Marriott Bonvoy Rewards: How To Redeem Points For The Best Value

Is Marriott the only major hotel program where some hotels charge an inflated cash rate upon late cancellation of an award stay? I remember a few (Iceland, some properties in the Rockies) where the reservation becomes nonrefundable 14 days in advance and if you cancel past that deadline, you don’t forfeit points but are charged some insane cash rate.

Good question, I'd like to know the answer to this as well. back in day precovid id travel 12hrs or more with 3-4 hotels almost 1x per month or every two months. That meant I had a lot of bookings to farm. To avoid or minimize risk I had a simple practice to prevent any charges I didn't want going through. FWIW I try to never cancel within the period but hotels have such weird policies sometimes (I've seen up to 6mo, yep) and add to that between a business and W2 job i had unpredictability at times. I'd also do this for work/business travel. Nowadays I travel less anyways, have less bookings to farm and can keep track and cancel easier but I'd still be curious
Cue some horror stories
Oh and a reminder to stay away from any property owned by these guys grupo diestra https://www.grupodiestra.com/ if you want to avoid protracted months long back n forth trying to get issues resolved
JW Marriott Cabo, Grand Hyatt Cancun (so disappointed they're getting into Hyatt)

I've valued the Brilliant card for the lounge access in Europe. Our international travel is slowing dramatically, and in the US I'm finding it difficult to find more than .5 cents/point on almost any redemption. Add to that the fact that the prices of all the Marriott products we've tended to book are becoming outrageous (as related to value) and I'm in the process of spending our points and ending the relationship.

I agree with your comments but the big problem is using the 85,000 point certificates. Now that many luxury hotels charge more than 100,000 per night the value of the certificate is lower relative to the hotel cash price and it’s become more difficult to use. I also want to point out that benefits differ at different brands. The fact that nothing like breakfast or lounge access is included or can be redeemed as the welcome gift at Ritz properties lowers the benefits and other luxury brands kindle kt

If you convert 60k Bonvoy points to United miles, you actually get 5k more miles for a total of 30k miles. Which is a decent conversion for me.

I almost always see 5 night stays where 1 night is free as a good to very good redemption. Other than that lately the majority of my stays I see points = .6 cents of a cash rate. So coin toss as to use or save. And of course stays where it's .3 or.4 cents cash it is.

I love converting my marriott points to airline miles for business class tickets. You get pretty decent value that way. Usually over 2-3cpp. Pretty good for Marriott.