Marriott recently devalued its reward points for the award nights. Below is a manually assembled chart of the old and new points required to book award nights in Marriott Properties across the world.
Which one would you want to go to?
1 Like
Oh wow. There is a 78% increase in the point requirement for Marriott Masai Mara. I am sure many people were planning to go there and had been accumulating points for that. Big loss to them…
Well, there it is—Marriott devaluing points again. Back in the day, loyalty programs actually rewarded loyalty! Now? They keep moving the goalposts, making it harder to redeem what you’ve earned. 78% increase at JW Marriott Masai Mara? 605K for North Island Seychelles? That’s just plain outrageous.
Use your points as soon as you can. Holding onto them is like keeping money in a savings account with terrible interest—it just loses value. If I had to choose, Zadún and Dorado Beach are looking like the best options since they haven’t gone up (yet).
Yeah, without giving members advance notice, Marriott devalued its points system significantly in January 2025.
Important modification:
Increased points requirements: The maximum points required for a free night have increased across various hotel categories. For example, Category 5 hotels now need up to 76,000 points per night, a 10% increase from the previous 69,000 points. On the other hand, category 9 properties have seen an increase to 152,000 points per points per night, up from 132,000 points.
Secret Award Chart: Despite eliminating publicly available award charts in 2022, Marriott continues to assign internal categories to its hotels. These categories influence the points required for award stays. Members can uncover a property’s category by examining the hotel’s webpage source code, specifically searching for the “prop_rewards_category_level” attribute.
Impact on members:
Members find it difficult to predict and prepare for point redemptions due to the lack of public award charts and unexpected adjustments.
Members’ ability to optimize rewards has been impacted by the decline in the overall value of Marriott Bonvoy points due to increased points needed for stays.