Once in a while we see hotel loyalty programs offer bonuses to new members. At the moment Marriott Bonvoy, which is the world’s largest hotel loyalty program, has such an offer, as flagged by Danny the Deal Guru via Frequent Miler. While it’s not the most exciting offer on earth, it’s at least worth being aware of.
In this post:
Marriott Bonvoy’s refer-a-friend promotion
At the moment Marriott Bonvoy has a promotion for new members, but only if they’re referred by existing members:
- If you’re referred to Marriott Bonvoy by an existing member, you’ll receive 2,000 bonus points per stay in the first year, for up to the first five stays; that’s a maximum of 10,000 bonus points
- For the existing Marriott Bonvoy member doing the referring, you’ll receive 2,000 bonus points for each stay the new member makes, for up to the first five stays; you can earn bonuses for referring up to five friends, for a total of up to 50,000 Bonvoy bonus points through this offer
In order to take advantage of this, the member doing the referring needs to send an invitation via this link, which requires putting the email address of the person you want to refer, plus your name, email address, and Bonvoy number (so you can be rewarded).
There’s no published end date for this promotion, so it could be pulled at any time.
Is this Bonvoy promotion worth it?
If you’re going to join Marriott’s loyalty program, then obviously some promotion is better than no promotion, and this is the only offer I know of.
For some context on how worthwhile this is, I value Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each. In other words, this promotion offers ~$14 of value (how much I consider 2,000 points to be worth) per stay, both for the person referring and the person being referred.
That’s pretty decent, especially if you’re making shorter stays at less expensive properties. This is also in addition to all the other points earning opportunities through the Bonvoy program.
If you want to further jumpstart your points earning, don’t forget about the below co-branded Marriott credit cards.
Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card
Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card
Bottom line
New Marriott Bonvoy members can earn 2,000 bonus points for each of their first five stays if they’re referred by an existing member (and the members referring receive the same). It’s always nice to get an additional bonus for joining a loyalty program, so hopefully some non-Bonvoy members can benefit from this.
I think most people have an account. If you stayed in a Marriott hotel at least once!
Refer a friend? And here I thought friends don't let friends get Bonvoyed.