Marriott’s New Year’s resolution was apparently to run its first decent promo in years. Not only are they offering more bonus points than normal on stays, but they’re also giving double elite nights on all stays for a 2.5 month period. Depending on which credit cards you have, that could mean locking up Platinum or Titanium status with only 10 nights actually stayed this year.
Some readers have been unable to register online for this promotion for unknown reasons (ok, well, because it is known that Marriott’s IT is bad at best). If you’ve had difficulty with registration, there’s good news: you can call Marriott or send them a message (perhaps on Twitter or Facebook) and an agent should be able to get you registered. We’ve had multiple success reports (including in the comments on this post) from readers registering who have been able to register with an agent over the phone. If you were unable to register on the website or in the app, it’s worth a quick call.
The Deal
- Earn 1,000 bonus points per night plus double elite nights on each eligible paid night at Marriott properties.
- Direct link to registration.
Key Terms
- Registration of your Marriott Bonvoy account is required.
- Marriott Bonvoy members who register for this promotion by April 9, 2023, will earn 1,000 bonus points per eligible paid night, plus one bonus Elite Night Credit per eligible paid night, during the 75-night promotion earning period.
- The promotion earning period is for eligible paid nights completed between February 7, 2023, and April 23, 2023, at participating Marriott Bonvoy properties.
- Only eligible paid stays completed after registration and during the promotion earning period will qualify toward the promotion.
- Award redemption stay nights including Cash + Points Awards, Free Night Awards, or a points redemption are not eligible for the promotion.
- Rates available through most third-party online retailers and select travel agency rates do not qualify for this promotion (“Non-Qualifying Rate”).
- Stays at Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott Executive Apartments, and owner-occupied weeks at Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, Westin Vacation Club, The Ritz-Carlton Club, St. Regis Residence Club and Luxury Collection Residence Club, are not eligible for bonus points or bonus Elite Night Credits for this promotion.
- Only one room at one property per night is counted toward a member’s nights for the promotion.
- The 1,000 bonus points per eligible paid night and one bonus Elite Night Credit per eligible paid night will be awarded to the member’s account within 7 business days after checkout and will post with the stay.
- Elite Night Credits will count only toward the status year in which they are posted.
- A member who elects to earn miles is not eligible for this promotion.
- For a list of current participating Marriott Bonvoy properties, visit www.marriott.com/loyalty/earn/hotels.mi.
- Visit marriottbonvoy.com/earntwice or call 888-MARRIOTT (888-627-7468) for complete details.
Quick Thoughts
Once upon a time long, long ago, Marriott ran some good quarterly promotions. It’s been so long since they did that though, I can’t remember any examples of them. More commonly, they’ve not run any global promotions at all or, when they have, they’ve been lackluster like “Earn 2,000 bonus points per stay starting from your second stay.”
It’s therefore come as a surprise that they’re kicking off 2023 in relative style with a much more interesting promotion than in recent memory. The promotion has two parts where each part isn’t necessarily compelling in isolation, but together makes for much more rewarding stays.
The first part of the promotion is that you’ll earn 1,000 bonus points for every paid night that you stay with no limit on how many bonus points you can earn during the promotion period beyond the fact that it runs for 75 nights and so there’s up to 75,000 bonus points up for grabs. Greg recently recalculated the Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) of Marriott points and found the RRV to be 0.8cpp (cents per point). Based on that 0.8cpp of (reasonable redemption) value, 1,000 bonus points per night are worth $8 back in points. That’s not stunning, but as mentioned earlier it’s better than most other recent Marriott promos, especially seeing as you’ll earn that for every paid night starting from your very first night.
The second part of the promotion makes it more compelling if you’re seeking out Marriott status. That’s because you’ll earn double elite night credits for every night of your paid stay too. If you were starting Marriott Bonvoy elite status from scratch without any of their credit cards, you could earn Platinum status with only 25 nights during the promotion period or Titanium status with only 38 nights. While the majority of people aren’t going to spend that much time on vacation in the spring, if you’re a road warrior, are in the process of moving home and staying somewhere temporarily, etc., staying 25-38 nights is certainly conceivable.
If you have any Marriott credit cards, earning status in 2023 becomes even easier. Most of their credit cards give 15 elite nights for holding a personal credit card and 15 elite nights for holding a business card. If you have one of both, you started off this year with 30 elite nights. This promotion therefore means you only need to stay 10 nights during the promo period for Platinum status or 23 nights for Titanium.
It could be even better than that though. The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Amex card gives 25 elite night credits each year, so paired with a business card takes you to 40 nights. Stays during this promotion period would get you Platinum status after only 5 nights or Titanium after 18 nights.
In true As Seen On TV style….but that’s not all! Some lucky cardholders with the right mix of cards and some magic pixie dust were inadvertently – but beneficially – awarded 55 elite night credits this year. That means Platinum status is already locked in, with Titanium only 10 nights away for stays within the promo period.
Remember also that when earning elite status with Marriott, you earn it for the rest of the existing year, the whole of the following year and then two months into the year after that. Status earned in 2023 will therefore be valid through February 2025 which is pretty much two full years if you’re able to get that locked in early this year.
Perhaps some of my excitement for this promotion stems from the fact that I’ll get to benefit from it. For starters, with the rare global promotions in the last couple of years, I’ve usually been unable to register our accounts whereas with this promo I could register both my account and my wife’s. I’m also pleased with the opportunity to earn double elite nights as it’ll give me a better chance of retaining Titanium status. I started the year with 30 elite night credits thanks to having both personal and business Marriott credit cards. I just had 3 nights credited from an award stay last week and have a 10 night stay booked for this summer which takes me to 43 nights.
Just yesterday I booked a week-long stay for next month at one of Marriott’s brands which will take me to 50 nights when also taking into account that summer stay. We’ve burned through most of our Marriott points recently due to the anticipated award devaluation in March, so I wasn’t certain we’d have 25 nights of paid stays to re-earn Titanium status this year. I’ve appreciated having Titanium status the last few years due to the 40k free night certificate as a Choice benefit, the increased likelihood of room upgrades and the corresponding United Silver status. The double elite nights means our week-long stay in February will earn 14 elite night credits, reducing how many more we’ll need this year to 18. That feels much more achievable, especially if we happen to book any more Marriott stays before April 23.
Seeing as this promotion is only valid on paid stays, remember to pay for your stay with a card – or cards – that have Marriott Amex Offers or Chase Offers on them to make it even more rewarding. Also click through from a shopping portal – here are the current rates.
Update: Several people in the comments are reporting that they’ve been unable to register for the promotion, so it doesn’t look like Marriott has fixed those issues. There are a few potential ways to fix this:
- Try registering again in a couple of weeks once the promotion has actually started
- Call Marriott as at least one reader has confirmed that this worked on their account
- DM MBonvoyAssist on Twitter as I believe they’ve been able to register people in the past
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Finally got a phone agent that said they were able to register me for this promotion today. Attempts in app or online haven’t worked for a month and attempts through chat didn’t go anywhere. Trying to stack with the other elite night promotion from December and the first phone rep kept saying I was already registered for that promotion. Crossing my fingers both show up in the account page within a few days.
12 hours later and happy to report both promotions show in app! 20 elite nights with only 5 paid nights for upcoming travel in April suddenly puts Platinum status for the year within reach.
Same here. Called an agent and DMed Marriott’s twitter account. Took me 20 hours to see the promotion on my promos page
I finished my first April trip and can confirm both offers stacked! Earned 16 elite nights and 3000 total bonus points for three paid one night stays. A three night stay in a few weeks should earn Platinum status.
Per paid night. Killed it.
Do you still get the bonus and double elite nights on a Points+Cash booking?
Im registed for the Earn 1,000 bonus points and 1 bonus Elite Night Creditand the Exclusively for You: Double Elite Night Credits promo. They over lap for a few days. Any chance I earn 4x nights during the overlap?
I’d think that they’d stack, but if they do then you’ll only earn 3 elite night credits per night – 1 regular night & 1 bonus night per promo.
You are right. I have those two promos and got 3 elite nights and 1000 bonus points for one night stay yesterday.
I too could not register from mobile, desktop, website or app. I reached out via their facebook page, sent a message explaining. I needed to provide my loyalty number, name on account, email on account and most recently posted past stay (hotel name and date of stay). Replied with that info, and they quickly enrolled me and advised an email would be forthcoming.
Switched from AA Miles to Marriott Points and the Promotion magically appeared.
When they allowed the Amex brilliant to provide platinum out front, they prob expected to dilute this status level somewhat. This act seems to be inline with that making status a little less hard to qualify.
Ambassador rep took care of it
Same issue. I believe it’s becUse I earn AA miles and not Marriott points that precludes me from registering for this
Any idea what happens with a stay checking on February 5 and out on February 8?
I was about to ask this question as well regarding stays that start before or end after the promotion period
appears to be targeted, I get:
We’re sorry, but there was an error in directing you to this promotion.
The reason for this error could be:
Try registering within the Marriott app. The promo is not supposed to be targeted.
Can see it on the Home Screen but when I click on it it takes me to the promotions page which shows none
It is buried behind various other random property specific promotions. Easy solution: Just click the “Direct link to registration” in the post above after logging in to your Bonvoy account in the same browser. Or type in promo number ET23 to find it.
Exactly the same for me, like I said below, promo shows up on the “home” section of the app but when I click on register now, it takes me to the “promotions” tab and gives me the error message, “sorry, this promotion is not available.”
Marriott’s IT is so bad. Did you also try on desktop? I guess worst case you could probably call in to register. Alternatively wait a couple of weeks and try again — they might fix it by then.
Tried Desktop and App, get error on both
me too
Wasn’t able to register through the app or desktop. Called Marriott CS, agent was able to manually register for me. Total call time was 1-2 min
same here, it was surprisingly fast and easy by phone!
It was just that for me – bad IT. Tried repeatedly about 15 times in 20-25 mins and finally it worked. Didn’t have to do anything different. I didn’t know that initially, though, so the first few tries were using an incognito browser, clicking through Promotions menu etc etc… turns out all that is not needed. Just patiently retry every couple of minutes and eventually it goes through. I suspect their back-end database is incapable of handling too much traffic and the error it returns is the same for ineligible members and just timeouts due to high load. As you pointed out, there are no ineligible members since it is global and not targeted. So its just the traffic.
And if my guess is correct, app vs. website won’t matter. You just need to “get lucky” based on the time of day, alignment of stars, whatever… that when you click, not too many (or any ) people have clicked that same instant. Marriott always ensures that even with a great promotion, we should not lack for something to complain about
Same with desktop, mobile browser, and app. The “Register Now” button on the Android app doesn’t take me anywhere. I didn’t receive the promo email so I assume it’s targeted or at least rolled out over time. My P2 received the email today and had no problems registering.
I ended up calling and they registered me over the phone
Hey Stephen, I have 5 free night award certificate available, to your March note, do you recommend I book something before the devaluation in March? What is going to happen?
We don’t know yet what pricing will be like. However, when they devalued properties in 2022, they kept some kind of anchor as to how high the price could go. From March 2023, that anchor will be taken away which could mean much higher prices, especially for more aspirational properties and locations (e.g. Maldives, Hawaii, etc.).
Although Marriott devaluations suck, they have historically been good about providing a heads up about when they’ll be devaluing and by how much. The information they provide will likely be a little more limited this year though because dynamic pricing will mean variable award prices rather than fixed categories like in past years.
I can’t remember if they’ve definitely said the changes will be happening in March, but that’s always been when they’ve made significant changes like this in the past. I’d therefore be checking your options in the coming weeks for places to use your certificates and would be inclined to have something booked before those changes come into place. Provided you book an award stay that’s refundable, you could always cancel that reservation if things don’t turn out to be so bad or if properties that were previously too high for you to be able to book with your certificates drop in price and become bookable.
Seems to be targeted. I tried to register and it advised Im not eligible!
🙁
I thought the Bonvoy Brilliant already gave platinum status when holding the card?
error message for me 🙁 guess its targeted
Try logging into your account first and then click on “promotions.”
nothing there. they are “working on new offers. check back soon.”
Same here :/
same, I also am unable to register with nothing in the promotion section of my account (online or in app). Weird thing though is that promo shows up on the “home” section of the app but when I click on register now, it takes me to the “promotions” tab and gives me the error message, “sorry, this promotion is not available.”
I can’t tell if it is intentionally targeted or unintentionally (due to sloppy IT).
Please try with the “Direct link to registration” in the article, instead of clicking on the promo card on the home page.