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Registration is open for Marriott’s promotion covering the latter part of Q1 and start of Q2 2019. It’s called Double Take and offers double points on all stays but doesn’t start until your second stay. In a newly introduced benefit, credit card holders can also earn 500 bonus points when staying at the weekend.
The Deal
- Earn double points on stays at Marriott properties starting with your second stay.
- Marriott Bonvoy U.S. Card Members earn an exclusive bonus of 500 additional points for weekend stays starting with the first stay.
- Direct link to registration.
Key Terms
- Registration required by May 21, 2019.
- Valid for stays from March 19, 2019 to June 4, 2019.
- The double points earning is only applicable to members’ base points earned per stay.
- Only one room per hotel is counted toward a member’s nights or stay.
- A “weekend stay” is defined as a stay that includes a Friday or Saturday night regardless of where the hotel is located.
Quick Thoughts
This promotion has been open for registration for the past week, but I just realized we hadn’t covered it yet. A double points promo isn’t particularly enticing or imaginative, especially seeing as you only start earning bonus points from your second stay.
The second stay requirement is something that Hyatt sadly introduced on their latest promotion, although Hyatt’s setup is far better for a couple of reasons. First, bonus points from that promo can be earned even on award stays, whereas Marriott’s is only earned on paid stays seeing as double points of 0 is 0. Secondly, due to award stays counting with Hyatt, you can book a category 1 stay for 5,000 points as your first stay, ensuring that any longer stays after that don’t miss out on all the bonus points. With Marriott’s Double Take promotion, you’d need to book a paid stay before you’ll start earning any bonus points.
It seems like Marriott might have realized how underwhelming the double points promotion is. That’s because at some point in the last week they’ve added an incentive for credit card holders that offers 500 bonus points when your stay includes at least one Friday or Saturday night – that’s on top of the double points you’ll earn. That potentially makes one night stays at the weekend more worthwhile, but I won’t be going out of my way to book any Marriott stays during this promotion. It’s unlikely to incentivize road warriors to move stays to Marriott though because their stays probably aren’t going to include a Friday or Saturday night.
In keeping with the Bonvoy teething problems (does 7 months still count as “teething”?), when my wife and I registered for this promotion last week we both received the following error message:
Despite claiming that we weren’t registered, our accounts both listed the Double Take promotion in the active Promotions section on our accounts, so I think we were successfully registered. They’ve hopefully removed the erroneous error message since then, but if not then check your own ‘Promotions’ tab to make sure it shows that you are indeed registered.
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[…] It’s getting frustrating how many hotel promotions don’t kick in until you’ve stayed a second time. Hyatt’s recently ended promotion had that requirement, as does Hilton’s current promotion and as does Marriott’s current promotion. […]
[…] is a fairly good deal. It’s also nice that you get the reward after one stay, rather than the current Marriott promotion and the recent Hyatt promotion where you only earn bonus points from your second […]
I have been staying at Marriott, pretty much 20 nights a month or more.
Wanted to share my recent surprise finding:
At Titanium elite level (x 1.75), this offer has essentially more than doubled the points.
5 days at $120/night translates into close to 15000 points plus another 3600 if using BONVOY Credit card.
So 18,000 points at the minimum.
18,000 points times 4 (for a month) ~ 72000 points ~$600 in valuation. .
So a ‘stay’ is defined as consecutive nights at the same hotel. Does this mean that one night stays don’t receive double points during this promotion?
No, a one night stay would earn double points. They’re just clarifying that if you booked a one night stay and then booked a separate one night stay at the same property, that’d be deemed one stay rather than two.
If on the other hand you booked a one night stay at one property and another one night stay at another property, that’d be regarded as two separate stays.
I did exactly this Monday night at Hyatt to trigger their current “points after second-stay-bonus.”
[…] about the double take promo can be found here: Marriott Promo For Q1/Q2 2019: Double Take – Double Points From Second Stay. And, everything you ever wanted to know about Marriott’s rewards program can be found […]
Do you earn the bonus points on award stays?
No, as double points means you’d be earning 2x of a $0 room rate.
Double points promo starts on 3/19 but what if my first stay starts on 3/18 -3/20 and second paid stay at a different property from 3/20-3/21. Would the second stay be eligible for double points?
I suspect that it would, but the terms don’t clearly state whether a stay starting before the promotion begins but where checkout happens after it’s started is qualifying or not.
It might be worth sending a message to Marriott – that way if they state that the 3/18-3/20 stay is qualifying, you’ll have it in writing if the double points from the subsequent stay don’t post to your account.
Thanks Stephen. I reached out to Marriott and they did confirm the first stay will count as qualifying stay.
“Yes, your upcoming stay from 3.18-3/20 wil be considered as your first stay. Hence, the promotional benefits would be applied to your next stay.”
Fantastic – I’m glad it’s working out as hoped 🙂
Bummer, I am sitting in a Marriott hotel right now … a week early. Oh well.
Honestly with all the problems of getting points for non-promo stays to post properly without jumping thru all the hoops trying to get missing points credited.
Like this will make up for all the ill-will post merger and pre/post 3.5.2019 redemption fiasco.
I trust Marriott even less now that they are trying to buy some positive press with bloggers/influencers
Any idea if I will earn double base points on any eligible charges for awards stays under this promotion?
That’s a good question. The terms state:
“The double points earning is only applicable to members’ base points earned per stay.”
I’m therefore not certain if you were to charge something to your room during an award stay whether that would count or not. Past MegaBonus promotions have had a similar second stay requirement, so hopefully someone can confirm if this has worked in the past.
I cannot get registered — error message with a blank screen and in the URL it shows: https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/promotionUnavailable.mi
I doubt if this is targeted because it’s advertised on the Marriott homepage.
Are you seeing that after entering your details, or immediately upon visiting the link listed above?
If the former, have you checked the Promotions section of your account to see if it says you’re registered? If the latter, have you tried clicking the link in Incognito mode in case it’s a caching issue?
1. After entering details, get the unavailable page; or, if I sign in first to Bonvoy, then click thru the Marriott links to 2X, same result.
2. Same result as #1 when trying both ways in incognito mode.
3. Tried different browser, same result.
4. Only item on Promotions page is to invite credit card others to get credit card.
Weird.
Like you say, it’s not the greatest promo, but I could use it.
In the same boat, Chaz. I haven’t had problems with nights/points taking too long to post, but you’d think a registration for a publicly available promo would be pretty easy to get right.
That’s really strange – it should be an untargeted global promotion, so this must be a systems issue rather than the fact that you’re not targeted. If you’re likely to have 2+ Marriott stays during the promotion period like it sounds you will, I’d give Marriott a call on the number listed on the error message above and see if one of their phone reps can enroll you in the promo. Sorry that you’re having so much hassle with this though.
Having the same issue myself. Even when logging on and then going to the Promos page, nothing shows up.
same problem
Same problem, but I am already registered for “Double up”– double points on two or more nights beginning with the *first* stay, but apparently no 500-point bonus for card holders.
When you click on the ‘See Details’ button for that promotion, what promotion code is listed in the URL? The URL for this promotion is https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/promotion.mi?promotion=DU19 and so the code is DU19 – I’m curious if Double Up is different.
I don’t see a promotion code anywhere in the description. And when I click through to “Book Now,” no code is entered in a dummy reservation.
These promotions don’t require a special code to be used when making a reservation. When you’re logged in to your account though, click on ‘Promotions’ and then ‘See Details’. In the address bar of your browser it should say something like https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/promotion.mi?promotion=DU19 – I’m curious what the code used at the end is.
I was having the same issue. I called the elite phone number and they manually registered me.
im seeting the same
I’m getting the unavailable message also. I wonder if it’s related to a promo that I am currently registered and earning for. I’m in an “Exclusively for You: Double Elite Night Credits” promo. This promo runs from the day after you signup, through the signup month, and then the 2 following months.
I think I signed up for this promo in February, so it runs through the end of April for me. I’ve earned 10 elite night credits so far. My work travel has been a little light this 1st quarter, but with the 10 free nights I’m already 25 nights in – working on keeping my Titanium Status for another year.