In early 2022, Marriott Bonvoy eliminated award charts and hotel categories, and switched to dynamic award pricing. As it turns out, Marriott does still have hotel categories and even has an award chart… it’s just not published in an obvious way.
In this post:
Marriott Bonvoy hotel categories & award costs
Frequent Miler flags how Seal The Deal Travels discovered that Marriott Bonvoy still assigns hotels categories when it comes to points redemptions, and there’s a minimum and maximum range of award pricing at each of those categories.
It would appear that Marriott Bonvoy uses nine categories of hotels, with the following nightly points ranges (this is of course subject to change):
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 1 hotels cost 5,500-16,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 2 hotels cost 10,500-23,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 3 hotels cost 15,500-25,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 4 hotels cost 24,000-46,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 5 hotels cost 31,000-69,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 6 hotels cost 43,000-76,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 7 hotels cost 50,000-92,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 8 hotels cost 71,500-130,000 points per night
- Marriott Bonvoy Category 9 hotels cost 80,000-150,000 points per night
There are three properties that don’t fall within this range:
- Zadun, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, costs 131,000-212,000 points per night
- Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, costs 173,500-254,000 points per night
- North Island Seychelles, a Luxury Collection, costs up to 385,000 points per night
So, how do you determine the category for a Marriott Bonvoy property? Do an award search for the hotel that you want on marriott.com. When you’re on the page that shows award pricing for that hotel, right click and select the “View Page Source” button.
That will show a bunch of text that 99% of us can’t make sense of.
You’ll then want to search this page for the word “category” (you can search a webpage by typing ctrl + f or command + f). When you do that, you should see text that reads something like the following:
“prop_rewards_category_level”:”9″
That “9” means that the hotel you’re looking at is a Category 9 Marriott Bonvoy property, and that you can expect to pay anywhere in the above price range.
Does this information actually matter?
When Marriott Bonvoy first introduced dynamic award pricing, many of us wondered what that would actually look like in practice. Would each point be worth a certain amount toward a hotel stay, or would there still be a certain logic to pricing beyond that? We’ve known that the latter was the case, though this new discovery provides more insights into Marriott’s pricing logic.
With this awesome discovery from Seal The Deal Travels, we know that Marriott hasn’t actually eliminated award charts. Marriott still has award charts, but:
- The potential cost range for each category has increased significantly
- Marriott obviously wants the flexibility to change the pricing limits for each category at any point without having to announce it or make it seem like a devaluation
The discovery of Marriott Bonvoy’s secret award chart won’t somehow change how I redeem my Marriott Bonvoy points. However, it provides insight into Marriott’s award pricing logic, and it’s always good to understand how a program goes about pricing awards.
Bottom line
As it turns out, Marriott Bonvoy does still put hotels into categories for the purposes of award redemptions, but the program just doesn’t want to us to know those details. Fortunately there’s a way to discover this with minimal efforts. Furthermore, there continue to be limits to award pricing within each category, which is interesting to see.
What a cool discovery. It won’t change how I redeem points, but this is something I’ll be checking out of curiosity with each redemption going forward.
What do you make of this unofficial Marriott Bonvoy award chart?
We found a way to display the 8,000+ hotels on a map. You can filter by category ;)
Some stats:
1 381
2 1320
3 2621
4 2034
5 1145
6 518
7 206
8 96
9 27
https://milesopedia.com/en/news/programs/marriott-bonvoy-award-hotel-categories/
I have noticed it depends where you are in the world. In Asia for example some cheap Marriott hotels may be a good value on points but generally the luxury brands are not.
Bonvoy totally sucks as a program. Has gone the same way as Delta Airlines.... I am lifetime Titanium, but 80% of my stays this year has been at Hilton and Hyatt. Biggest reason: Huge devaluations on award nights redemptions (I had a lot of points earned prior to devaluation and now they "worth" less than 20% of what they used to be). The franchise operated hotels are way too stingy with any upgrades etc. And...
Bonvoy totally sucks as a program. Has gone the same way as Delta Airlines.... I am lifetime Titanium, but 80% of my stays this year has been at Hilton and Hyatt. Biggest reason: Huge devaluations on award nights redemptions (I had a lot of points earned prior to devaluation and now they "worth" less than 20% of what they used to be). The franchise operated hotels are way too stingy with any upgrades etc. And resort fees and parking fees are getting so outrageous.
IHG is also getting really bad although they have true "Cash+Points" to buy down rates and bonus promotions for purchasing points.
Just booked a nice Sheraton in Mexico for 5500 points. Turns out it's the absolute possible minimum?
Marriott Bonvoy'd their own plan to be opaque with award prices. I love it.
Anyone finding north island award availability?
Just checked an upcoming booking. Said Cat 4, but I booked for 21,000/nt, which is below the range guidelines you've shared.
@ David -- Interesting! It's possible these amounts have already been updated. Just to clarify, that 21K per night cost doesn't factor in a fifth night free, does it?
Hi David,
When I published the points range for each category, I'm not 100% on the "minimum" side as they're much harder to figure out, so you may find that my numbers are a bit off. They should still reflect close enough to them though! Thank you for sharing, and do you mind naming which hotel you booked?
@Seal the Deal Travels
And like your experience, the ranges can be changed anytime by Bonvoy.
I'm assuming you're using brute force. Did you keep records of cash prices too? It would be interesting to see if you can find some other correlation.
Yes, this is done manually. It would be great if there's an automated way since Marriott's site tend to get really funky. I don't discount the possibility that I leave out details since there are 8k+ properties worldwide, though I still believe this serves as a good baseline on what to expect in terms of what a hotel would charge on points.
I find cash prices on their own don't correlate as much with points...
Yes, this is done manually. It would be great if there's an automated way since Marriott's site tend to get really funky. I don't discount the possibility that I leave out details since there are 8k+ properties worldwide, though I still believe this serves as a good baseline on what to expect in terms of what a hotel would charge on points.
I find cash prices on their own don't correlate as much with points pricing. Though, one interesting pattern I notice is location differences. For example, Cat 7's in Fukuoka and Tokyo would have similar points pricing range within Cat 7 band, but the one in Fukuoka tend to charge lower points. I assume this is due to less travel demands to Fukuoka than Tokyo. Likely, there are more factors at play with how Bonvoy determine pricing rather than just cash price alone.
@Seal Renaissance Brussels
@Ben No, I only booked two nights