Marriott devalues Program further

I was surprised and curious to know whats going on when I received the email below from Marriott Bonvoy:

The several bookings I had were several months away and no where close to me needing the points now that I would have in place in a few months. I knew for certain that if you don’t have enough points in your account either two weeks or 15 days before your arrival, your reservation may be cancelled – so I decided to check whats going on.

And, when I checked the dates on my reservations again (Yes-they are well over 60 days away) and looked at the Marriott website page related to “Points Advance”, I realised that there was another devaluation that just hit us.

So here is a quick summary of the changes:

1. Your Arrival Date must be 30 or more Days from the Booking Date.

2. Points Advance can only be used for Free Night Award (Certificate) Stays, including Stays with:
– Cash+Points Awards
– Free Night Awards
– PointSavers Awards
– Upgrade Awards

3. You cannot make a Points Advance Reservation, if you have enough Points for the Stay.
(An easy way to bypass this would be to make another booking and then book the one you want using “Points Advance”)
Why would you want to do this you ask? In case you are looking at transferring Bonvoy Points to airlines to book your flight first and know that you will have the points later for the hotel stay.

4. You cannot have more than three Points Advance Reservations at a time. Points Advance reservations in excess of three will be cancelled.

5. The Points Advance Benefit cannot be used:
– To make a Travel Package Reservation; the Travel Package Award must be attached to Reservation at time of Confirmation.
– To order a Travel Package Award; required Points must be deducted at time the Travel Package is ordered.

And the biggest blow:
If you do not earn or purchase enough Points to cover the reservation within 60 days, or by 14 days prior to arrival (whichever comes first), the reservation will be cancelled.
So, if you now make your reservation well into 2022, you have 60days from the date of making the booking to come up with the points needed. OUCH!!
Not much of a grace period if you are working on meeting MSR on a couple of cards that you just applied for or plan to over the next couple of months as part of your strategy.

Marriott Bonvoy also has a chart to illustrate this below:

Marriott is not doing a good job of retaining their loyal members. To soften the blow, they could have atleast grand-fathered existing bookings and applied these restrictions to new bookings going forward.

So, do check your “Points Advance” bookings if they are at risk of being cancelled. I suppose you could always make a new “Points Advance” booking when available and reset the timer.

Not impressed with Marriott Bonvoy – not impressed at all. Missing the good old SPG as I reminisce when I look at this folder on my phone.