Depending on how many Chase and American Express Marriott credit cards you hold, it’s possible to end up with numerous free night certificates after renewing your cards each year.
You also have the option to select a free night certificate valid for properties costing up to 40,000 points per night as your Choice Benefit when earning Titanium Elite status.
Redeeming your certificate(s) is fairly straightforward, although there are some quirks that are worth being aware of when booking. Here’s a quick guide showing how to use Marriott free night certificates, as well as several ways that they can’t be used.
How To Find Your Marriott Free Night Certificates
To see which Marriott certificates are available to you, visit the Activity section when logged in to your account. If you have any unused certificates available, you’ll see them listed there.
In the screenshot above, I mostly had certificates that could be redeemed for nights costing up to 35,000 points per night, although I did use my Choice Benefit from earning Titanium Elite status that year to choose a 40,000 certificate too.
If you have some older Chase Marriott cards that haven’t been upgraded yet, you might have certificates that can be used for properties costing up to 25,000 points, while the Chase Ritz-Carlton and Amex Bonvoy Brilliant cards both come with certificates good for properties costing up to 85,000 points per night at renewal. Welcome offers sometimes come with certificates valid up to 50,000 points per night, with some cards also offering 50k certificates when spending enough on the card over the course of a year.
Since 2022, Marriott has let you top up certificates with up to 15,000 points per certificate in order to book properties costing more than the certificate’s value.
How To Use Marriott Free Night Certificates
Unlike IHG certificates where you have to click a specific link in your account to redeem them or select the certificate on the initial search screen when logged in, you only need to be logged in to your Marriott account to be able to redeem theirs.
Do a search like normal, checking the box to ‘Use Points/Certificates’ so that it displays the points requirements. Once you’ve found a property you like, click ‘View Rates’ to see the room options available.
As you can see in the above screenshot, you’ll see two options – one for Cash and Points and one for points (or free night certificates).
If you click ‘Select’ for the ‘Redemption’ option, Marriott’s website will give you a couple of options – one to redeem an eligible free night certificate or points. Marriott will sometimes default to selecting a free night certificate rather than points, but other times it’ll default to a points booking.
Provided you’re happy with using your certificate, continue scrolling down the page and complete the booking process.
How To Redeem Multiple Marriott Free Night Certificates
Another way that Marriott’s process for redeeming free night certificates differs from IHG’s is that IHG only allows you to book one night at a time when using a certificate, whereas Marriott allows you to book multiple nights.
For example, let’s say you have lots of certificates to use up and want to use them for a five night stay. After selecting your room you’ll be provided with that option provided there’s award availability.
In this example, I could redeem five free night certificates or 140,000 points for the stay. If you’d rather save some of your certificates and redeem some points towards the stay in their place, you can do that by unchecking the certificate(s) you don’t want to use. When doing that, it’s best to uncheck the certificate(s) that have an expiry date furthest in the future.
Marriott Sometimes Redeems Multiple Certificates Weirdly
If you plan on redeeming two or more certificates for a stay, keep an eye on how Marriott chooses to redeem them as sometimes they’ll apply them sub-optimally.
For example, let’s say you want to book a weekend stay using a 35k certificate and a 40k certificate, with the two nights costing 32k points for the first night and 39k points for the second. In theory, your certificates are sufficient to pay for both nights without needing to top them up with points.
However, I’ve had instances where Marriott has applied them in a seemingly haphazard manner. In the above scenario, you might find them applying the 40k certificate to the 32k night and the 35k certificate to the 39k night. That would mean you’d have to top up the 35k certificate with an additional 4,000 points which is annoying.
To force it to use the certificates you have for specific nights, you might have to book one night at a time, selecting which certificate you want to use for each night. It’s annoying as it means when checking in that you have to ensure they link your reservations to ensure you stay in the same room, but it’s better than having to redeem points that you needn’t redeem.
How Marriott Free Night Certificates Can’t Be Used
As I mentioned earlier, redeeming your certificates is straightforward. However, there are a few features and quirks that are worth being aware of.
Can’t Be Stacked With ‘Stay 5, Pay For 4’ Benefit
One benefit of the Marriott Bonvoy program that’s available to all members (rather than just those with status) is that when staying five nights you’ll get one of those nights free on an award stay. For the purpose of this benefit though, it’s only available when redeeming points – not free night certificates.
I showed earlier how to redeem multiple certificates at the same time. That example showed the results when booking a five night stay. Despite Marriott having the Stay 5, Pay For 4 benefit, that sadly doesn’t mean you only need to redeem four certificates.
When looking at the Summary of Charges for a 5 night stay using certificates, you’ll see that one of the nights costs 0 points but a free night certificate is still required for that night anyway.
That’s frustrating and means that if you’re booking a five night stay, it might instead be worth considering redeeming points to take advantage of the Stay 5, Pay For 4 benefit.
Can’t Book More Than One Night With A Single Certificate
Some Marriott award stays cost significantly less than 25k, 35k, 40k, 50k or 85k. While it would be nice to be able to book two or more nights using only one free night certificate, that’s sadly not an option.
For example, 35,000 points can book two nights at a property costing 17,500 points per night, but it’s not possible to redeem one 35,000 point certificate for those same two nights. Instead, those two nights would require two certificates.
Can’t Be Redeemed For Premium Rooms
Depending on the property and award availability, you might sometimes see multiple room types bookable for a different number of points. Even if your certificate would be able to cover the cost of a higher priced room, unfortunately Marriott doesn’t let you redeem certificates for those premium room types – only standard room pricing.
Sometimes you might get lucky though and find a premium room bookable for a standard number of points. For example, if you have a 35k free night certificate and want to book a stay at a Residence Inn, you might see a studio king room for 34k points as well as a one bedroom suite for 34k points. Despite the one bedroom suite being a more premium room type (and probably more expensive cash-wise), you would be able to redeem the certificate for that kind of suite as it’s in their system at standard pricing. A two bedroom suite at the same property costing 39k points wouldn’t be bookable though, even if you wanted to top up with 4k points.
Can’t Get A Refund For Unused Points
Certificates can be redeemed for a free night at any property costing up to their points limit, but Marriott won’t award you points for any unused amount above your redemption.
For example, you can redeem a 35,000 point certificate for a property costing 25,000 points, but you won’t have the 10,000 point differential posted to your account – that potential extra value just goes to waste.
Can’t Gift A Certificate To Someone Else (Sort Of)
Unlike some other programs like World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy doesn’t allow you to gift your certificates to someone else. Not officially anyway.
There’s a potential workaround, but it does involve a little risk. You can add the other person’s name as a guest on the booking and ask the hotel to let them check in. I’ve successfully done this for family members in the past, but there’s no guarantee that every hotel will allow this to happen. It might be that they had no issues seeing as they had the same last name as me, but I suspect it could also depend on if the person you’re booking for gets an ornery front desk agent.
Extending Marriott Free Night Certificates
In the past it was often possible to extend the expiration date on free night certificates by reaching out to their Customer Care team. Unfortunately that possibility seemed to come to an end in December 2023, but if you have one about to expire it doesn’t hurt to ask just in case something changes in the meantime.
Summary
As you can see, it’s easy to redeem Marriott free night certificates earned from credit cards and Titanium Elite status, but it’s good to be aware of how they can – and can’t – be used.
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I would appreciate any data points on how long it take a FNC earned from AMEX Marriott Biz card renewal to post to my account. Both P1 & P2 had their renewal hit and paid in September 2024, still no FNC in either of our accounts. Does it really take 8-12 weeks to show up? Is there a way to use them prior to them showing up? My IHG ones with Chase show up even before the renewal fee hits the card. If I want to call – would I call AMEX or Marriott? Thanks for any tips and dp’s.
I have an 85k certificate expiring soon that I don’t really need to use beforehand. But is there a way to have the Marriott website apply the certificate for a stay (to be taken after the expiration date) but before it expires? Much like a non-refundable booking, I am more than willing to have the certificate redeemed now for a future stay even if it means that canceling the future booking results in the loss of the then expired certificate. Is there a workaround? For example, book a room before the certificate expires, then try to change the reservation date by phone, etc?
You’re not able to redeem the certificates for a stay after their stated expiry date. However, I’ve never tried making a reservation before the expiry date and asking the hotel to move the stay date until after the expiry date. That might work; I suspect your best chance of success would be if the hotel was to process that rather than an agent on the regular Marriott Bonvoy phone number.
Just an update. I made an online reservation with my free night certificate before it expired. I then directly messaged the hotel the following day asking if the reservation date could be changed to a different (post-expiration) date; unfortunately, the hotel informed me that they could not change a reservation made with “points”. Unfortunately, that means the 85k free night certificate will go to waste in the next 48 hours. 🙁
How did you accumulate so many certificates. I thought you only could receive 1 night from a personal card and 1 night from a business card regardless of how many cards you have. In your examples were there extended cert as the dates were prior to the policy change?
You can only earn elite night credits from one personal and one business card, but you can get certificates on each of the Marriott cards you have.
In the screenshot in the post, that was taken during COVID when they were extending certificates and so I had more than I would normally have.
This is good stuff. I recently ran into another “can’t use” case. Was looking to book a free night at a Ritz and picked a club access room that cost 74,000 points. I’d assumed that my 85k cert would cover that. It wasn’t applied. If I tried to book a standard room that cost 58k it was applied. Someone on FT said the certs can only be used for standard rooms, even though I don’t see that in the terms and conditions. Bummer.
That’s another good point – I’ll add that to the post.
Re: “ Since 2022, Marriott has let you top up certificates with up to 15,000 points per certificate in order to book properties costing more than the certificate’s value.” I wish Marriott would let you top up any amount of points, like IHG does.
Just one data point. I book one night reservations for a multi-night stay all the time. Sometimes the hotel forces you into it (Ritz in Key Biscayne was unavailable for one four consecutive night stay but bizarrely was available for each of the four nights if booked one night at a time). Sometimes I book on points with the idea of substituting out free night certificates as I earn them. I have never had an issue with staying in the same room. I just let the hotel know shortly before the stay and every morning when I go to breakfast, they give me a new key. Often, they even combine all nights onto one folio (which prevents you from calling it multiple stays, which you couldn’t do anyway if booked as one reservation).
Great tips here. Also glad you covered the gifting thing in the comments, but might want to add that to the post since it’s very much a thing about how they can’t be used (without a workaround). Also, small spelling error: pints = points. Thanks Stephen!
Oops, thanks for the pints/points thing – just fixed that. Good idea about the gifting certificates thing too – I’ll get that added in.
Hi Stephen (or others), I would like some advice on the best approach for my Marriott certificates now that it seems unlikely I will be staying in a hotel for at least 6 months, maybe much longer due to my fear of catching the virus.
With my wife I have the following:
1 individual night certificate (up to 25,000 points)
8 individual night certificates (up to 35,000 points)
1 7-night certificate (up to 25,000 points)
1 7-night certificate (up to 35,000 points)
1 7-night reservation for December (up to 25,000 points).
That’s a total of 30 nights!
All of the above expire in the first 3 months of 2021 except the reservation which I will call about and see what they offer if I cancel or try to re-book for a later date).
What should I do? Firstly I think I’ll start cancelling my Marriott credit cards, but what am I likely to get from Marriott on these? Will they extend them all (again)? I know I can get a paltry 45,000 points for each 7-niight cert. Are they likely to extend some certificates beyond early next year?
Any suggestions on how to approach this would be welcome.
Thanks.
I’m afraid I don’t know if they’ll extend the 7 night certificates. With the individual night certificates, you might be able to extend them just before they expire. Marriott has been good about extending them in the past, so hopefully they’ll continue being generous with extensions given the current circumstances.
Check out the following post for details about how to extend those https://frequentmiler.com/bonvoy-success-marriott-free-night-certificate-extended-another-year/. If you get an agent who says they can’t be extended, it’d be worth calling back to speak to a different agent as success sometimes depends on who you talk to.
Thanks, Stephen … I think I’ll give up one of my Marriott cards this week as a fee is now due.
I have the Amex card as well what is the free night cert coded as?
Sorry, what do you mean by how is it coded?
On my certificates is this the American Express free night?
MAR BV AX FNA UP TO 35K POINTS.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that’s how the free night certificates from the personal cards show up. The business Amex cards show up as MAR BV AX Business Anv FNA up to 35k pts.
Stephen and the audience – what has been your experience in changing reservations with certs made prior to the March devaluation? Btw I think it’s ridiculous China had all its properties adjusted to pre devaluation levels while Europe and US with much higher cases had nothing of the sort.
I’ve never had to change my reservation like that, so I’m not sure – hopefully someone else can share their experience.
Thank you Stephen. I’ve had multiple issues where the agent told me it’s not a problem to change the reservation – but they don’t seem to be aware of the issues with category changes. I booked a bunch prior to the changes and then corona hit… I’m sure I’m not the only one…
I’m wondering if you could tell us how to know when the seasons are for low, regular, and high. Since each property presumably makes its own decisions, is it somewhere on each property website?
There aren’t any set seasons – it’s all property-specific. I don’t think there’s a way to see the redemption rates for each property (other than its specific category) like there is on Choice’s website, so the best thing is to just search a range of dates and then look at the breakdown to see which dates require fewer points.
Thanks much!
i tried booking 2 nights with 2 35k certs in one booking, but one night would always be 40k where the other would be 35k. When I enter them individually they’re each 35k. Didn’t see it mentioned in the article, so they are purposely making it ineligible to do it all in one booking?
That’s really strange. I don’t think they’re trying to make it ineligible for one booking because I was able to find availability for 5 nights at 35k without an issue.
It therefore sounds like it might be more of a glitch with the specific property you’re looking at. Which property and dates are you looking at?
Actually I just tried it again and it seems every other day is 40k and 35k, never 2 consecutive nights are 35k, which is so weird to me! It’s the AC Hotel Portland Downtown/Waterfront, ME for any 2 nights between August 18-23.
Ah, that makes a little more sense then.
Another option is to wipe out all points and certs in one fell swoop and stay nearly a month in a nice hotel somewhere as opposed to trying piecemeal to squeeze value out of these certs.
Stephen, can I gift or redeem free night cert for my kids?
Yes and no. You can’t just transfer the certificate to your kids or give them a code to use like you can with Radisson free night certificates, but you should be able to book a stay using your account but adding their names as additional guests. When doing so, it might be worth adding a note to the reservation letting them know that your child will be the one checking in, but don’t necessarily mention that you won’t be staying yourself.
online it says if the name for the primary person on the reservation doesn’t match up to the certificate, then the certificate won’t be deducted. So yes, I’ve called the hotel directly and added the other person as a guest and granting them access to check-in.
I don’t think they can be used on a point saver rate when the saver rate equals the certificate value (certificates can only be used on the full point rate if certificate equals the full point value).
That’s good to know. Marriott doesn’t make it easy to find Point Saver properties (unlike how IHG used to have a page for PointsBreak properties), which is a shame as I’d love to test that and add screenshots to the post.
I don’t think that’s right. I’m confident (but admittedly without proof) that you can use the certs on a point saver rate. It’s possible that it doesn’t work online, but you should be able to get an agent to apply it if that’s the case.