This week, Marriott Bonvoy added the ability to transfer points to another member online. It has long been possible to transfer points between members, but it used to require a phone call to accomplish (it had been free for Gold members or higher for years, but I believe they had gotten rid of the fee altogether in recent years). The ability to do this online is a nice enhancement.
The Deal
- Marriott Bonvoy now allows members to transfer points to another member to be done online. The rules are:
- Must transfer in increments of 1,000 points
- A member can transfer a maximum of 100,000 points out of your account per calendar year
- A member can receive a maximum of 500,000 points from transfers per calendar year
- Direct link to log in and transfer
Key Terms
- To transfer or receive points, both accounts must have been open for 30 days with qualifying activity or if there has been no qualifying activity in an account for the past 30 days, the account must have been open for at least 90 days
- As noted above, you can transfer a maximum of 100K points to another member(s) per year
- An individual can receive up to 500,000 total points per year via transfers
Quick Thoughts
This has long been possible over the phone, but being able to self-serve online is a major improvement in my opinion. My wife has transferred points to me once a year for the past few years — being able to do this online saves her a phone call.
Greg also pointed out another benefit during this week’s podcast: if my wife runs out of points and has a free night certificate that she wants to top off, I can easily transfer points from my account to hers online to top it off and book right away.
To that last point, the message after transferring says that it can take up to 24 hours for the transfer to complete, but in the test transfer we did from my wife’s account to mine, the points moved instantly. You will of course need to meet the minimum activity / account age requirements in order to qualify for a transfer, so set up everyone’s accounts sooner rather than later.
Overall, this is a great enhancement that makes the program easier to use. That’s not generally the way I would characterize changes to the Marriott program over the past couple of years, but credit where credit is due: this is a nice improvement.
H/T: Loyalty Lobby
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Does transferring points here count as qualifying activity to prevent points from expiring?
Tried to transfer from my daughters account to mine but keeps giving an error. Perhaps initial kinks?
Same for me and it doesn’t say what’s wrong. Good to see Marriott IT to stay on brand.
Marriott does not charge to transfer. My question is a clarification on maximum points transfers per year. Can you transfer 100,000 to any ONE party but transfer to multiple parties per year. Or, are you limited to a maximum of 100,000 out of your account period. Can I do 100,000 to party A and 100,000 to party B within the same year?
Max 100k in the aggregate out to any number of parties.
If I transfer to P2, is there an expiration to the transferred points in P2’s account (like some other points transfers that the points expire in 90 days etc.). Also can transfer be to anyone, anywhere, not limited to family member?
This is awesome, but I have 2 comments. Assuming Marriott hasn’t increased the amount of points you can top off a FNC above 15k points, I would leave 15k points in my wife’s account and transfer the remaining points to my account.
Secondly, I would love to see IHG implement the free transfer ability too. Right now, they charge 0.5 CPP to transfer points from one account to another, which is the same price it costs to buy IHG points 90% of the year.
agreed!