Benefiting from free night time certificates is among the important methods to maximise worth from a resort loyalty program.
Whereas these certificates are “free” within the sense that you simply aren’t paying money on your keep, they nearly all the time include an acquisition value, whether or not it’s via bank cards, keep exercise, or particular promotions.
That’s why it’s vital to concentrate to the way you redeem the certificates and make sure you’re popping out forward.
On this article, let’s go over how you can earn, redeem, and maximize Marriott Bonvoy’s Free Evening Awards.
Earn Marriott Free Evening Awards
1. Amex Bonvoy Credit score Playing cards: Anniversary Free Evening Award Value 35,000 Factors
The simplest approach for Canadians to earn annual Free Evening Awards is thru the Canadian-issued Amex Bonvoy bank cards:
You gained’t earn the free night time throughout your first yr of holding the cardboard; as a substitute, it’ll be deposited to your Marriott Bonvoy account inside 6–8 weeks of renewing the cardboard for a second yr, and yearly after that wherein you proceed to carry the cardboard.
In each cases, it ought to be comparatively simple to recoup the worth of the $120 or $150 annual payment you’re paying on both Bonvoy card.
As an example, an evening on the Residence Inn Gravenhurst Muskoka Wharf throughout Thanksgiving weekend can set you again round $400. Alternatively, you possibly can e-book it for simply 35,000 Bonvoy factors and redeem your Free Evening Award.
This simply offsets the annual payment, letting you benefit from the gorgeous Muskoka fall foliage yearly for simply $120 or $150—now that’s worth you’ll be able to be ok with.
2. Amex US & Chase Bonvoy Credit score Playing cards: Anniversary Free Evening Award Value 35,000–85,000 Factors
Getting concerned with Marriott Bonvoy co-branded bank cards within the US opens up many extra alternatives to rack up the free nights.
Particularly, you’ll earn anniversary Free Evening Awards on the next US bank cards that are open to new purposes:
- American Specific US Marriott Bonvoy Good Card: Anniversary Free Evening Award price 85,000 Bonvoy factors
- American Specific US Marriott Bonvoy Enterprise Card: Anniversary Free Evening Award price 35,000 Bonvoy factors
- Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card: Anniversary Free Evening Award price 35,000 Bonvoy factors
Moreover, the next two merchandise are now not open to new purposes, however can nonetheless be added to your portfolio via product switches:
- American Specific US Marriott Bonvoy Card (accessible as a downgrade choice from the Bonvoy Good): Anniversary Free Evening Award price 35,000 Bonvoy factors
- Chase Ritz-Carlton Credit score Card (accessible as an improve choice from the Bonvoy Boundless or Bonvoy Daring): Anniversary Free Evening Award price 85,000 Bonvoy factors
As with the Canadian aspect, these Free Evening Awards are deposited to your account inside 6–8 weeks of renewing the cardboard for a second yr, and yearly wherein you proceed to carry the cardboard thereafter.
As well as, generally the US bank cards get artistic with their limited-time signup gives, and will embody Free Evening Awards in lieu of Bonvoy factors.
As with the Canadian playing cards, the optimum redemptions of Free Evening Awards ought to simply outweigh the annual charges on all bank cards.
3. Amex US & Chase Bonvoy Credit score Playing cards: Free Evening Award Upon Assembly Spending Requirement
As well as the Free Evening Awards you stand to earn as a welcome bonus or as an annual profit, you even have the chance to earn a further Free Evening Award upon assembly spending necessities on Amex US and Chase Bonvoy bank cards.
You may earn an additional Free Evening Award with the next playing cards upon assembly a minimal spending requirement:
- American Specific US Marriott Bonvoy Good Card: Free Evening Award price 85,000 Bonvoy factors as an “Earned Selection Award” upon making $60,000 (USD) in eligible purchases
- American Specific US Marriott Bonvoy Bevy Card: Free Evening Award price 50,000 Bonvoy factors upon making $15,000 (USD) in eligible purchases
- Chase Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful Card: Free Evening Award price 50,000 Bonvoy factors upon making $15,000 (USD) in eligible purchases
Word that your whole spend is tallied per calendar yr (not cardholder yr), and there’s a restrict of 1 bonus Free Evening Award primarily based on spending per card and calendar yr.
With the comparatively excessive spending necessities required to earn a Free Evening Award, it’s price contemplating when you ought to focus your purchases into your Bonvoy playing cards, or if the spending is best accomplished with different playing cards.
4. Titanium Elite Annual Selection Profit: Free Evening Award Value 40,000 Factors
Outdoors of bank cards, one other Free Evening Award that you could reliably earn yr after yr is thru the Annual Selection Profit upon reaching Titanium Elite standing with 75 elite qualifying nights annually.
You’ll be entitled to pick one in every of six advantages upon reaching this threshold, and the Free Evening Award price 40,000 factors is usually thought of probably the most invaluable alternative.
5. Particular Promotions: Varied Free Evening Awards
Typically, Free Evening Awards are additionally distributed as a part of a seasonal promotion or a focused promotion. These are all the time good once they come round, however they aren’t essentially Free Evening Awards that you could reliably earn yearly.
For instance, Marriott Bonvoy ran focused promotions prior to now, which gave some fortunate members the possibility to earn a Free Evening Award price 35,000 factors after simply two paid stays.
For those who have been focused for this promotion, you possibly can have simply maximized it with a pair native getaways, even when you weren’t planning any natural keep exercise.
6. New Member Promotion: Free Evening Award Value 25,000 Factors
Though we haven’t seen this one for fairly a while, Marriott Bonvoy additionally sometimes places on a promotion to incentivize new members to join this system. Usually, you’ll earn a Free Evening Award price as much as 25,000 factors upon finishing two paid stays with Marriott.
This occurs to be the lowest-value Free Evening Award on the market. Nonetheless, when you’re a brand new Marriott Bonvoy member, it’s a pleasant incentive to start out collaborating in this system.
Redeem Marriott Free Evening Awards
You’ll see your energetic Free Evening Award certificates underneath the “My Exercise” tab of your Marriott Bonvoy account on desktop, and on the “Account” tab on the app.
Every certificates will show an expiration date, which is the date you could keep by, not simply e-book by.
Which Rooms Can You E-book with a Free Evening Award?
With a purpose to redeem a Free Evening Award, there have to be customary award availability on your desired night time (i.e., the underlying night time have to be bookable on Marriott Bonvoy factors).
Word that premium award redemptions (i.e., these marked with “Redemption and Factors Improve”) usually are not eligible for Free Evening Award redemptions.
Redeem Your Free Evening Award
Making use of Free Evening Awards to an upcoming reservation could be accomplished on each the Marriott web site and the app.
For those who’re about to make a reserving for which you have got eligible Free Evening Awards, you’ll be provided the selection of making use of them to the reserving (though you’ll be able to all the time select to e-book with factors as a substitute and save your certificates for later):
You may even apply a number of Free Evening Awards to the identical keep:
High-up Your Free Evening Award with As much as 15,000 Factors
Take into account that it’s potential to “top-up” the face worth of a Free Evening Award with as much as 15,000 factors.
For instance, you possibly can e-book a resort price 39,000 factors utilizing a 35,000-point certificates, after which pay an additional 4,000 factors on prime.
Marriott will robotically detect if in case you have any certificates with a face worth inside 15,000 factors of your proposed redemption, and present you the choice to use the certificates plus any distinction in factors:
Methods for Maximizing Marriott Free Evening Awards
Let’s take into consideration a number of the greatest methods for maximizing your Free Evening Awards as a Marriott Bonvoy loyalist.
On the incomes aspect, probably the most primary technique for incomes Free Evening Awards is by selecting up the 2 Canadian-issued Amex co-branded playing cards, leading to two certificates yearly for a web $270 outlay.
For those who keep often sufficient with Marriott to achieve 75 elite qualifying nights, you’ll additionally earn a 3rd Free Evening Award price 40,000 factors with out having to choose up one other bank card.
Then, it’ll be all concerning the US bank card recreation: selecting up the Amex Bonvoy Good and Amex US Bonvoy Enterprise gives you two extra Free Evening Awards, price 85,000 and 35,000 factors respectively.
A strategic strategy is to use for these playing cards inside the same time-frame, guaranteeing that the Free Evening Awards are issued with aligned expiry dates.
This permits the awards to be redeemed collectively for a single journey, avoiding the problem of getting an orphaned Free Evening Award that may in any other case go unused or redeemed much less optimally.
Moreover, the mixture of US playing cards may also stack their elite qualifying nights into a complete of 40 (25 from the Amex US Bonvoy Good, 15 from the Amex US Bonvoy Enterprise), supplying you with a leg up in direction of 75 elite qualifying nights per yr and the 40,000-point certificates there too.
On the redemption aspect, the best state of affairs is to redeem your free nights as per the next standards:
- E-book a resort whose underlying value in factors meets or exceeds the face worth of the certificates, topping up with factors if essential
- E-book a resort whose underlying money value is as excessive as potential
Certainly, a simple method to consider the worth of a possible redemption is to use our Factors Valuations to the face worth of the Free Evening Awards.
For instance, we presently worth Bonvoy factors at 0.8 cents/level (CAD) or 0.6 cents/level (USD), so you need to be trying to get at the very least $280 (CAD) or $210 (USD) of worth out of a Free Evening Award price 35,000 factors.
Nonetheless, it might not all the time potential to tailor these optimum redemptions precisely to your upcoming journey plans, particularly when you’re incomes a number of of them yr after yr.
Whereas maximizing redemption worth is a prime precedence for miles and factors fans, it’s equally vital to recollect the true function of journey: having fun with the expertise.
If a Free Evening Award is nearing its expiration date, or there’s a necessity to cut back out-of-pocket prices for a visit, redeeming it for barely less-than-optimal worth is completely acceptable. So long as the redemption offsets the unique value of the bank card’s annual payment, it’s nonetheless a worthwhile use of the award.
Conclusion
Marriott Bonvoy’s Free Evening Awards are a superb car for unlocking outsized worth in this system.
Despite the fact that you’ll be placing in a comparatively small upfront quantity within the type of bank card annual charges, you’re typically in a position to earn double or triple that worth on the time of redemption.
You too can fine-tune precisely what number of bank cards to carry (and what number of Free Evening Awards to earn) primarily based on how often you stick with Marriott.
