Marriott Bonvoy introduced peak and off-peak pricing over the weekend (and we published a post earlier about how you could leverage the current sale on points with off-peak Cat 1 pricing to pick up cheap elite-qualifying nights and a post about using your 50K certificates to book Category 7 hotels at off-peak times). Doctor of Credit posted a good tip earlier today: you should check your reservations for any hotels that have dropped in price.
Off-peak pricing debuts
As we’d reported long ago, Marriott Bonvoy peak and off-peak pricing was set to debut over the weekend (on September 14th). It has now come into full swing, with many properties now costing more than they did just a few days ago. Just based on my anecdotal searches, it looks like there is more bad news than good. As a reminder, here is the new chart including peak, off-peak, and point saver rates:
The good news is that I have found off-peak pricing at least at some properties during some searches. If you happen to have an existing reservation at a property that is now classified at off-peak for some or all of your dates, you’ll want to cancel your existing reservation and re-book. Unfortunately, I think you’ll have to go through reservations one by one to check current pricing against what you previously reserved.
Still, the difference could be well worth a few minutes of your time. For example, if you have a Marriott Category 6, 7, or 8 property booked, the difference could be from 10,000 to 20,000 points per night if the hotel is now classified off-peak and depending on whether or not PointSavers are available. That’s a pretty substantial difference given that I wrote earlier today about how you could book a 5-night Category 1 stay for 20K points.
Keep in mind that Marriott says it will re-classify hotels as peak or off-peak monthly — so you’ll need to set a reminder to check your reservation each month for price fluctuation. That’s annoying, but it means that those who know have at least a chance to save some points I guess. It’s really too bad that Marriott isn’t being more transparent.
At any rate, the tip from DoC is spot on: check your reservations now to see if you can re-book and save points. Then set a reminder to do it again each month.
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Thanks Nick! My reservation dates had a reduction from 25k to 20k for the Sunday and Monday nights of my stay. I have requested a change in the points charged from customer service. Wish me luck
Assuming the hotel is still available, I’d just cancel and rebook.
Certainly one of the biggest negative impacts is how peak pricing affects the free nights associated with credit cards. It looks like the majority of peak nights are on weekends. If you were fortunate enough to have 7 credit cards it’s going to be tough to put together a week. It would be nice if Marriott would at least let you make up the difference with Bonvoy points, but when was the last time that Marriott did anything nice for its loyal customers?
…..Or make difference up with cash or use (35k or 50k) certs points on multiple nights (where available)
When does the monthly re-pricing occur?
Nick, have you noticed they also changed cat for some hotels? Sheraton NY times went up a cat and Courtyard Soho (not peak or off peak but category). Both properties were bookable at 35k before. Now its 50k and cat 6.. Nice way to screw your loyalist.