Over the summer, we rented a villa in Greece through the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy platform. I wanted to share my experience with that in this post. We actually had a great experience, and it turned out to be quite rewarding in terms of the number of points earned.
Let me start with some background on the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy platform, and then I’ll explain why we booked through it, and how it all went.
In this post:
The basics of Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy is Marriott’s vacation rental platform. It might seem counterintuitive for a global hotel group to try to rent you homes, but this is clearly intended as a way for Marriott to engage its (200+ million) Bonvoy members who prefer a home rental to a hotel room for a particular trip.
So, how does Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy work?
- This is essentially a platform that white labels the homes available through other home sharing platforms; so just about all the homes available through the platform are also available through other services
- Marriott obviously takes a commission on the bookings, and in turn, offers Bonvoy members benefits, like the ability to earn elite qualifying nights plus 5x points per dollar spent
- Note that Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy often has higher prices for the same properties than you’ll find through other platforms, so you’ll always want to crunch the numbers for yourself
Personally I think the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy platform falls into the category of “good to know about,” but it’s not some consistent slam dunk that’s going to change your life.
Why we booked through Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
Over the summer we wanted to rent a villa near Porto Heli, Greece, as we were visiting some friends in the area. We were traveling as a big group, both with family and friends, so we valued having lots of space. It was also our son’s first transatlantic trip, and coincided with his second birthday, so it was a special trip.
Ford had researched villas online, and found one that he loved, so he was going to go ahead and book it. However, we learned that someone else had reserved it just hours earlier, so he was discouraged and frustrated.
Trying to be a decent husband, I said “don’t worry, let me figure it out.” Then I realized I know basically nothing about vacation rentals. But I do love points, and I was familiar with Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, so I figured I should start my search there (this is perhaps the prime example of why these platforms work… hah).
To my surprise, I found a villa in the area that met all of our needs — it had plenty of bedrooms, a pool, and had a good location. Once we decided that we liked that villa, I of course spent some more time researching online, to make sure there wasn’t anything that was a better fit for us that was available.
So we really lucked out, because this was the best option I could find. I wouldn’t expect that to always be the case, of course.
The Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy value proposition
For those curious, here’s the listing of the property that we booked. Let me emphasize that it wasn’t cheap, as you’d expect for a rental in Greece in early August. However, it had eight bedrooms, and the cost was split across multiple people (though I lucked out in terms of being rewarded with the points).
As you can see, the cost was 2,950 EUR per night, so a week rental cost 20,850 EUR, including a 200 EUR cleaning fee. Ordinarily you earn 5x points per dollar spent, and at the time of this rental, I had Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status, which offers a 50% points bonus (I’m now back up to Titanium status, which would’ve offered a 75% points bonus).
How did this cost compare to booking the same villa through other platforms?
- The villa was also bookable through Vrbo, and the rate was 20,250 EUR, so it was around 3% cheaper
- I later found out that the management company for this property is VillaRentals, and the listing there had it for 19,950 EUR, so that was around 5% cheaper
Nonetheless, I found it well worth it to book through Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy. The program frequently has promotions, which offer a better return than just the standard 5x points. Funny enough, when I initially booked, the promotion wasn’t that great. However, the villa we booked allowed free cancelations up until 30 days before check-in (50% had to be paid at the time of reservation, with 50% was due 30 days out).
Just over a month before check-in, Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy was running its best promotion ever (at least for longer stays at more expensive properties), so of course I rebooked. With this deal, you could earn 5x the usual number of points:
- Since you ordinarily earn 5x Bonvoy points per dollar spent, this meant I’d earn 25x Bonvoy points per dollar spent
- I then earned an extra 2.5x Bonvoy points per dollar spent for being a Platinum member
In other words, I earned a total of 27.5x Bonvoy points per dollar spent, which translated to 616,119 Bonvoy points. That’s quite a haul!
For context, I value Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each, so I’d value 27.5x points per dollar spent at roughly a 20% return. When it comes to redeeming Bonvoy points, 600K+ points is enough to book at least five nights at just about any of Marriott’s top properties, which could retail for well over a thousand dollars per night.
But wait, there’s more! I then earned 6x Bonvoy points per dollar spent by paying with the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (review), for an extra 135,510 Bonvoy points.
I also started the purchase through Rakuten, which offers 1.5% cash back for these purchases (though I choose to earn Amex points, so that’s 1.5x Amex points per dollar spent). That was an extra 33,877 Membership Rewards points.
So when you add it all, I earned a total of 751,629 Bonvoy points, plus 33,877 Membership Rewards points. That’s quite a haul, and I’m sure you can understand how it was worth paying a few extra percent for the stay to unlock these rewards.
Based on my valuation of Bonvoy points and Membership Rewards points, I value this at a return of $5,837, which translates to a roughly 25% return on spending. Let me emphasize that if it hadn’t been for the 5x points promotion at the time I was booking, I would’ve instead earned 448,089 fewer Bonvoy points. That would obviously make a big difference in terms of how rewarding this is.
One cool thing is that the standard points for the stay posted the day after I checked out, so I was impressed by how quickly those rewards posted.
Also keep in mind that spending with Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy counts toward Ambassador status, so now I have to decide if I’m getting back on that hamster wheel or not. I’m in the odd position of having met the revenue requirement, but not having met the nights requirement (the opposite of how it has always been for me in the past).
Our Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy pre-stay experience
When you go through the booking process, Marriott essentially white labels the whole experience, and doesn’t tell you which property management company is responsible for the villa. Now, you could typically figure this out by searching online for some of the property’s attributes, and looking for listings through other similar platforms.
As soon as I confirmed the booking, the confirmation email revealed that VillaRentals was the “trusted property management partner,” and their contact information was provided. I’ve gotta say, they were awesome to deal with, and were very communicative before and during the stay, so I have nothing but good things to say.
Now, it’s important to acknowledge that I’ve seen plenty of negative reviews of Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, where customers were frustrated by the lack of customer support on the Marriott side when things go wrong.
I can’t say that surprises me one bit, and if something had gone wrong, I’m sure it would’ve been a complete headache trying to get Marriott to intervene in any way. So going into this, I hoped we would have a good experience, and viewed it the same as if I had made a direct booking with the property management company. I wasn’t expecting that Marriott would somehow help me if something went wrong.
So that’s something to be aware of. I don’t think we had a great experience because Marriott somehow vets the most amazing partners, but rather it was just a good property management company to work with, and it so happened to be part of Marriott’s portfolio.
Our Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy Greek villa stay
I’m not going to do an in-depth, airline-style review of one specific villa, because that seems unnecessary. However, I wanted to briefly talk about our experience with renting a home. Usually I prefer hotels to home rentals, since I appreciate the services and amenities that they offer.
That being said, for this trip a villa was the better option. There were lots of us (we had eight bedrooms), we wanted to all be able to easily spend time together with family and friends, and wanted Miles (our son) to be able to spend time outdoors, including in a pool.
For that matter, we wanted to be in Porto Heli to meet friends, and the only decent hotel there is Amanzoe, where a single room costs as much we were paying for the villa. 😉
The indoor space of the home was quite nice nice, and was spread across three floors (there was a basement level, which you can’t see above). The main shared area was a living room and dining area.
The property management company gladly provided a high chair and crib for our son, lots of pool toys, and had the biggest basket of snacks for us that I’ve possibly ever seen (the picture doesn’t do justice to just how much stuff was in there), plus a gift for Miles.
The bedrooms were also sufficient, though nothing exciting. Meanwhile the bathrooms could’ve used some work, but I wasn’t expecting much, based on the pictures online, and this is also kind of what I expect in Greece.
But what made this place so awesome was the outdoor space, which is where you want to spend your time in Greece in summer anyway. There were endless places to sit, so we were barely indoors except to sleep.
Then there was a pool, plus a gorgeous garden area.
Last but not least, just outside the gate of the home was a quiet, secluded beach. The beach was a bit rocky rather than having fine sand (as is common in Greece), but having access to such an empty beach was pretty cool.
At the end of the day, a trip is only as good as the memories you have of it, and we had an amazing time. This wasn’t an experience we could’ve had in a hotel, but of course this was a completely different type of vacation.
Some people may wonder about how we handled the food situation. We ended up hiring a chef for the week, who did all the shopping and cooking for us. He was incredible, and prepared us breakfast and then either lunch or dinner. We couldn’t have been happier with that decision.
Bottom line
We rented a villa in Greece through Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, and had a positive experience. For one, we got a good value compared to booking direct, but that’s largely thanks to the amazing promotion that Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy was offering at the time that I booked. I ended up earning over 750,000 Bonvoy points and over 33,000 Membership Rewards points, so that’s quite a haul.
As far as the villa rental itself goes, it was exactly what we hoped for, and we had no issues whatsoever. However, that comes down to the property management company being great, rather than anything that Marriott specifically did. So I wouldn’t view booking through this platform to necessarily add much of a layer of protection in the event that things go wrong.
I’m not suddenly some convert who plans to consistently rent homes in place of staying at hotels going forward, but for the kind of trip we were on, this was the right move.
If you’ve used Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, what was your experience like?
"Just over a month before check-in, Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy was running its best promotion ever (at least for longer stays at more expensive properties), so of course I rebooked"
I'd be nervous doing that in case someone jumped in and grabbed my villa and I let down 10 friends and a partner! Large cojones, Ben.
The concern is, will a cancelled booking come back to the inventory immediately or at all ? If there is a delay, there is a greater risk of someone else reserving it.
Excellent points haul, but do you think the guests you split the cost with paid some of the price for your win due to you not taking the cheaper cash outlay option which they would have benefited from?
@ Jarrett -- No, absolutely not, I factored that in. I wasn't profiting off this at the expense of others.
Guess the promotion moved the needle a lot, and the affluence of dropping $20K for one stay……
Just saying, if you hit $23K spending requirement (especially if going beyond like hitting $40K or more) but 10s or 20s nights short of Ambassador, try contact Marriott customer service, there're a few data points reps give out Ambassador on a case by case point, ymmy obviously.
Can you share your experience getting a private chef? How much did that cost?
Porto Cheli
The barf emoji did not show up
I rented two places in the south of France last year through Homes and Villas by Marriott. Both charged a pre-paid $600 damage deposit, to be reimbursed after, if no damage was reported. One was credited within a week (and a couple of emails), but the other took 6 months and more emails and excuses than I could count. Mariott declined any help or responsibility.
@ Deb -- That's super frustrating, and exactly why I wouldn't have much faith in Marriott resolving anything. Ugh.
It’s all Good when it goes well but when it doesn’t in another country and Marriott won’t help that’s a hard pass for me be it 200 euros or 20000
Hard pass for me
Glad you all enjoyed
Airbnb isn’t any better with their customer service. This is just a risk of renting a house through any platform
the problem remains- inconsistency of experience. I would never have spent that money given how bad the reviews are for Marriott Homes but glad that you had a good experience!
@ Jeff -- I hear you, though to provide a bit more background, once I found out the property management company, I looked up reviews, etc., and they were all generally positive. So that's what made me feel comfortable about this, rather than the assurance knowing that Marriott is involved. I could've always canceled after booking if there were a lot of bad reviews.
Where do you find a chef?
More importantly, why is it even necessary? Cook on your own or go buy something from a restaurant.
@ Eric -- The property management company was able to refer us to a company that provides chefs.
@ Shamala -- It's not "necessary," but preparing food for a lot of people is a full time job. Ultimately we all wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our time, rather than someone cooking full time. For that matter, we love Greek food, so it was great to be able to have amazing Greek...
@ Eric -- The property management company was able to refer us to a company that provides chefs.
@ Shamala -- It's not "necessary," but preparing food for a lot of people is a full time job. Ultimately we all wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our time, rather than someone cooking full time. For that matter, we love Greek food, so it was great to be able to have amazing Greek meals every day. Porto Heli is a pretty secluded area, and there aren't that many restaurants, so it's nice to have someone cooking for you.
Cool!
That's an epic points haul.
Looks nice, but I don't think many of us are going to be able to drop 20k on a luxury villa like this.
It has eight bedrooms and six bathrooms. Lucky can afford it by himself - but you can easily imagine say four well to do couples, or six or eight individuals, splitting this. This is exactly the use case for VRBO, Airbnb, Homes and Villas, etc.
Though that does beg the question - if you rent a villa and split it four ways, do you also have to split the points one way? Only one individual is likely throwing down the card and putting down their Marriott account for the reservation…
Think of the points as your commission for making the arrangements and organising the money.
@ Anthony -- Hah, it's not possible to split the points, but a discount should absolutely be factored in to reflect the value of the points earned.
It's less than $100/night per bedroom -- way cheaper than a hotel, and way more private space.
Your primary school Maths teacher just called, they want you to return your certificate
No, it works out at €360 or so per bedroom per night. Not cheap, but pretty comparable to any decent hotel in Greece in summer, and you have the benefit of the private garden and pool.
Assuming a bedroom per unit, means a particular unit only needs to shell out $2,500 for the week. That's fairly affordable