Today Marriott has announced an extension to free night certificates and travel package certificates as follows:
Effective December 11, 2020, members who currently have a Free Night Award (FNA) that had [has] an original expiration date in 2020, or which will expire before July 31, 2021, as part of their cobrand credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to redeem it through August 1, 2021. Free Night Awards with an original expiration date prior to 2020 will not be eligible for the additional extension.
That is a positive development for those with credit card certificates originally scheduled to expire in the coming months. Members will not need to proactively do anything to get this extension; Marriott says that current certificates will show updated expiration dates on December 11, 2020.
This only applies to certificates originally scheduled to expire in 2020/2021
Unfortunately, this extension does not help those whose certificates were previously extended as the announcement specifies that certificates with an original expiration date before 2020 will not be extended again.
In my personal case, I called for an extension on a credit card free night certificate last year. The certificate was originally scheduled to expire on January 3, 2020 so it was extended to January 3, 2021. Since my original expiration was in 2020, I expect that my certificate will be extended through August 1, 2021.
However, if my original expiration had been December 31, 2019 and it had previously been extended to December 31, 2020, I think I would be out of luck based on today’s announcement.
It is possible that the system won’t really be smart enough to know which certificates should be extended and which should not, so it’s worth keeping an eye on your certificate on December 11th even if you expect it won’t be extended (though if you have a use for it in the interim, I’d recommend using it).
Points expiration pause also extended
Marriott has also announced that the pause on the expiration of points has also been extended to August 1, 2021. Previously, expiration had been paused until February 2021. This ensures that members with points will keep them long enough to either use them or gain some activity that extends them further.
Bottom line
Marriott has extended free night certificates originally scheduled to expire in 2021 or in the first half of 2021 until August 1, 2021. This includes free night certificates from credit cards, elite choice benefits, and travel package certificates. Previously, certificates had only been extended through January 2021, so this is a welcome change that will hopefully give members a chance to use their certificates. Unfortunately, it excludes certificates which were originally scheduled to expire before 2020 — so if you have a certificate that was originally set to expire in 2019 and it got extended to expire in 2020, that certificate will not be extended again according to this announcement.
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[…] of us have Marriott free night certificates to burn. Marriott has extended free nights that were set to expire by July 31 2021 or earlier. Now, they all expire August 1, 2021. What this means is that a huge number of Marriott Bonvoy […]
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I believe previously extended certs (originally expiring before 2020) will be extended. This might just be wishful thinking, but I think when I extended mine, Marriott actually cancelled the first cert and issued a replacement. I’m not certain, but I think there were two transactions to extend a cert.
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In my opinion, this won’t be the last time they extend the expiration. What can change in 2021?
What is with taking over a month to update the date online! IT is hard….
@ Nick – when is Hyatt Club Award expiration extension is scheduled to happen? My 6 awards still show February 2021.
With regards to Marriott, this extension is appreciated but would’ve been even better if they could’ve done it sooner so we don’t have to wait until December to book 2021 travel. But still not bad.
Good news but it’s unfortunate that we won’t know if it’s been extended until 12/11. I have a 7 night certificate and a 35k cert both expiring on 1/31/2021. I assume I’ll have to use the 7-night, but would be nice to know if it will be hard coded.
Very good news
lol Geez, this SPG/Marriott hotel package has 9 lives! It was due to expire in early 2019, but at the last second, I was able to extend it by a year (thus 2020) because of the hotel category changes. then covid extended it to Jan 2021. I would love to use it (given that it is 7 days) but I have a hard time believing I’m going to redeem it in the next 60 days.
But keep in mind that according to today’s announcement, you’ll indeed have to use that one in the next 60 days. There is a chance that the IT isn’t coded the way they’ve announced it, but since that package was due to expire in 2019 originally, it would not be extended according to this.
I originally got my 7-night Cat 5 certificate in 2017 and have been fortunate to extend it multiple times – now set to expire January 6, 2021. Each time they actually re-issued it as a new cert so I’m not sure they can tell when it was originally issued. I’m going to call and see if I can get a COVID extension. Can’t hurt to try.
As an aside, all these moves hotel companies are making are very welcome and very appreciated. But Hyatt is really leading the way in terms of generosity, lead time, breadth of extending benefits, free nights, etc. I love me some Hyatt!
With their expanded footprint with all the partnerships of the last two years, it has really cemented my desire to totally focus my loyalty with Hyatt.
Once I can use my 7-night cert & 200k Marriott points, 650k Radisson points, and 1MM+ Hilton points… lol.
I’m not sure I’d give Hyatt credit for leading the way in terms of either lead time or free night extension. Hilton announced elite status extensions well ahead of Hyatt and extended free night certificates issued this year to be valid for two full years (and before making that decision, they had already extended certificates longer than competitors).
Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the things that Hyatt has done, but it took them FOREVER to extend club lounge awards for people who had them set to expire in February 2021 — they just announced that recently, whereas Hilton was on top of extensions back in like April if memory serves me correctly. Hyatt has made some good moves in response, but not quite leading the way in terms of lead time or free night cert extension in my opinion.
Good points! I forgot about Hilton and their friendly and pro-active changes. I forget about Hyatt club awards since I’ve had Globalist for several years now… But that is a valid complaint that they held back for a while.
Thanks for the quick replies and clarifications.
Any insight or hard knowledge on the state of travel packages expiration being extended? And in particular, the pre-merger packages. I converted mine juuuust before it expired from a 1-5 SPG to a 1-4 Marriott, and it was extended to expire 1/31/2021. Obviously there’s no chance of using it anywhere meaningful… so seeing that valid to August ’21 would be fantastic (thought no guarantee of being able to use it!)
Thanks in advance!
Like it says in the post, according to this announcement that will not be extended since it was originally scheduled to expire before 2020 — and like I said, there is a chance that they haven’t coded their IT to match the announcement, but I wouldn’t count on it. We’ll find out on December 11th.
Can you travel bloggers try publicizing and putting pressure on IHG to do something similar? They are the only one still refusing to extend award certificates due to expire in 2020.
Ditto on IHG Certs needed to be extended. Have two ending 2020 and really not comfortable traveling with Covid2.0 upon us!
Totally agreed that IHG has done a poor job here (as has Radisson). That said, I don’t think a “shame on you, IHG!” post from me moves the needle in making them do anything differently. IHG in particular really doesn’t seem to care much what anyone says about them.
I agree with you but maybe if BArea/TPG/DansDeals/MMS and anyone else in the blogosphere all put IHG on blast at the same time, just maybe that would do something!!
I’m sitting on two 40k certs expiring in 2020 as well. Try to look on the bright side…the actual travel can occur beyond the expiration date as long as the booking happens before expiration.
Are you sure about that? You used to be able to book travel after the expiration date on those, but I believe all certificates issued since maybe May of last year (guesstimate as I don’t remember exactly) can only be used for travel up to the expiration date.
Bummer, you are correct Nick–not sure how I didn’t know that
You probably didn’t know that because the website misleadingly says, “Book before 12/31/20″ or something like that. Only when you try to use it for a date after the expiration do you discover that the travel also has to occur before the expiration date.
I tried to use FN cert expiring 12/31/20 on New Years Eve (last day to use it) and system refused it.
Called CS, they explained it happened due to checking out is in January. So actually you need to check OUT on 12/31/20 to be able to use that certificate. Then I asked to extend that cert and they couldn’t do that but been advised to check in the middle of November as IHG may extend those certificates automatically.
There is a hope.
So when should we expect to see those free certificates back in our account profile? I had 2 free nights that expired Aug 2020 I fought tooth and nail to be extended to no avail. I just checked my account and still nothing’s there.
Those should have already been extended as of April based on this announcement in March:
https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-coronavirus-cancellation-policy-changes-certificate-extensions/
They should have shown a January 2021 expiration date in your account since April (unless perhaps they were previously extended?). I don’t know where to tell you to start, but if those were certificates that were originally scheduled to expire in August 2020, you should reach back out to Marriott as they shouldn’t have expired.
C’mon IHG!!!