online, I don’t believe it’s necessary to question this since that benefit is written directly on the Marriott website:
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I booked a meeting at SpringHill suite and didn’t get the elite night
I’m planning to do a platinum challenge, Are the 10 elite qualifying nights credited properly to the challenge?
No. Elite challenges require you to stay the nights in hotels. You can’t apply a meeting towards those requirements.
HEADS UP. I tried this strategy and booked a meeting directly through the Marriott website while signed into my Bonvoy account. It was with a participating Springhill Suites and I confirmed with the meeting coordinator that I would receive the elite nights after the meeting occurred. I went to the meeting and did some work from the conference room. I got my receipt when I checked out. Two weeks later and the nights have not been credited. I contacted Marriott who told me that “per the contract” ( this language is absolutely not anywhere in the “contract” I received) the nights will be posted in 8-12 WEEKS, which will not be in the earning year of 2019. I’ve followed up directly with the meeting coordinator who is working with a “Bonvoy Associate” , “They will be the one’s to determine if you qualify for the points and the elite nights.” So for those trying this at the end of the year- make sure you have a back-up plan.
Will update this post if they manage to post the nights within this calendar year.
Just got an email saying I’m 5 nights from Gold status. Is gold worth hosting a meeting for? I only have the Amex Marriott Biz card.
Probably not
Hi, was able to find a half day at courtyard for $100 but they wouldn’t give me the nights credit, saying it was just to get to silver, couldn’t award this to a platinum. Does it say it somewhere?
I was going to book online for a Marriott Courtyard Boston Downtown. Went through the whole online booking process and was about to pay with credit card, but decided to call first to make sure I would get the elite night credits.
I fear this was a big mistake.
The guy first took all my information and then quoted me a price that was $50 less than online. I then asked about the points and elite night credits. His response, “Sure you’ll get the points”, I asked about the elite night credits and he stammered and said he would have to check.
I’m now on hold, he comes back and asks where I’m getting that information from, I reply it’s on the Marriott website. Are you not aware of it? He said he was but wanted to be sure that I was?? Suspicious.
Then he said he would send me a proposal but I needed to sign and pay before end of day tomorrow. When I asked if the Elite night credits would be in the contract he said no, but he would make a note about them in his notes and I would get them, but they can’t adjust the wording in the contract.
When I asked what the difference is between booking online and going through him he said there wasn’t any difference and I would have to go through a sales manager on the phone anyways.
He THEN interrogated me if I was just booking the room just for elite night credits. I said I wasn’t. He said he would send the information to my email which I could sign with my phone.
After I hang up I decided to just book it online to insure I would get the credits. AMAZINGLY I’m not able to book online anymore for the properties that he sells for in the downtown Boston area, however I am still able to book online for other Boston hotels that are out of his reach.
Very shady and disappointing. It’s been over an hour now and no email from him and I don’t think I will be receiving one and I won’t be able to book online.
I think it’s better to be up-front about your purpose. Tell them that you just want the elite nights. If they don’t want your business because of it, fine, go somewhere else. Some will see it as an easy way to boost their numbers up a little bit with no work on their part. They might even offer you a better price since they’ll know that they don’t have to worry about setting up a room or anything.
Hi – Just a quick update for your readers. Marriott seems to have changed their system a bit in two substantive ways. First, the online system doesn’t allow you to pick the time period, offer price, etc. It only seems to allow you to submit a request for bids. Second, the 10 free nights are only for the first meeting you ever book, not every year anymore. You can earn elite nights for reserving room blocks, but obviously that’s not something most people would do regularly.
Thanks for the input but I think there’s simply some confusion here. Finding the ability to book online depends on the city you search. In a place with lots of Marriott properties, you should be able to find some that allow you to book online by scrolling down until you find some that have prices shown. I just checked for the Ann Arbor area and still see plenty that allow booking online. Second, the website does say that the 10 elite nights are only for your first meeting, but it means only for your first meeting each year.
Thank you, booked a 1 hour meeting for $50 plus tax yesterday and it posted overnight, status met!! Cheers!
Good data point. I had my meeting last Friday, and yesterday I was informed the hotel had to submit the planner points to Marriott before my 10 Elite Nights will be credited to my account. YMMV – very much! 🙂
UPDATE (data point)…I received an e-mail at 10.20am CT this morning, titled: “Your Meetings and Events Award has Posted”, and about an hour later, my status was updated to Platinum Elite in my Marriott profile.
@simlon
So was the property aware of the 10 elite night credits prior to the meeting? Also, was it Marriott Corporate that informed you the hotel had to submit the planner points for the elite night credit to post? If this is the case, then it sounds like the elite night credits come from the Marriott side and the points come from the hotel. Is this your understanding as well?
@JC1 – yes, I sent the hotel meeting planner a screenshot of the image Greg included under “Wrap Up” above, which she acknowledged in our e-mail correspondence.
I followed up on Monday to ask when she was going to submit the planner points to Marriott Corporate, her response was “They will be submitted today for approval and once approved it will be in your account within 3-5 business days.”
Therefore, in my case, the Elite Nights credits came from Marriott Bonvoy – but were triggered by the planner points submitted by the hotel.
For the benefit of any readers on the North Dallas area, I booked my meeting online at the “Courtyard by Marriott Dallas Plano/The Colony”.
I hope this helps.
Cheers, Simon.
Fantastic!!! I just booked at local Courtyard for $100 + Taxes. Will update once the points gets posted.
Quick Question – even though I made the reservation on line I dont see the reservation under “My Trips” section. I did get an email confirmation and the sales agent called to collect the credit card info. Hoping others had similar experience. Just wanted to make sure if I did this right.
Was at 41 nights…points were posted last night. Viola!
Greg, thanks so much for this post and helping get many of us the platinum status.
@Money – when did you have your meeting? Just interested in the timing of Elite Nights posting. Thanks, Simon.
I think as one of the other readers here pointed out a good play for this is to add a 1hr meeting to a hotel stay you already have planned. This way you don’t have the issue of no-show or having to go out of your way just to check in.
Book a one-hour meeting at online for $100 plus tax. 10 elite nights were posted three days after. Sweet! Thanks Greg!
Awesome. Thanks for reporting back the results!
@greg
Who handles the 10 Elite Qualifying Nights posting, the hotel or Marriott corporate. The reason I am asking is multiple hotels in my area claim to not be aware of the 10 elite qualifying nights for booking a meeting and when sending them the link from Marriott’s website detailing this then state they are not participating and it only qualifies if you book 10 hotel rooms or more. This was at both full service hotels such as Marriott and Westin as well as limited service hotels such as courtyard, Fairfield inn, and Towneplace suites.
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Funny enough, only 1 hotel in my area is bookable online and when I sent the RFP out, I only heard back from 1 of 12 hotels I sent them too. So I called several properties over the last few days in the area and most reached out either same day or next day. I did find some reasonable pricing at a variety of both full-service and limited service properties, however, not one of the properties I talked too new anything about the 10 elite qualifying nights. I sent them the link from the Marriott website which details this to make sure the EQNs are included in either the proposal or in writing via email and two properties have both tried to claim that the EQNs are only available when booking overnight rooms in combination with meeting space. Obviously, I am not going to book with either of these properties. However, for others I would reconfirm before booking online that the hotel will actually honor the 10 EQNs as advertised.
Thanks for this tip Greg ,got my local Courtyard Marriott from $250 down to $125 with a half day meeting today. Booked it all online , showed up at 9am , sat and did work in a conference room and then left at 11:45am.
Now lets see how long it takes for the nights to post. Hope I am not placed in the Bonvoy Zone , where neither the hotel or Marriott takes responsibility for posting the nights .
***Quick Update***
2 days after “meeting” Courtyard Events Manager sent me final invoice $125+ Tax as expected and 10 nights posted the next day
Now at 75 nights for 2019 – Thanks again Greg
Just a heads up, you should be able to find 1 hour meetings for $50. You just need to look harder. It’s perfectly safe just make sure you have a contract signed (RFP). Do not sign it unless it states 10 nights credit, if its missing ask them nicely to put that in the contract. You do not need to stay after you check in, technically you do not need to even go to the meeting once you sign the contract. I do not recommend not going, bc they could always say you no showed and then its a gamble. I personally dont show to my meetings.