I have a bit of a conundrum here. I had previously decided not to re-qualify for 75-night Marriott Titanium elite status, but circumstances have me questioning that decision. Surprisingly, this year to-date, I’ve earned 64 qualifying Marriott nights. That puts me 11 short of the 75 needed for Titanium status. Should I go for it? I have three more nights booked, plus I could take 5 qualifying nights as my 50-night Choice Benefit. I’d then be only 3 nights short. Should I mattress run the final 3 nights (i.e. book & check-in to a Marriott hotel for the qualifying nights even if I don’t stay)?
To be clear, I haven’t actually stayed 64 nights in Marriott hotels this year. 40 of those nights came from having credit cards: My Bonvoy Brilliant card gave me 25 qualifying nights, and my Bonvoy Business card gave me another 15 nights. Still, I was surprised to learn that I’ve spent 24 nights at Marriott hotels this year given how much I’ve shifted my stays to Hyatt. But there you go. And only 6 of those nights were earned in the 3 Cards, 3 Continents Challenge.
| Elite Status Level | Requirements Per Year | Key Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Elite | 10 Nights | Late checkout, 10% point bonus |
| Gold Elite | 25 Nights | 2PM late checkout; 25% point bonus; welcome gift (points only); room upgrade; enhanced internet |
| Platinum Elite | 50 Nights | 4PM late checkout; 50% point bonus; welcome gift w/ breakfast option; room upgrade includes suites; lounge access; Choice benefit (such as 5 nightly upgrade awards) when you achieve 50 nights. |
| Titanium Elite | 75 Nights | All of the above, plus: 75% point bonus; United Silver Premier status; Air Canada Aeroplan 25K Status; Ritz-Carlton suite upgrades; Additional Choice Benefit (such as 40K free night certificate) when you achieve 75 nights. |
| Ambassador Elite | 100 Nights + $23K Spend | All of the above, plus: Ambassador Service (dedicated Marriott agent); Your24 (Choose the 24 hours of your stay. For example, choose to check in at 9am after an overnight flight). |
Marriott’s Titanium Elite status, which requires 75 qualifying nights per year, offers 4PM late checkout; a welcome gift breakfast option; room upgrades (including suites); and lounge access at many hotels. But 50-night Platinum status gives you all that too and there’s no evidence that Titanium Elites are prioritized over Platinum Elites for room upgrades. The additional benefits of reaching Titanium status are a 75% point bonus on paid stays (vs. 50% with Platinum status); United Silver Premier status via RewardsPlus; Ritz-Carlton suite upgrade possibilities (Platinum elite’s are not eligible for suite upgrades at Ritz properties); and with 75 nights you get an additional Choice Benefit (such as a 40K free night certificate or 5 Suite Night Awards).
75% point bonus: The 75% point bonus means nothing to me. I pay for Marriott stays so rarely that the additional 25% bonus over Platinum Elite results in a nearly meaningless number of additional points. If I was a business traveler who stayed often on paid stays at Marriott hotels, my perspective on this would be very different.
United Silver Premier Status: I really like having United Silver status. I haven’t made much use of it because I don’t fly United often, but when I do it’s nice to be able to pick preferred seats and even to get a free upgrade to First Class when flying an unpopular route & time (such as Newark to Detroit on a Sunday evening at around 10pm).
Ritz Suite Upgrades: I don’t stay at Ritz properties enough for the possibility of a suite upgrade to matter much, but when I do and when it happens, it can be really great. The one time the stars aligned for a Ritz suite upgrade was at the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain Tucson, which I loved.
Additional Choice Benefit: At 75 nights it’s possible to pick a 40K free night award. I’ve found it easy to get well over $300 in value for these. The next best option is to pick 5 Suite Night Awards (which can also be chosen at 50 nights). If you value suites, the Suite Night Awards have the potential to be even more valuable, but they’re frustrating to use. Most hotels where I want to use them don’t accept them. And when a hotel does accept them, the upgrade process doesn’t begin until 5 days before the stay. Sometimes the upgrades get confirmed, but sometimes they don’t. And when an upgrade is confirmed, it seems to lock you out of the possibility of a better upgrade at check-in (at least at some hotels).
Here’s the conundrum. I value the 40K free night more than 5 Suite Night Awards, but I do value having Suite Night Awards around for the rare circumstances where I could use them. If I have a chance of reaching 75 nights it will be because I’ll take 5 qualifying nights as my 50-Night Choice Benefit. That means giving up the option of 5 Suite Night Awards for my 50-Night choice. Then, if I get to 75 nights, I could pick either 5 Suite Night Awards or a 40K free night certificate as my 75-Night Choice Benefit. With this plan, I can’t have both.
While I struggle with deciding whether I’d rather roll the dice on Suite Night Awards or play it safe with a 40K certificate, let’s simplify things and assume that I value the two exactly the same. If so, I can simplify the results of going for 75 Night status. By mattress running 3 additional nights, the primary benefits are that I’ll get United Silver Premier Status and the chance to get upgraded to a suite at Ritz hotels. Of these two, only United status has material value to me. So is it worth booking 3 nights to keep United Silver status? Maybe!
Could I make 3 nights more rewarding?
Marriott’s current public promotion offers up to 4,000 bonus points per stay. That would be a pretty good rebate on 1-night stays, but the details make it less exciting:
- Earn 2,000 bonus points per stay starting from your second stay
- Earn an additional 2,000 bonus points per stay starting from your second stay per different hotel brand if you’re a Marriott Bonvoy credit card holder.
- Only paid stays qualify
If I book 3 separate 1 night stays and make sure to vary brands, I could earn a total of 8,000 bonus points. At a value of about 0.75 cents each, that’s like a $60 rebate. That’s not bad, but it would be a lot more work than checking into a single hotel for a 3 night stay. Still, if I can find cheap enough nights it may be worth it. For example, if I paid $50 per night for $150 total out of pocket, a $60-equivalent rebate would bring my net cost down to $90. That would be a cheap price to pay for United Silver status, but what’s the chance of finding a Marriott that’s that cheap without going way out of my way?
My real hope is that I’ll be targeted for a better Marriott promotion. Every now and then Marriott offers targeted promotions where you could earn a free night or some number of bonus points after 2 paid nights. A promo like that stacked with Marriott’s public promo would be great.
Waiting for a deal or opportunity
It’s possible, of course, that a real travel opportunity will appear before the end of the year to make it easy to knock off the additional 3 nights I need. Short of that, I’ll still wait a bit to see if any great new promotions come out, or if I get a great targeted Marriott offer, targeted portal offer (maybe through Capital One Shopping), or something else. That said, the time is ticking away and hotel prices are not likely to go down while I wait.
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@Greg,
When reading through the Marriott Bonvoy Terms & Conditions which were updated in June 2023 I do not see any mention of Titanium Members receiving upgrades to Suites at Ritz Carlton Resorts. Can you look into whether this benefit has been removed for titanium members. Thx
Even with the +5, I’d be 9 out, and that seems not worth it at all to go out of my way for :/
kind of technical question. I’m on the cusp of Titanium again. I’m probably going to go the credit card spend route. Does everything I spend on the Bonvoy card count through 12/31? Or, does it have to post to a statement prior to 12/31? I’m probably overthinking this, but it’s going to be close and I don’t want to screw up. I need 15K more spend to hit the mark. thanks!
That’s a great question. I don’t know the true answer but if I was doing that I’d make sure that the spend posts to a statement before 12/31
by spending like $75k? Or $5k/ with the Boundless?
Am I the only one felt Suite upgrade rate is slightly improved after hitting Titanium?
During Platinum it was only once in 30+ nights, then after Titanium, a few times auto, plus a few more times after asking nicely at front desk.
That being said, I won’t do mattress run more than a few nights either.
In addition, considering how low efforts Titanium nowadays, Globalist is much less palatable IMO, just had a fight with a Hyatt for major service issue and property can’t care less.
That money and time are better spent having a nice meal with family.
related “conundrum,” to keep or dump the bonvoy brilliant card yet another year? For me, as things stand now (with massively higher fee, watered down benefits) it’s a “slam dunk” no…. When you get around to ‘that” write-up, (again) suppose you could factor in well, the card gets me so and so towards this or that elite status…. (and that’s worth…?) endless. Drew would be ‘eyes blinking.” Not worth it for mere mortals.
As a lifetime platinum and 10 year titanium elite member I think a major consideration is what are your destinations. In my experience international Marriott properties beat US properties almost every time and its not even close. I just returned from a 24 day vacation. I stayed at 6 properties and I was upgraded in every one–1 bedroom suites in 3 of them. The buffet breakfasts were expansive and we were welcomed with all sorts of perks in our room from cakes and pastries, bottles of wine, fruit plates and even rose petals on the bed. In the US you are lucky to get upgraded to a larger room and ala carte breakfast fully covered by a voucher. So if you have plans for an international stay at a Marriott go for Titanium. Your brand loyalty will be appreciated. In the US, not so much.
I guess it also depends on where you are staying domestically. The St Regis Aspen butler recently brought a bottle of Piper-Heidsick champagne along with wonderful chocolate truffles & SR Aspen-monogrammed notebooks to our upgraded suite. The SR Atlanta brought us macarons, nuts, & a bottle of cab.
I really can’t say for sure if Hyatt Globalist or Marriott Titanium is better on the upgrades, service, or freebies but I intend to keep both to maximize benefits wherever I travel.
If you’re doing international and state-side, yeah, I would turn over one of your awards for 5 nights and get the remaining done. This assumes you value the elite nights > suite upgrades awards.
I have a set to expire 12/31 and something tells me that this year overall the elite nights are more valuable than upgrades (I’ve gotten upgrades without using them or they get rejected) and I’m still short nights at this point. Considering I’m paying cash and each night averages $100, it’s worth $500+ to me.
Planning any 2023 stays at the St Pancras hotel in London? Titanium would come in handy.
Why not book a Cat1?
It may be relatively easy to mattress run with the crappy promotion out now.
Assuming you already need a stay between now and Dec 15 anyway…
You can get 4k points for experiencing a different brand +using a Marriott credit card which we probably all have anyway.. If you manage to find a cheap stay and also can get a points guarantee on it (another 5k points). That’s already 9k points for the stay…. + the bonus points you get for the welcome bonus + spend points + loyalty points (can’t remember the exact numbers though).
I have had pretty good success in the past matching a rate to Expedia although I think they have fixed their algorithm now. But Trivago has been working quite well lately for getting a lower rate to match to.
We have been Ti Elite for 2 years and made the same evaluation. It came down to Time spent vs Reward and, at this point, Time spent won out. With auto Plat w/Am card, it was an easy way to go. It really comes down to whether the time spent is worth it to you. I just spent hours this summer trying to research and use up a 50,000 award night. This hobby is wonderful because it lets you individualize how much time and effort you want to put into it and what benefits are worth it to you. I have been following you for years now and it is my go-to recommendation to hobby newbies.
Look at only the points. No other benefits matter.
1. If you were to earn the 75% bonus instead of the 50% bonus, what would the value be (given your likely redemption) of those extra points?
2. What is it going to cost you to get there?
If you burn your 50-night annual choice, fine. You pick up the 75-night annual choice, so you’re not losing anything. Separately, you can likely book some lower level property for those three elite night credits for (say) $350. So, are those extra 25% points worth $350?
Not worth it. Been LTT for 10 years and rewards member since the first year. Can’t name a time Titanium’s been of value. SNA’s don’t process. 24 hour guarantee doesn’t deliver at most hotels. Few desk people bat an eyelash. LTT don’t even get offered most of the bonus promos you’ll read about on these blogs. Last time Marriott Rewards provided me *extraordinary* service or value was when they initially launched the Black Card, which were few and far between. The only reason I continue to passively remain a member is the free nights.
It was a slam dunk for me since I moved a Hyatt points stay to two Marriott paid stays. 40k FNC AND 27,500 Hyatt points for $350 Marriott spend is “duh”, especially since I triggered both ends of the current promo by moving a block on the third day of the stay, 4k additional points, thank you very much.
I don’t see requalfying for Titanium in 2023, it will actually take some work to get to a 50 night award since I will have 3 free nights, 40 credit card nights, 3 award nights. I will probably see where I am at year’s end, but I am likely to downgrade or cancel the Brilliant and try to move to a Boundless and (eventually) a Ritz Carlton card.