Marriott increases award redemption rates at popular properties

It is being reported at View from the Wing and One Mile at a Time that Marriott Bonvoy has increased award redemption rates at many popular high-end properties. Marriott abandoned its award chart a few years ago, so it has become trickier to identify devaluations, but given the size of the increases at some popular […] The post Marriott increases award redemption rates at popular properties appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.

Jan 27, 2025 - 21:55
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Marriott increases award redemption rates at popular properties

It is being reported at View from the Wing and One Mile at a Time that Marriott Bonvoy has increased award redemption rates at many popular high-end properties. Marriott abandoned its award chart a few years ago, so it has become trickier to identify devaluations, but given the size of the increases at some popular properties, it is easy to see that at the very least, maximum redemption rates have been increased in many places.

a hotel entrance with a street and a building

View from the Wing points to the JW Marriott Masai Mara. Apart from a brief moment in time where the property priced at 25,000 to 35,000 points per night, that property had been mostly pricing between ~100-150,000 points per night. However, View from the Wing shows that you’ll now often need more than 200,000 points per night to book it.

We published a reader review of the JW Marriott Masa Mara. That reader scored a phenomenal deal, but we’d mostly seen this property at 100-150K points per night until this week. Now you’re likely to need 200K+ points per night.

That’s not the only property affected. One Mile at a Time points to numerous top Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis properties that now cost more than the previous unpublished “cap” of 150,000 points per night.

While the top-end properties are most noticeable, I’m seeing significantly increased maximum award rates at some mid-tier properties as well. For instance, I ran a search for New York City on a weekday in the summer and I noticed a number of properties pricing in the 75-85K range that had previously capped out at significantly lower rates.

For example, I stayed at The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection in June of 2022 and I paid 45,000 Marriott points per night.

a room with a couch and chairs
I used a suite upgrade when I stayed at The Algonquin Times Square in June 2022 and stayed in this suite for 45,000 points per night plus that upgrade award.

Over the past year and change, I’ve noticed that property rarely dropping below 66K, which would put it within range for a 50K free night certificate. However, I don’t recall seeing it cost more than 76,000 points per night in recent memory. I just searched a stay in June of 2025 and it is listed at 85,000 points per night for my example night. That’s quite an increase in 3 years.

That said, it doesn’t seem like this is an across-the-board devaluation. For instance, I stayed at The Luxury Collection in Manhattan a few months ago, and though I had scored a hot deal on a room when it first became a Marriott, I booked a second room for about the same number of points this past fall that I’m seeing next summer (around 76K points per night).

Because there is no award chart, it’s hard to predict what this all means for the average Marriott Bonvoy redemption. There’s no doubt that the most aspirational properties are now going to be far more expensive to book, and that’s a huge bummer. I prefer to use my Marriott points for those types of redemptions, so I’m incredibly disappointed at the fact that many of them now feel very much out of reach. On the other hand, it’s much harder to say what the impact is on more ordinary redemptions until we re-run our Reasonable Redemption Value calculations for Marriott points. Stay tuned as we work to provide an update soon as to whether there’s been a major change on ordinary redemptions or not.

The post Marriott increases award redemption rates at popular properties appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.