Some Marriott hotels allow you to add points or cash to a free-night award to secure an upgraded room. That can be a good option, but it’s frustrating when you want to apply a free-night certificate. By default, Marriott won’t let you book these upgraded rooms with a certificate. Fortunately, a friend named Amol pointed me to an easy workaround: Book a standard room first, then modify the reservation. Boom.
Redemption with points or cash upgrade
When searching for Marriott free nights (e.g., by clicking the box labeled “Use Points/Awards”), you’ll sometimes see an option to book an upgrade. When this happens, you’ll usually be given the option to book the “Redemption with Cash Upgrade” or the “Redemption with Points Upgrade.” In rare circumstances, you’ll be given both options. The Executive Suite at the Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel, shown below, lists both options:
In the above image, you can see that the standard room (Guest room, 1 King) costs 70,000 points for the one night I searched for. That room can be booked with 70,000 points, an 85K free night certificate, or a 50K free night certificate + 20,000 points.
Below the Guest room, you can see the Executive Suite with a Chicago River view. That room can be booked with 70,000 points + $200, or with 110,000 points (70,000 points + 40,000 points for the upgrade). With either of these upgrade options, I cannot use a free night certificate directly. The checkout screen only offers the option to spend points.
The workaround is to book the “Guest room, 1 King” with your free night certificate, then modify the reservation and change the room to the “Executive Suite, 1 Bedroom Suite, 1 King, Chicago River view.” When doing so, the free night certificate will remain on your reservation.
Change the date when no standard room is available
At the Times Square EDITION, I found a night in which no standard rooms were available, but Redemptions with Cash Upgrades were available:
If I wanted to use a free night certificate for this night, Marriott won’t let me directly use it for an upgraded room. However, I found that I could use a cert to book a standard room on a different night, and then modify the reservation to the night I wanted:
The value of a cert doesn’t change the upgrade price
Sometimes the value of your cert will be greater than the points cost for a standard room. In those cases, the cert is only worth the cost of the standard room. Even when you apply the cert to a “redemption with points upgrade” the extra value of the cert isn’t used. Here’s an example:
At the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, Miami Beach, a standard room on the night I looked at cost 78,000 points. So, when I used an 85K cert to book that room, I “lost” 7K in value:
Next, I modified the reservation to book a “Redemption with Points Upgrade” where the room rate was listed as 109,800 points:
It would be reasonable to assume that my 85K cert would be worth 85,000 points towards the 109,800 required so that I’d only owe 24,800 additional points, but that’s not the case. The value of the cert doesn’t change the upgrade price. The upgrade price for this room was 31,800 points and so that’s what I had to pay to upgrade:
Beware change and cancelation rules for close-in bookings
If you’re trying to do the trick detailed above for a near term booking, make sure to carefully read the change & cancelation rules before doing so. If you’re already inside the window such that changes are no longer allowed, you should modify the approach slighty. When booking the standard room with your certificate, make sure to pick a date in the future where it is still safe to make free changes and cancellations. Then you can modify the reservation, change to the date you want, and pick your upgrade.
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That’s a great tip, thanks!
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Great tip! Can’t wait to try this.
Can you change the date to after the free night expires?
no
This worked for me also for a stay in which I had a 85k cert but the base room was only 47k, and I couldn’t use my FNC on any of the nicer rooms. So I booked the 47k room a month or so ago, and after reading this article went and modified my reservation and was able to move to the nicer room and just pay the points difference between the base rate and the new rate and keep my FNC attached. This took us to a “family room” which allowed us to cancel the 2nd room we had booked to fit all 4 of us. Win 🙂
Use it while you can. Waiting for the shutdown.
It’s possible this will shutdown but it’s also possible the property benefits but IT just doesn’t have a good implementation to offer this feature directly.
The properties offering an upgrade feature in the first place are most likely ones that were in SPG which allowed what they called “cash and points” awards. That’s what’s being called an upgrade here. Internally Marriott is awarding the property the standard room price plus whatever the property agreed for that extra points price. In the end they may be getting paid the same or an amount they consider acceptable. We don’t know.
Thanks. Tested this just now but didn’t change my room because too bad they still charge you the extra points up charge from the standard room price. I need all my points right now. But good to know for the future especially at say, some beach hotel where I might want to pay the difference for an oceanfront room which is usually not available with standard rooms.
great tip! Thank you for sharing.
Great tip Amol and Greg, thank you for sharing 🙂
Amazing! I always learn something new from your articles! Thank you so much as I have struggled with this situation in the past but wasn’t smart enough to figure the workaround!
This is a great article!! Love this – I was actually just trying to maximize our two 85K certs for a Nashville stay and we need a larger room (our college son will join us and likely the Great dane too!)
This is the situation I had where I ran into the workaround — had a NYC 1-night stay perfect for an 85K cert but we decided to switch the date and bring our son so needed a bigger room.
unfortunately, didn’t work for us on the trip – I will try later and see if anything changes…
Very useful info, thank you for sharing this with the community!