Marriott Bonvoy has just announced and opened registration for its newest global promotion, which is the program’s first of the year. Marriott’s Q1 promotion tends to be the most generous of the year, and I suspect this year will be no different.
In this post:
Marriott Bonvoy offering bonus points & elite nights
With Marriott Bonvoy’s new global promotion, members can earn 2,500 Bonvoy bonus points per stay, plus one bonus elite night credit for each unique brand stayed at during the promotion period.
Registration is required for this promotion, and as you’d expect, there are some details to be aware of:
- The promotion is valid for stays between February 25 and May 10, 2026, regardless of when they’re booked
- Registration is required prior to your first eligible stay, and registration closes on April 26, 2026; if you’re having issues with the link, log into your Marriott Bonvoy account and go to the “promotions” tab
- Only stays paid with cash qualify toward this promotion, so award stays (including Cash + Points stays) don’t qualify
- The bonus points and elite nights will typically post within 10 days of when the standard points from a stay post
- You must select Bonvoy points as your points earning preference (rather than airline miles)
- You can only earn this bonus for one room booked per stay (so if you book multiple rooms, you wouldn’t earn this multiple times)
- The bonus elite nights are per brand stayed at during the offer period, so you earn one elite night for each distinct brand you stay at during the promotion dates
Let me emphasize that this isn’t a targeted promotion. All too often people do have issues registering for Marriott Bonvoy promotions, but that’s due to glitches. So if you’re having issues, try a different browser, use the app instead of the website, etc.
How valuable is this Marriott Bonvoy promotion?
The math on this promotion is easy. I value Marriott Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each, meaning that the promotion offers an incremental $17.50 worth of points per eligible paid stay. That’s obviously more lucrative for a stay at an inexpensive property than at an expensive property.
Then you earn one bonus elite night per eligible paid stay at each distinct brand. Unfortunately this isn’t quite as lucrative as the similar promotions we’ve seen in past years, where Marriott has typically offered a flat one bonus elite night per night stayed, regardless of the brand.
To be clear, with this offer you only earn one bonus elite night per stay at a new brand, so if staying at a new brand for five nights, you wouldn’t earn five bonus elite nights.
Marriott Bonvoy promotions aren’t terribly lucrative nowadays, so this is probably one of the offers that will most interest members.
Normal Bonvoy points earning rates for hotel stays
Not factoring in this promotion, Marriott Bonvoy members ordinarily earn:
- 10x Bonvoy points per dollar spent at most brands
- 5x Bonvoy points per dollar spent at select limited service brands
Then there are elite bonuses:
- Silver Elite members earn 10% bonus points
- Gold Elite members earn 25% bonus points
- Platinum Elite members earn 50% bonus points
- Titanium Elite & Ambassador Elite members earn 75% bonus points
The above doesn’t include the points you can earn for credit card spending at hotels:
- You can earn up to 6x Bonvoy points per dollar spent on most co-branded Marriott cards, including the Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card (review) and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (review)
- Otherwise, you can earn up to 3x transferable points on hotel spending (with Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, or Citi ThankYou)
As an Ambassador member with a co-branded credit card, I ordinarily earn 23.5x Bonvoy points per dollar spent at full service brands. At a valuation of 0.7 cents per point, that’s like a ~16% return on hotel spending.
Bottom line
Marriott Bonvoy has opened registration for its latest global promotion, so make sure you register. With this, members can earn 2,500 bonus points per eligible paid stay during the promotion period. On top of that, members can earn one bonus elite night for each distinct brand stayed at.
The first promotion of the year tends to be Marriott’s most lucrative, so I know many members were anticipating this offer. It’s just a shame that Marriott isn’t offering a flat double elite nights this year (or I guess to look at it differently, maybe it’s actually a good thing, since it could help with inflated elite ranks… or is that a lost cause?).
What do you make of Marriott Bonvoy’s new global promotion?
I’m finding this language in the Ts and Cs for this promo to be ambiguous: “ A “stay” is defined as consecutive nights spent at the same property on a points-eligible rate, regardless of check-in/check-out activity, under the same one reservation or multiple back-to-back reservations.”…so a single night stay doesn’t cut it?..how many “consecutive nights” are required?
Hopefully the ranks thin out as a result next year
Well, there goes my reaching platinum another year. I only reach platinum because Marriott is my company's preferred and several of my business trips occur between Feb and April, the period when the double nights promo existed.
Yep almost half of my work travel occurs in March/April timeframe, and my company policy won't let me book anything above a Courtyard. So goodbye Marriott.
@Pedro
Courtyards it has been for me as well.
Fascinating the number of people I see planning to twist themselves in to pretzels to get the one night. Planning to break their stays up to 1 night stays at different hotels. Who has time for that foolishness. So darn weird.
I hit lifetime Platinum in 2025 and the double nights without changing hotels was a big help.
Keeps getting more difficult to reach elite status. In countries where there is no credit card short cut possible. Looks like Marriott is going to lose me …. And I need to stay 50-75 reals nights in hotels….
Ben, might want to fix this:
"Otherwise, you can earn up to 3x transferable points on hotel spending (with Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, or Citi ThankYou)"
CSR earns 4x on hotel stays. It's enough of a difference that I put Marriott stays on that now vs the Boundless.
Is paying for Marriott hotels on a Bonvoy credit card really the best option? I don't. think it is.
Bonvoy points convert to airline miles at a rate of 0.33 (or 0.42, if we include the transfer bonus). 6 × 0.42 = 2.52 points per $.
A competiting card that offers 4× points on hotel spend, with 1:1 conversion to airline transfer partners, earns 4 points per $.
Well, do you value Bonvoy points for their conversion to airline miles or to stay at Bonvoy properties?
Most people are probably redeeming for stays at Marriott brands, not transferring to partners.
CSR, earnings 4x per $ on hotel stays, is still the winner for those stays—but it's also $795/year, instead of $95/$125 for the Bonvoy Boundless/Business cards.
Lucky,
Whatchu’ talking about?
You need to rephrase this:
“ To be clear, with this offer you only earn one bonus elite night per stay at a [new brand], so if staying at a [new brand] for five nights, you wouldn’t earn five bonus elite nights.”
The T&Cs do not state this “new brand” requirement, whatever you think it is.
Lucky,
Whatchu’ talking about?
You need to rephrase this:
“ To be clear, with this offer you only earn one bonus elite night per stay at a [new brand], so if staying at a [new brand] for five nights, you wouldn’t earn five bonus elite nights.”
The T&Cs do not state this “new brand” requirement, whatever you think it is.
Lucky,
Whatchu’ talking about?
You need to rephrase this:
“ To be clear, with this offer you only earn one bonus elite night per stay at a [new brand], so if staying at a [new brand] for five nights, you wouldn’t earn five bonus elite nights.”
The T&Cs do not state this “new brand” requirement, whatever you think it is.
"Sorry, this promotion is not available"
Love it. Thanks, Martiott.
Unintentionally I have 4 Marriott reservations across different brands during the promotion period, so the timing works out great. Wasn’t even intentionally shooting for 50 nights (and won’t try), but I’ll take a few extra points to the account.
Does this include home and villa?
The thing I don't like about this promo and that seems sub-optimal from Marriott's perspective is it will cause me to re-book stays to cheaper brands.
For example, I already have reserved 2 2-night stays at Westin during the promo period. Now I am incentived to rebook this as a Westin for the first stay and an Element for the second. Or if I was really crazy, break the each 2 night stay up into...
The thing I don't like about this promo and that seems sub-optimal from Marriott's perspective is it will cause me to re-book stays to cheaper brands.
For example, I already have reserved 2 2-night stays at Westin during the promo period. Now I am incentived to rebook this as a Westin for the first stay and an Element for the second. Or if I was really crazy, break the each 2 night stay up into separate 1 night stays.
If I owned a hotel with one of the largest footprint brands, I wouldn't like this though maybe the brand switching this will drive is really incremental
Terrible promotion compared to IHG. I'm voting with my wallet. Byebye Bonvoy.
So what if you have two separate stays at two different properties, yet the same brand? For example one night at a Fairfield in Florida then a night at a Fairfield in Texas - is that a total of three elite qualifying nights or four?
3 elite night credits - 1 for the first stay, 1 for the second stay, 1 for staying at Fairfield. You get regular earnings plus 1 bonus night per brand.
Surely that would be 1 elite night only. Wouldn't Fairfield be considered the same brand irrespective of the state of their location?
Q1 last year was 2x elite nights. This is much worse.
It's been 2x for the last five years. This is the first time in half a decade that they're breaking the pattern.
It won’t show up for me on different browsers or app? I hate Marriott IT glitches. Is there a way to call and register? Thanks.
I suspect they’re sick and tired of Platinums having crappy breakfast on them based on their credit card nights (15 outside the US) and two for one night promotions. Good times ended, so does my Amex Bonvoy card .
Hah!!!!
American credit cards are their least concern.
Wait till you know the number of Chinese Platinums.
Marriott has so many brands they lost track and now sending us out in the wild to find them
What's this... "Outdoor Collection"... it's literally just a tent... you really meant 'in the wild'...
Marriott has 35 brands by my count, so I suppose someone could get quite a long ways towards middle/top elite status with this promotion. However, despite everyone liking a good promotion, I wish Marriott would stop selling elite status off, so that if you do have it, the value is what they promised. It just degrades my enthusiasm to give them any more money if what I thought were my earned benefits get diluted by...
Marriott has 35 brands by my count, so I suppose someone could get quite a long ways towards middle/top elite status with this promotion. However, despite everyone liking a good promotion, I wish Marriott would stop selling elite status off, so that if you do have it, the value is what they promised. It just degrades my enthusiasm to give them any more money if what I thought were my earned benefits get diluted by everyone else they gave it away to, to help goose the revenue.
Well this promotion is horrible for rest of the world who does not have access to those lucrative American Marriott cobranded credit cards. It just makes life more difficult for us to qualify meaningful status like platinum or titanium. Trying to find 35 brands around the world is insane
But, the rest of the world has real beer.
I agree, it really hurts non US-based travelers. Where everyone gets Platinum with Brilliant cards! Or they stack all their cards for bonus ENCs.
If it's any consolation, Marriotts in the US now charge ridiculous (by world standards) rates for what you are actually getting. It's eye opening even to go to European Marriott properties and see that they are actually properly staffed, have good breakfasts, etc.
Not a consolation really,
Most Club lounges in Europe will just have lots of American Credit Card shortcut friends.. , while us. who pay to stay, will have to pay more to access the lounge..
If they want to cut numbers, they should do it across the board.
Its quite easy. I moved my stays to Hyatt