On May 1, Chase launched a 65% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy, meaning you’d get 1.65 Bonvoy points for every Ultimate Reward point that you transfer until May 15th.
That was an early bird bonus as the transfer bonus is continuing through June 30, 2026, but at a slightly lower 55% rate.
The Deal
- Get a 65% bonus when transferring Ultimate Rewards to Marriott Bonvoy through May 15, 2026, then a 55% bonus from May 16, 2026 through June 30, 2026.
Key Terms
- The 65% “Early Bird” bonus offer is valid for points transfers to Marriott Bonvoy completed between 12:00 AM ET on May 1, 2026 and 11:59 PM ET on May 15, 2026.
- The 55% bonus offer is valid for point transfers to Marriott Bonvoy completed between 12:00 AM ET on May 16, 2026 and 11:59 PM ET on June 30, 2026.
- Minimum transfer is 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
- Bonus Marriott Bonvoy points will be deposited by Marriott Bonvoy into your Marriott Bonvoy account up to 7 days after the points transfer is completed.
Quick Thoughts
A 55% or 65% transfer bonus rate sounds very compelling… and it has been historically. However, this will most likely still be a suboptimal redemption for most folks. Our Reasonable Redemption Values (RRV) pegs Marriott points at 0.77 cents each, so even after you account for the bonus, you’re still getting ~1.2-1.3 cents of average value per Ultimate Reward (UR) point.
Having said that, for folks who “cherry pick” rewards, our analysis showed that the top 25% of redemptions average 0.91 cents per point or better, a value which would bring the transfer bonus up to ~~1.4-1.5 cents per UR – almost the same as our RRV for Ultimate Rewards.
Because of Marriott’s labyrinthine rules governing who’s eligible for the welcome bonus on a new card, many folks can find themselves in a position where it’s difficult to quickly earn large amounts of Marriott points. If you just need to top up your Marriott account for a specific high-value redemption, or if you have a bunch of Ultimate Rewards and consistently get very high value for your Bonvoy points, a 55% or 65% transfer bonus could be worth considering. Still, it’s not going to be one of the most valuable ways to use UR points.
One oft-forgotten feature of Marriott Bonvoy is that it allows transfers to a wide variety of airline programs, including some that don’t partner with Ultimate Rewards, such as American, Alaska, and Japan Airlines. The ratio is 3-1, but for most airlines, you get a 5,000-mile bonus for every 60,000 Bonvoy points that you transfer, or 60,000 Bonvoy points – 25,000 airline miles. The 55% or 65% transfer bonus means that you could indirectly access these programs from Chase at around a 1.0 to 0.55 or 0.65 transfer ratio. Again, this isn’t great in comparison to all of Chase’s 1-1 transfer partners, but if you have a boatload of UR and need JAL or Alaska miles, it might be worth the premium.
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Wondering why this particular notice did not show up in the emails until May 17, 2 days after the premium decreased. Would certainly be nice to read this a few days earlier.
“…this isn’t great in comparison to all of Chase’s 1-1 transfer partners, but if you have a boatload of UR and need JAL or Alaska miles, it might be worth the premium.”
The word “might” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.