(EXPIRED) Targeted Marriott offers for extra points / free night certs

Many Marriott members are reporting offers to earn bonus points with stay activity. On the podcast last week, we discussed a targeted promotion reported by a couple of readers at Doctor of Credit whereby a member could earn one 35K free night certificate with each of their first two stays during the promotion period (a great offer). Then, someone in Greg’s family received a different offer for 22,500 total bonus points after just two stays that also looks decent. Many lesser offers have also been reported, so it’s worth keeping your eye out for an email from Marriott or checking your “promotions” tab in the app or your online account.

The Deal

• Marrriott has been rolling out targeted promotions to some members. Be on the lookout for an email or check the “Promotions” tab in the app / web interface

Quick Thoughts

As we noted on the podcast last week, the offer for a free night cert worth up to 35K with a paid night up to two times is good enough to be mattress run worthy if you can easily get a paid night under a hundred bucks.

The offer above looks good to me, too: I’d be pretty interested in 7500 bonus points after my first stay and 15K more after my second. I don’t have any immediate travel plans, but if I did that would probably be enough to get me to book with Marriott. I wouldn’t mattress run the points offer above (that is to say check in and check out for the sole purpose of earning rewards) unless I had a really cheap Marriott nearby, but it could certainly tip the balance in terms of which hotel I book for a necessary stay.

On the other hand, Steve in our Frequent Miler Insiders group reported that his wife got an offer for 1,500 bonus points after one stay and an additional 3,000 points after her second stay. I’d always recommend registering for the promo just in case you end up with qualifying activity, but 4500 points wouldn’t be enough to make me go out of my way to stay at a Marriott. On the other hand, assuming that stacks on top of the current offer for 2500 after every stay, and if you have a couple of one-night stays to make, the total return isn’t bad.

I’m kind of surprised that we haven’t yet seen more generous promotions from Marriott and Hyatt, though I suppose that may be in part because they don’t expect to draw much business yet. Given that Marriott was pretty generous in the way they added elite night credit for members this year, I am less confident than I once was about seeing opportunities for double and triple elite night credit, so perhaps these stay-based point bonuses are just what we’re going to see moving forward for a while.

As always, don’t forget to register if you get a bonus offer. There is typically a link in the email and you may additionally see it show up under “My Account” and “Promotions” in the app. In my case, I have received no targeted promotion at all, so there is also the chance that you’ll see nothing beyond the general promo for 2500 points after each stay.

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