(EXPIRED) Last day to register for Marriott Rewards MegaBonus Promotion: Earn Up To 3,000 Bonus Points Per Stay

Update: Remember that today [1/7/19] is the last day to register for this promotion. Also see our update about this promotion with further detail.

Marriott Rewards has launched a new promotion called MegaBonus In More Places which is offering up to 3,000 bonus points per stay.

The Deal

• Earn 2,000 bonus points on all stays of two or more nights and 1,000 bonus points per brand, starting with your second brand.
• Update: You can now also earn 10,000 bonus points when staying at 10 different brands and 29,000 bonus points when staying at 29 different brands.
• Registration required – direct link.

Key Terms

• Registration required by January 7, 2019.
• Members will earn 2,000 bonus points per stay on stays of 2 or more nights at participating brands.
• Members can also earn an additional 1,000 bonus points per brand starting with the second brand at which the member stays during the promotion earning period.
• The promotion earning period is for stays between September 26, 2018 and January 31, 2019, at participating Marriott Rewards, SPG and Ritz-Carlton properties.
• A ‘stay’ is defined as consecutive nights spent at the same hotel, regardless of check-in/check-out activity.
• Rooms booked through most third party online retailers and select travel agency bookings are ineligible to earn for this promotion.
• Marriott Vacation Club owner-occupied weeks are not eligible for bonus points and nights spent while redeeming an award are not eligible for bonus points.
• Only one room per hotel is counted toward a member’s nights or stay.
• Members electing to earn miles are not eligible for this promotion.

Quick Thoughts

This is a lackluster promotion by Marriott Rewards as the most you can earn per stay is 3,000 bonus points regardless of your length of stay. You’ll also only be able to earn that maximum of 3,000 points from your second stay and only if that stay is at a different brand to your first stay.

That said, it’s good that they’re offering a promotion at all. Given all the IT issues they’ve been having since the Marriott Rewards and SPG schemes were combined last month, I’d figured they’d passed on launching a new promotion until those issues were resolved.

This promotion is therefore helpful if you were already due to have paid Marriott stays of 2+ nights during that time. I have a four night stay starting September 27, so this promotion is starting just in time for us to earn 2,000 bonus points.

The MegaBonus In More Places is unlikely to change anyone’s booking behavior though. The promotion doesn’t include reward stays, so Hyatt’s latest promotion would be better in that instance as award nights are included in that one. For paid stays, there’s a good chance that Hilton’s or IHG’s promotions will be more rewarding.

Registration is required before the end of the promotion period, so it’s worth registering now even if you don’t have any immediate Marriott stays planned.

Marriott Rewards is also going to be running a competition from October 4 for 29 days called 29 Ways To Stay. The competition will be offering bonus points, free stays and a top prize of a two night stay at each of their 29 brands. You can earn up to 29 entries by playing a memory game each day during the competition period. The odds suggest you’ll have a better than 50% chance of winning at least 50 Marriott Rewards points each day and you should (again, based on the odds) earn ~1,900+ bonus points if you played all 29 days. Edit: DoC reports that the terms of the 29 Ways To Say promotion have changed, limiting you to one Instant Win prize. That makes the promotion much less rewarding.

h/t One Mile At A Time

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