Marriott Dynamic Pricing: Check Existing Reservations For Cheaper Pricing

Marriott’s dynamic pricing has now gone live and while it’s bad news for some properties, there’s been a pleasantly surprising result that award stays at many hotels are now cheaper than they were 24 hours ago.

I’d booked three award stays over the course of the next few months and all three have gotten cheaper with the introduction of dynamic pricing.

For example, my wife is riding RAGBRAI this summer – a 430 mile bike ride that runs across Iowa from west to east. The route is different each year and this year they’re setting off from Sergeant Bluff. Just before that begins, we’ll be staying five nights in nearby Sioux City. The total cost before the change to dynamic pricing (including the Stay for 5, Pay for 4 benefit) was 60,000 points.

When checking the pricing last night after dynamic pricing had come in to play, I’d expected to see some kind of increase in award costs. My expectations were wrong though because it now costs less. It had decreased to 58,500 points which, while only being a difference of 1,500 points, meant I rebooked our stay to pay that lower rate.

Before RAGBRAI, we’ll be spending a few weeks exploring Iowa (stop laughing back there). We’ll be staying six nights in Des Moines during that time and previously booked a stay costing a total of 100,000 points.

The difference in award costs for that stay with dynamic pricing were even more striking. That six night stay now only costs 86,000 points, a drop of 14%.

It’s not like the award pricing dropped because the cash price was particularly low either. Marriott Bonvoy points appear to have retained far more value than I was giving them credit for after the announced changes but before the changes came into play.

For example, that five night stay in Sioux City which is now only 58,500 points would cost $972.85 in cash. That’s 1.66 cpp of value which is surprisingly high, although there are a couple of factors at play here. First, with it being a five night award stay, the cheapest of those nights is free which improves the redemption value. Second, three of the nights would normally cost $124.96 per night with the other two nights being significantly higher at $298.77 (presumably a feature of ~8,500 RAGBRAI riders being in the area). If our stay would’ve cost $124.96 for every night, that would’ve been 1.07 cpp of value.

While that’s nowhere near as good as 1.66 cpp, that’s still far higher than I was giving Marriott credit for when they announced their plans to price award nights dynamically. It also shows that it’s still possible at some properties to get outsized value redeeming points even when cash prices are very high.

Our stay in Des Moines is another example of this. That six night stay now costing a total of 86,000 points would cost $1,655.36 if paying cash. That’s 1.92 cpp of value – even better than our Sioux City stay. The fact that our award stay dropped in price with the introduction of dynamic pricing to give us almost 2 cpp of value was a very nice surprise.

The Bad News

Before these changes came into play, Marriott provided a list of ~200 properties that would cost noticeably more with dynamic pricing. One of those properties was the Le Meridien Maldives, a brand new hotel that Greg and Nick visited last year and loved.

The Le Meridien Maldives was a category 5 property which meant that it previously cost 35,000 points per night at standard rates. That was great news for many people because provided it wasn’t at peak pricing, it was bookable with 35,000 point free night certificates that come with some Marriott credit cards.

A five night stay (again, utilizing the Stay for 5, Pay for 4 benefit) previously cost 140,000 points for a Beach Bungalow and 190,000 points for a Sunrise Overwater Villa as there’s been great award availability at this property recently.

Those same dates now cost 200,000 points and 250,000 points respectively – a massive jump.

Check Pricing Of Current Stays & Rebook

If you have any Marriott award stays currently booked, be sure to check their current pricing. If it’s a property like the Le Meridien Maldives which has gone up in price, you’ll obviously want to keep your existing reservations.

However, if you’re lucky like me and have reservations that price out more cheaply with dynamic pricing than they did before, it could be worth cancelling and rebooking them.

Check Pricing For Free Night Certificates

Even if you don’t have any existing reservations to rebook, it’d be worth checking pricing if you have free night certificates to redeem. Seeing as some properties have dropped in price with the launch of dynamic pricing, you might find your free night certificates can now be redeemed for properties and/or dates where they were previously out of reach due to the previous off-peak/standard/peak pricing setup.

Certificate Top-Up Date Still To Be Announced

Marriott advised last month that they’ll be launching a new feature whereby you’ll be able to top up free night certificates with up to 15,000 points in order to book a more expensive property with your certificates.

At the time they said this feature would be launched in April. They’ve since confirmed that this feature will still be going live at some point in April, but the exact date is still to be announced.

Question

Have you gotten lucky and been able to rebook awards for cheaper? Or are stays you wanted to book now more expensive? Let us know in the comments below.

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