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It’s been more than a year now since Marriott jettisoned the last remnants of their old award charts by removing top-end award price caps. When I checked the redemption value of Marriott points after the cap was lifted, I found that it was virtually unchanged from before. With my newest analysis, though, I’ve found that the value has dropped. Where we previously listed our Reasonable Redemption Value for Marriott at 0.8 cents per point, we have now dropped it to 0.7 cents per point. Worse, the value you’re likely to get by cherry picking the best awards has dropped even more.
Background
When collecting points and miles, it’s always a good idea to have a general idea of what points are worth. Let’s say, for example, that you have the opportunity to either earn 1,000 Hyatt points or 2,000 Marriott points. Which should you go for? If you don’t know what the points are worth, you’d likely go for the Marriott points. But, in my analyses I’ve found Hyatt points to be worth more than twice as much as Marriott points. Therefore, on average, 1,000 Hyatt points are worth more than 2,000 Marriott points. In this post, you’ll find my best current estimate of the redemption value of Marriott points.
To see our estimates across many programs, see this post: Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs).
Methodology
In order to determine the value of Marriott points, I collected real-world cash prices and point prices. As I’ve done previously, I examined a number of major hotel markets in the U.S.: Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Miami Beach, New York City, Orlando, and Seattle. Within each market, I identified the first three search results with a guest rating of 4 or better, and I recorded both cash and award prices for three dates each: a weekday, a weekend, and a holiday.
- Why U.S. only? U.S. consumers are known to spend most of their points and miles on domestic travel. Since the majority of this blog’s audience resides in the U.S. we opted for a U.S. centric view of point values.
- Why Guest Ratings? The goal wasn’t to find the 3 best Marriott hotels in each market. Instead, the goal was to find the 3 Marriott bookable hotels that are very popular. Which ones are people really likely to book? By using a combination of Marriott’s default sorting and by picking only well rated hotels, I think it’s reasonable to assume that many members would pick these hotels.
- Which paid rates were selected? I always picked the best fully refundable paid rate shown on Marriott’s website, but without applying any discounts like AAA, military, government, etc. For this analysis, I usually selected Marriott’s Member Flexible Rate.
- Which specific dates did I use?
- Weekday: Wednesday September 11, 2024
- Weekend: Friday-Sunday September 13 – 15, 2024
- Holiday Weekend: Friday-Mon August 30 – September 2, 2024 (Labor Day Weekend)
Calculation Approach
When we calculate Cents Per Point (CPP), we want to account for taxes and fees, as well as points that would be earned on paid stays (and conversely wouldn’t be earned on award stays). The calculation is based on the following terms:
- Base Cash Rate: This is the hotel room rate before taxes and fees.
- Total Cash Rate: This is the total amount, including taxes and fees, that would be paid if booking a hotel’s cash rate.
- Resort Fee: This is a fee that is imposed by many hotels above and beyond any required taxes. This goes by different names at different hotels: Resort fee, Destination charge, Founders fee, etc.
- Points Per Dollar Earned: The number of points per dollar earned by non-elite members on paid stays. For example, Hyatt members earn 5 points per dollar, Hilton, IHG, and Marriott members earn 10 points per dollar (at most hotels), etc.
- Points Earned on Cash Rate: This is the number of points you would earn if you paid the cash rate. The calculation for this is: (Base Cash Rate) x (Points Per Dollar Earned). For this calculation, our default approach is to assume that the traveler does not have elite status (elite members earn more points per dollar).
- Point Price: The number of points required to book a night at the hotel
- Cents Per Point (CPP): This is the value you get per point when using your points instead of cash to pay for a stay.
Hotel Programs that Waive Resort Fees on Award Stays
Hilton, Hyatt, and Wyndham waive resort fees when you book stays using points or free night certificates. For these chains, the resort fee does not have to be considered separately from the Total Cash Rate (which includes the resort fee). So, the CPP calculation is as follows:
CPP = Total Cash Rate ÷ [Point Price + Points Earned on Cash Rate]
Hotel Programs that Charge Resort Fees on Award Stays
IHG, Marriott, and many other hotel programs impose resort fees on award stays. For these chains, the resort fee must be specifically taken into account in the CPP calculation. We do that by subtracting it out of the Total Cash Rate. The CPP calculation is as follows:
CPP = [Total Cash Rate – Resort Fee] ÷ [Point Price + Points Earned on Cash Rate]
Results
Point Value
| Analysis Date: | 6/21/24 | 4/7/23 | 12/9/22 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Point Value (Median) | 0.7 | 0.76 | 0.81 |
| Point Value (Mean) | 0.75 | 0.80 | 0.85 |
| Cash Price (Median) | $425 | $419 | $408 |
| Cash Price (Mean) | $450 | $462 | $464 |
| Award Price (Median) | 52,500 | 51,500 | 48,500 |
| Award Price (Mean) | 54,067 | 53,244 | 48,444 |
| Minimum Point Value | 0.49 | 0.38 | 0.43 |
| Maximum Point Value | 1.3 | 1.65 | 1.78 |
The median observed point value for the latest analysis was 0.7 cents per point. This means that half of the observed results offered equal or better point value and half offered equal or worse value. Another way to think about it is that without trying to cherry pick good awards, you have a 50/50 chance of getting 0.7 cents or better value from your Marriott points when booking free night awards.
In my last data collection in April 2023, the median cents per point value was 0.76. Since both that datapoint and the one before it (0.81) rounded to 0.8 cents per point, we kept our Reasonable Redemption Value at 0.8 cents per point at that time. This time, since the median dropped all the way to 0.7, we’ve revised the Reasonable Redemption Value down to 0.7 cents per point.
Pick your own point value
| Analysis Date: | 6/21/24 | 4/7/23 | 12/9/22 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50th Percentile (Median) | 0.7 | 0.76 | 0.81 |
| 60th Percentile | 0.74 | 0.81 | 0.87 |
| 70th Percentile | 0.79 | 0.88 | 0.93 |
| 80th Percentile | 0.88 | 0.95 | 0.99 |
| 90th Percentile | 0.94 | 1.15 | 1.15 |
When we publish Reasonable Redemption Values of points (RRVs), we conservatively pick the middle value, or the 50th percentile. The idea is that just by randomly picking hotels to use your points, you have a 50/50 chance of getting this value or better. But what if you cherry-pick awards? Many people prefer to hold onto their points until they find good value uses for them. If that’s you, then you may want to use the table above to pick your own point value. For example, if you think that you’ll hold out for the best 10% value awards, then pick the 90th percentile. If you cherry-pick a bit, but not that much, you might want to use the 70th percentile (for example). I’m guessing that most cherry-pickers will land around the 80th percentile: 0.88 cents per point.
To me, this analysis shows that those who cherry-pick good value awards can count on getting around 0.88 cents per point value, or better.
For those who do the most extreme cherry-picking, the data here is bad news. The 90th percentile had previously stood firm at 1.15 cents per point, but it has now dropped to under a penny per point at 0.94.
Reasonable Redemption Value: 0.7 Cents Per Point
Our Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) for Marriott points was previously set to 0.8 cents per point, but we have now dropped it to 0.7 cents per point. RRV’s are intended to be the point at which it is reasonable to get that much value or better for your points. Therefore, I believe that the median observed value for is a good choice for our RRV.
- Reasonable Redemption Value for Marriott: 0.7 cents per point
- Reasonable Redemption Value for those who cherry pick awards: 0.88 cents per point
Overvaluing vs. Undervaluing Points
There is no perfect way to estimate the value of points. Decisions we made here in some ways overvalue points and in some ways undervalue points. The hope is that these things roughly offset each other…
Factors that cause us to undervalue points
- With hotel programs that offer 4th Night Free Awards (IHG, with some credit cards), or 5th Night Free Awards (Hilton & Marriott), or award discounts (Wyndham), we do not consider the point savings in our analyses.
- With hotel programs that offer free parking on award stays to top-tier elites (Hyatt), we do not factor this in.
Factors that cause us to overvalue points
- We do not use discount rates (other than member rates) in our analyses. In real-life, many people book hotels cheaper (and sometimes far cheaper) by using AAA rates, government & military rates, senior rates, etc.
- We do not use hotel promotional rates. Often, individual hotels have deals such as “Stay 2 Nights, Get 1 Night Free” which can greatly reduce the cost of a stay.
- We do not use prepaid rates in our analyses. Sometimes these rates are significantly lower than refundable rates.
- We do not factor in rebates which can be earned from booking hotels through shopping portals.
- We do not factor in extra points earned on paid stays for those with elite status.
- We do not factor in rewards earned from credit card spend at hotels.
- We do not factor in hotel loyalty program promotions: Most promotions, but not all, only offer incentives for paid stays. We often see promos offering bonus points, double or triple points, free night awards, etc.
- With hotel programs that waive resort fees for top tier elites on paid stays (e.g. Hyatt), we do not factor this in.
Conclusion
Based on the latest analysis, we’ve changed our Marriott RRV to 0.7 cents per point. The idea is that you have equal chance of getting that much value or more from your award stays.
For a complete list of Reasonable Redemption Values (and links to posts like this one), see: Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs).
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[…] consider IHG points to be worth 1/2 cent each. Marriott Bonvoy points are worth a little more, and Frequent Miler recently updated the value to 0.7 cents each, which I’ve found to be around what I can get for […]
Consistent price increases and consistent point value decline. All Marriott needs to do now is make points more costly to obtain and the program will be completely useless.
It’s interesting to see that at least for Marriott and Hyatt so far, the increase in points is not matched by an increase in mean or median cash prices, suggesting that it is truly a devaluation.
I had thought that after the whole revenge travel phenomenon that spiked room rates up, perhaps the points cost stayed steady but RRVs went down due to rates dropping from peak demand. Your data doesn’t see to support that.
This continues to reinforce the concepts of keeping your points in transferrable currencies, and earning and burning.
I always appreciate the time and effort you put into these RRV posts and like that you crunch the numbers every year or so to determine the new RRVs. Thanks Greg!
In your cherry picking table you have the most recent measurement date as 04/07/22, should be 23?
Yep, thanks. Fixed.
I just spent 17 nights in Qatar during the World Cup and got incredible value from my Marriott points.
I believe the value abroad is far better, particularly compared with the US West Coast.
Should be called MARRIOTT PESOS, IMHO.
Pretty close to my valuation. I tend to cherry pick and came to about a 0.9 cent to 1 cent value for Marriott points.
Interestingly, the closer to 1 cent you get for Marriott, things like the Chase UR transfer bonus can make sense in certain situations. I transferred over a good chunk of points for a Hawaii redemption at well ove 1 cent per point.
I know a lot of the hub bub has been addressed to the higher priced hotels. What is the impact on travelers to more rural/suburban areas? Many self employed people try to trim their costs using FFI, Courtyard, or other monikers. They may travel to second or 3rd rate cities and may be restricted in expenses by their employers.
Some of the discounts didn’t last long. My reservation went down by 500 points the first day, then up by 3000 the second day (for now) indeed!
Booked Maldives St. Regis before change. 400k. Post change same dates 685k
I locked in five nights in June at the Westin Hapuna Beach resort before the devaluation. Total before was 210,000 points for five nights. Today it is 298,000 for the same five nights. Ouch! Thank goodness I locked in the redemption price. Once the “top off” is possible, I plan to top off my five 35K free night certificates to apply them to the reservation and get 175,000 points back into my account. I talked to a Marriott rep before locking in the reservation and was told this was completely possible. Hope it works. Otherwise, I’ll be holding five worthless 35K certificates, as they have to be used before the end of June.
Between yesterday and today some hotels went up in points. I was looking at Washington DC and Ocean city MD.
To all the folks out there cancelling Marriott reservations and rebooking for fewer points – there is a much easier way. You can edit your existing stay in two clicks and the difference in points is redeposited into your account immediately – and the reservation number stays the same, which is handy if you’ve reached out to the hotel for a rollaway or whatever. This method also saves you the time of searching just to see if you’ll save points because you’ll see the new points requirement immediately for the hotel, room type, and dates you’ve already booked.
Just click on “view/modify” on the given reservation under My Trips then “Edit room” and you can see what the new points requirement is. Click “Update” and you should be just about all set. I saved over 100k points yesterday on 6 reservations thanks to Marriott’s new points system and about 5 minutes of time.
Note – on one of my reservations, editing the room seemed to work but did not, the points charged did not change to the lower amount for some reason. I did actually have to cancel and rebook that one, but all of the others I was able to adjust the points needed downwards just by editing the room.
Thanks for posting this, I went and checked my reservations and 6 out of 7 were actually cheaper than before and this made it easy to get the difference in points back to my account.
Thank you so much for this. I look like a nut at a property with all the cancels I generally make until arrival!