Marriott Bonvoy has revealed that it will soon be ending the Points Advance perk, one of the program’s more generous perks. I guess this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given the restrictions we’ve seen added to Points Advance bookings in recent years.
Continue reading: Marriott Bonvoy Ends Points Advance Feature
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Disappointed to see this go. I have used it a few times to make reservations that I knew would eventually be covered off by free night certs that were going to arrive
Marriott overlooked something of actual value while butchering the program so now they're rectifying that mistake.
I’m a lifetime Bonvoy Platinum and it took years of loyalty. I’ve found that I can get a $99 AF AMEX Hilton card to get the same benefits on Hilton Honors. I’ve now switched a majority of my business to Hilton, as they are better at providing benefits (like free breakfasts). Marriott’s continued reduction of relative value as compared to other brands’ loyalty programs will impact them eventually.
This is an unfortunate change and I'm sad to see it go.
But, Hyatt has this exact feature for Globalists, and your reservation is held for up to 7 days before check-in, and then the reservation converts to a cash stay.
Marriott’s continued reduction of relative value as compared to other brands’ loyalty programs will impact them eventually.
I sort of wish this was true but it won't be for 2 reasons.
1. Marriott has cooler brands from an artistic point of view. Think about the Ritz, the W, EDITION hotels, the Westin Heavenly Bed. What does Hilton have going for it? The 500 calorie DoubleTree cookie that's falling out of favor as travelers are increasingly health conscious?
2. Marriott is far more available. There are plenty of cities worldwide in which Marriott has a presence, but Hilton does not. Marriott gets away with low-value rewards because they make up for it in global footprint.
Just one feature left to remove, to fully drive Marriott Bonvoy into oblivion - remove the ability to book hotels. Isn’t that all that’s left, basically?
What is that feature called? I am a Globalist and was unaware of it, and can imagine wanting exactly that..
So basically, the way I’ve understood it, it allows you to book a stay without the number of points required. But, if you don’t have the required points for the stay, the stay will become a cash day 7 days before checkin.
I agree with #2, but I just stayed at the Waldorf Cancun and the Waldorf Pedegral, and both crushed all of the 15+ Ritz Carlton’s in which I’ve stayed!
Not if you are a destination resort like the St. Regis Maldives - 14 days is not a lot of time at all.
I usually visit a couple places when I have time for a vacation, and I have used this feature a couple times to lock in a great redemption at the highlight stay for the trip. Useful for me to book several different dates for the stay, work out the other details of the trip (flights, other stays), and then cancel the remaining stays.
Also a handy feature before Marriott changed the terms and conditions (such as not locking in the points price at time of booking).
So, overall not terribly sad to see this go. Agree with Lucky's analysis and I hope it leads to more redemption availability at the more popular hotels.
I am not sure I believe Marriott’s justification. I use this feature often because I transfer points from my Amex account into my Marriott account. From what I remember you had 30-60 days from the time you made the points advance reservation to transfer the points into your account or you would lose the reservation or it converts to a cash reservation.
I’ll personally miss this feature very much. I used it frequently to secure dates and locations for future trips and it allowed me a little flexibility in my point bank. 60 days isn’t a ton of time to accumulate more points, but for our business we rack a lot of points and it actually made a huge difference for us as we’re able to accumulate several hundred thousand points during that period (e-commerce biz, 4x shipping multiplier on Marriott credit card, if anyone is curious.) It was like a layaway plan for vacations, lol. Bummed to lose it. It was also nice to have the booking and see if suite night awards were available for us or not. I find those to be particularly puzzling to know in advance of a booking if they will be honored or an option, so that was always good info to see and you could see it if you were booked.