Quick guide on Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program

Marriott is the largest hotel chain in the world by the number of available rooms. It has more than 30 brands with 8000 properties containing around 1.5 million rooms in ~139 countries. Marriott Bonvoy is the loyalty program offered by Marriott International which allows guests to earn and redeem points for various benefits and rewards when they stay at Marriott’s hotels and resorts.

Some of the most reputed brands part of the Marriott Bonvoy program are Ritz Carlton, St. Regis, JW Marriott, Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridian, Courtyard, Four Seasons, etc. Within India, Marriott owns around 140 properties and it will increase to 200 by 2025. Many popular ITC hotels like ITC Gardenia, ITC Windsor, etc. are also part of the Marriott Bonvoy program.

Overview

Members of the Marriott Bonvoy program can earn points for eligible stays at Marriott’s wide range of hotel brands. You can earn points through eligible spending on dining, spa services, and other hotel amenities.

You can redeem points earned in the Marriott Bonvoy program for a variety of rewards. These include free nights at Marriott hotels and resorts, room upgrades and even air miles transfer.

Brands under Marriott International

There are more than 30 different brands under the Marriott International umbrella that are part of the Marriott Bonvoy program segregated in 4 categories.

Luxury – These are 5 star properties that offer unparalleled service and amenities
Premium – These are little easy on the pocket while offering a close to luxury experience
Select – At this level you get budget friendly options that won’t break the bank
Longer Stays – If you are looking for Airbnb like options then you can check brands in this category

Just in case if you are wondering why there are so many brands with little or almost no such major distinction, the reason is that some of the brands were acquired by Marriott International over the course of its journey and their portfolio kept on growing.

In April 1998, Marriott acquired The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
In 1997, they acquired the Renaissance Hotels.
In April 2015, Marriott acquired Canadian hotel chain Delta Hotels

Footprint in India

Within India, Marriott has properties in more than 30 cities and they are expanding as India is one of their key markets. Currently, they operate ~150 properties in India and have another 70 in pipeline. Check out the directory here.

In India, 4.5 million members are part of Marriott Bonvoy loyalty programme and membership has doubled in the last four-five years.

Agra	Coimbatore	Jaisalmer	Mumbai	Pushkar
Ahmedabad	Dehradun	Jodhpur	Mussoorie	Siliguri
Amritsar	Goa	Kochi	Nagpur	Srinagar
Bengaluru	Gurugram	Kolkata	Nashik	Vadodara
Bhopal	Hyderabad	Lucknow	Navi Mumbai	Visakhapatnam
Chandigarh	Indore	Madurai	New Delhi
Chennai	Jaipur	Mahabaleshwar	Pune

List of Indian cities with Marriott Properties

Footprint outside India

If you want to plan a foreign trip, Marriott has got you covered extremely well. Marriott properties are present in almost all the countries that you might have thought of while thinking of a vacation 🙂 and they are part of Marriott Bonvoy program which means you can redeem your points to book a stay there.

You can use their directory to serach the properties across the world.

Marriott Bonvoy Tier Levels

On joining the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program, you become a base level ‘member’ and from their you can get upgraded to higher tiers namely Silver Elite, Gold Elite, Platinum Elite, Titanium Elite, and Ambassador Elite.

To get upgraded to a higher tier, you need to accumulate certain number of Elite Night credits (ENC) in a calendar year as summarized in the table below. An ENC is simply a night credit that represents the number of revenue nights you have stayed at a Marriott property in a year. Let’s say you have accumulated 27 ENCs by 31st Dec, either by staying at Marriott property or getting night credits as part of certain promotional offers, you would be upgraded to Gold Elite status for next calendar year and enjoy benefits that come with this tier.

Tier	Member	Silver Elite	Gold Elite	Platinum Elite	Titanium Elite	Ambassador Elite
Criteria	Base level	10 ENC	25 ENC	50 ENC	75 ENC	100+ ENC + $23,000+ USD qualifying spend per year

A couple of things to note about ENCs –

On 1st Jan each year, Elite Night Credit count is reset.
Award nights (earned through promotions or card offers) are not counted towards ECN.

There is another perk which rewards long term loyalists. If you maintain an Elite tier for a certain number of years and also surpass the required nights stayed, you get upgraded to an Elite tier for lifetime as per the criteria. The advantage of this perk is that you will continue enjoying the benefits of that tier for lifetime (even if you don’t meet the ENC criteria in subsequent calendar years) and also your points will never expire.

Tier	Lifetime Silver Elite	Lifetime Gold Elite	Lifetime Platinum Elite
Criteria	250 Lifetime Nights + 5 Years Elite Status	400 Lifetime Nights + 7 Years Gold Status or higher	600 Lifetime Nights + 10 Years Platinum Status or higher

Marriott Bonvoy Tier Benefits

Higher tiers offer additional benefits like room upgrades, late checkout, lounge access, and more. Below is a snapshot of all the benefits and the tier that you need to be at for being eligible for that benefit.

Main Elite Benefits

Most of the benefits mentioned above are self explanatory. You can refer the detailed terms & conditions for each here. Some main benefits you should take advantage of are –

Room upgrades for entire stay duration
Marriott Bonvoy offers milestone benefits on reaching 50 & 75 ENCs which includes
- 5 Suite Night Awards to redeem for upgrades to premium rooms or suites.
- 5 Elite Night Credits to reach higher Elite status faster.
- Option to gift Silver or Gold Elite Status to a family member or friend.
Complimentary breakfast with Platinum Elite and higher tiers
With each tier, you earn bonus points which can be redeemed for stay or availing services

Other than the above there are some partnerships that Marriott has done with airline & travel partners that can be useful depending on whether you use their services or not.

Emirates Airlines partnership

Marriott has done travel partnership with Emirates, United airlines, Singapore Airlines etc. which gives you option to earn miles of these airlines when you stay with Marriott or earn points when you fily with these airline partners.

Marriott’s tie-up with Emirates helps you earn loyalty currency of Marriott on spending with the Emirates and vice versa post linking your Marriott Bonvoy and Emirates Skyward accounts.

If you occasionally or regularly fly Emirates, then this is a double bonus for you in case you already use Marriott as you earn miles with Emirates simply by staying at Marriott.

*Marriott & Emirates loyalty program tie-up benefits*

United Airlines partnership

Similar to Emirates, Marriott aslo has partnership with United airlines through which you will get benefits like 1:1 transfer ratio and complimentary membership of loyalty programs of either of them on meeting the criteria. Below is the summary of all the benefits –

*Marriott & United loyalty program tie-up benefits*

Hertz Car Rental partnership

Hertz is an American car rental company which has one of the largest worldwide presence among vehicle rental companies by locations and fleet size. It operates in around 160 countries all over the world.

Hertz has partnered with Marriott Bonvoy through which all members get complimentary Hertz Gold Plus Rewards elite status.

Marriott Bonvoy Elite Tier	Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Matching Status
Ambassador Elite	President’s Circle
Titanium Elite	Five Star
Platinum Elite	Fast track to Five Star

Best Credit cards for Marriott

There are many Marriott co-branded credit cards internationally but in India, there is only one credit card which is created specifically for Marriott Bonvoy program – Marriott Bonvoy HDFC bank credit card. Ironically, there are better credit cards than this one which will help you earn Marriott Bonvoy points much faster. Some of the cards even come with complimentary Marriott Bonvoy Elite membership which helps to extract more value from the points when redeemed for stay at Marriott properties.

Here are the main credit cards in ascending order of card fee that you can opt for if you want to explore Marriott brands –

Card	Points Earn Rate	Points Transfer Ratio	Other Benefits
Amex MRCC	1 MR point per Rs. 50 spent	1:1	N/A
Marriott Bonvoy HDFC bank	2 Marriott Bonvoy points per Rs. 150 spent	N/A	Complimentary Silver Elite tier membership + 10 Elite Night credits + 1 free night award at Marriott properties (worth 15000 points)
Amex Gold	1 MR point per Rs. 50 spent	1:1	N/A
Amex Platinum Travel	1 MR point per Rs. 50 spent	1:1	N/A
Axis Atlas	2 Edge Miles per Rs. 100 spent	2:1	N/A
HDFC Infinia	5 points per Rs.150 spent		Complimentary Club Marriott membership (not the same as Marriott Bonvoy Elite membership)
Axis Magnus	12 EDGE Reward points per Rs. 200 spent	5:2	N/A
Axis Reserve	15 EDGE Reward points per Rs. 200 spent	5:2	N/A
Amex Platinum	1 MR point per Rs. 40 spent	1:1	Complimentary Gold Elite tier membership

Membership Rewards (MR) is reward currency of Amex cards
EDGE MILES is rewards currency of Axis Atlas card
EDGE Rewards is reward currency of Axis credit cards

The points earn rate mentioned above is the base earn rate. With many of these cards, there are ways to accelerate the earn rate that you can read about in the respective card review post. After familizaring with the detailed review of these cards, you would get to know that although Marriott Bonvoy HDFC card comes with some pretty good benefits but the earn rate is very ordinary in comparison to other credit cards.

Earning Marriott Bonovy Points

There are two main ways to earn Marriott Bonvoy points,

Use any of the above credit cards to earn points & transfer those to Marriott Bonvoy account
You can book rooms or spend on Marriott products & services to earn points.

Let’s understand the 2nd option in detail. There are various ways to earn points by spending at Marriott properties or purchasing their services.

Book a stay at Marriott This is the most obvious way to earn points. Base earn rate varies as per the property that you book as shown below. If you also have an elite tier, you will also earn bonus points on top of the base earn rate. Any charges that can be billed to the room, including dining, beverages, rounds of golf, spa services, and more will also be eligible to earn points.
- Points or miles (in case opted for miles) will not be credited for a stay where the guest’s name is different from Marriott Bonovy member name.

Marriott Tours & Activities You can book various tours, culinary experiences, sightseeing and much more through Marriott and earn points in proportion to the amount of the package.

Hertz Rental Cars On booking a Hertz rental car through Marriott Bonvoy, you earn 2000 points for rentals for two or more days. Rentals of one day earn 500 points.
Even without a stay If you are not staying at Marriott, then also there are certain restaurants where you can dine and earn points for that. You can find out the restaurants here under their Dine & Earn program.
Earn on Uber rides and delivery This is only for U.S. You can earn more points when you link your accounts and earn on qualifying food and grocery orders for delivery with Uber Eats and rides with Uber throughout the U.S.
Events at Marriott Marriott also gives options to host any business meeting events, weddings, custom shaadi packages, social events, plan group travel and earn points for eligible purchases on them.
Book a cruise There is also option to book several cruises through Marriott and earn points.
Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection One can book luxury yacht experiences for various exotic destinations
Earn with Airline partners As covered in Benefits earlier, you can earn points by flying with Emirates or United airline.
Luxury Dining Series

Redeeming Marriott Bonvoy Points

All the points that get accumulated in your Marriott Bonvoy account Marriott Bonvoy points stay active for 2 years from the date of your last activity. Even when points are credited to Marriott Bonvoy account, it is counted as an activity.

To redeem your Marriott Bonvoy points and other awards & certificates (which you get through promotions and offers like Free Night Award (FNAs) or room upgrade certificates) you can opt for options mentioned below-

Booking rooms You can use either just points or a combination of points + cash to book rooms at any of the properties part of marriott Bonvoy program. Also, you can use points for room upgrades.
- To redeem FNA certificate or any award nights that you have received in your account, you must choose ‘Use Points/Certificates’ option during booking.
- To get best rates possible choose ‘My dates are flexible’ option instead of filling a date.
Use points for Dining With Marriott points redemption booking, breakfast isn’t complimentary but one can redeem points to pay for meals. Also, you can redeem points for Spa or any other service.

Travel bookings with points – You can book flights or rental cars by paying entirely in points. Marriott through their preferred airline partner United Airlines, which is the 3rd largest airline in the world, let’s you redeem points for flight tickets. road travel, you get the option to book rental cars.

If you prefer some other airline other than United then, you can even transfer points from Marriott to their 40+ Global Airline partners. Figure out the points post conversion using this calculator. The conversion ratio is available here. With United MileagePlus, get up to 10000 bonus miles while transferring points to miles.
Book a cruise with points You can search for popular cruise destinations and use points to book.
There are different brand stores like Marriott Store, Courtyard, Le Meridian, Ritz Carlton, Renaissance, Sheraton, Westin, Fairfield to purchase all kind of bed and bath products.
Shop at Marriott Store for electronics, sports & leisure equipments etc.
Shop with points You can purchase gift cards, gadgets, accessories, etc with points.
Book for exclusive events or concerts Marriott calls them ‘Moments’ but simply put these are events of culinary, arts, sports etc. that you can book by redeeming points

Managing Marriott Bonovy Points

All the points that you earn or want to purchase can be managed from their app or website and you can do things like

Buy points You can buy points for yourself and use for any of the redemption options. In a calendar year, one can purchase upto 100000 points. Often, Marriott runs promotional offers in which one can earn additional 40%-50% points while buying points and the purchase limit is also raised to something like 150000 points.
Gift points You can gift points to someone yourself and use for any of the redemption options
Donate points You can donate your points for a good cause
Transfer Points One can even transfer points to a friend or family member if need be.
Merge multiple accounts In case you have created multiple accounts in your name, you can merge them to consolidate your points under same account.

Marriott lets you transfer up to a maximum of 1 lakh Marriott Bonvoy Points per calendar year to other member accounts and receive up to a maximum of 5 lakh Marriott Bonvoy Points per calendar year from other member accounts.

You can also purchase up to 1 lakh points (Purchase rate is $12.50 per 1000 points) for yourself or someone else in a calendar year. Sometimes there are promotional offers through which you get 30% (or even 40%) bonus points on points purchase.

How to enroll

To enroll in Marriott Bonvoy, you need to sign up and get a member account ID. If by any chance you have multiple Marriott Bonvoy accounts, you can merge the accounts from here.

Bottomline

Looking at the merits of Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program, there is a lot to explore and get value from. For Marriott loyalists, there is a lot of value to be gained from all the privileges and benefits that come with this loyalty program. Marriott has created an ecosystem of products & services to cater to all sorts of travel needs so there is something for everyone.

For someone who is new to Marriott, the 1st step would be to start exploring Marriott properties by getting a credit card that can help to rack up points faster which can be redeemed for bookings. One can start with Amex MRCC credit card (Apply Now) or Amex Plat Travel credit card (Apply Now) which let you earn Marriott points much faster and are also good way to get into Amex world for its offers.

For Marriott loyalists, who want a card with a little more than just a way to earn points can opt for Marriott Bonvoy HDFC credit card or go for Amex Platinum charge card (Apply Now) which offers complimentary Gold Elite tier status.

What are your thoughts about the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program? Feel free to share your views in the comment section below.