Businesses will usually do whatever it takes to keep their customers. You have companies tying up with credit cards and launching co-branded credit cards and then you also have a point-based reward system going on. The prestigious hotel and resort brand Marriott also have various co-branded cards and other options to give away their points to the users who can then use them to get benefits. You can also buy Marriott points but the question is, is buying Marriott points worth it? In this article, we will find out.
The most basic way to answer this question would be to ask yourself if you are a frequent traveler or do you find yourself traveling for business regularly. If the answer is no then stop reading this article and check out some other article. But if your answer is yes then you keep reading to find out the answer to this question.
The shorter answer before we begin would be yes please go ahead and get yourself some Marriott points because if you plan to use them then this might turn out to be a good decision.
Depending on where you check the value of Marriott points you will come across different numbers. There are places where it is valued at 0.6 cents and then there are places where it is valued at 0.8 or more. Now it doesn’t matter much what value you choose to proceed with as it is the benefits that these points bring that matter.
Annually Marriott has a Week of Wonders promotion where you are given special offers which include discounted paid and award stays, one offer from October 2022 saw people get a 50% bonus on purchasing 2000 points or more. But how do we know if buying Marriott points worth it?
In a year you can only buy up to 1,00,000 Marriott points but the question is would you be able to or would you make sure to spend these many points a year? And also what price would you be paying to get these many points?
Marriott has a point-based system in place that ensures that you get 10 points for every dollar spent at most Marriott brands, however, a few of them give you 5 points or 2.5 points as well. So that way you would need to spend 10,000 dollars or so to get 100k points.
On the other hand, you could opt to get Marriott co-branded credit cards where you could spend anywhere between 1,000 dollars and 5,000 dollars depending on the card you get, and earn up to 1,50,000 points for the same.
These credit cards also can get you more points per dollar which again benefits the user. So that should help paint a picture of Marriott’s points and ways to get them but as for the answer to is buying Marriott points worth it, you must keep reading. Next up, we will look at cost to buy Marriott points.
Cost to buy Marriott points
The cost to buy Marriott points changes from time to time. Depending on the promotion that is going on at the time of your purchase you can avail of more than decent benefits. In October 2022 there was a 50% bonus for buying 2,000 points or more and in December there was a 25% discount on buying 2,000 points or more. This offer ran until 20 December 2022.
Now under normal circumstances, Marriott points can be purchased for 1.25 cents per point but with this 25% discount, each point now was purchasable for 0.94 cents.
The difference may not seem huge and this might not have been the best promotion that Marriott offered in a while but again it counts for something when a discount of such a sizable amount is being granted for a month or so.
Earlier you were allowed to buy just 50,000 points of Marriott in a year but now the limit has been increased to 1,00,000 so let’s use the max value to determine if buying Marriott points worth it or not during this time.
So to buy 100k points ideally you would need to shell out 1,250 dollars but with this 25% discount in place, the final cost came down to 937.5 dollars which meant a savings of 312.5 dollars. No matter how you look at it, it still ended up looking like a good amount to save.
It’s not just the discount that makes it worth buying Marriott points but if you go for the Math behind it then you would figure out that Marriott points indeed carry more value than spending money on purchases made at Marriott.
Let’s say you want to book a night at Al Maha Desert Resort Dubai, in the way of cash you would have to pay 1,193.81 dollars or let’s say a round figure of 1,200 per night or maybe even more, in terms of points it would need you to spend 80,000 to 1,20,000 points or so. And now if we calculate 100k points at 937.5 dollars then you can see how you stand to save some money by opting for points rather than paying in cash. Doesn’t that make it worth buying Marriott points? It is for you to decide. Let us now go over how to buy Marriott points promotion.
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Buy Marriott points promotion
One good thing about Marriott points happens to be that they don’t expire. It is said that if you keep your account active or if there is some activity happening in your account every 24 months then your points stay active. Also, your points can be converted to air miles of about 40 airline frequent flier programs. So you get discounts on points, they offer more value than cash, and also they can be converted to air miles, so is buying Marriott points worth it? It most definitely is.
Now while October, November, and December 2022 had different offers for the people there have been many before them as well. These buy Marriott points promotion offers all focus on offering discounts or giving away more bonus points to the customers because, at the end of the day, points carry obvious benefits over cash. So let’s take a look at a few of the promotion programs that took place before the recent ones mentioned above.
In October 2021, Marriott offered a 55% bonus on the purchase of its points. This is when its points were priced at 0.81 cents each. You needed to buy a minimum of 3,100 points to qualify and the maximum you could go was 155k.
Then from November 2021 to December 2021, there was a 45% bonus on Marriott points. Each point now had a price of 0.86 cents and you needed to buy a minimum of 2,900 points or could go for a maximum of 145k points.
From Feb 2022 to April 2022 each point had a cost of 0.83 cents and carried a 50% bonus. You needed to get a minimum of 3,000 points and could go as high as 150k points. From June 2022 to July 2022 points carried a cost of 0.81 cents each and they had a targeted bonus of 55% for which you were eligible by purchasing a minimum of 3,100 points whereas the maximum limit was set at 155k.
From August to September 2022 the points had a value of 1 cent each and a 25% bonus was available which could be availed by purchasing at least 2,500 points and the maximum you could go for was 125k.
After seeing these benefits the questions you should have is not whether buying Marriott points worth it or not but rather when is the best time to buy these points because it has been established nicely that the points carry a great benefit over cash purchases.
What is the best time to buy Marriott points?
There is no astrology or physics involved here. There is no point in asking or wondering what is the best time to buy Marriott points and this is because it will always be more sensible to look out for them when a promotion or discount offer is going on.
We saw above that just by having a 25% discount offer a user could save as much as 312.5 dollars when buying the maximum points allowed by the company. Now just think if there was a bigger discount or if you and your whole family decide to avail of this benefit then how big the combined saving amount would be.
It’s not just the discount period that you need to consider but rather if you even are getting a bonus offering on your purchase then that would also be a good time to go ahead and get yourself Marriott points.
We saw above how because of a 50% bonus a user could buy a maximum of 100k points and get an additional 50,000 on it. Now considering that you pay close to 1,200 to 1,300 dollars for maximum points ideally, this means that you are getting points worth 650 dollars or so for free.
Now is buying Marriott points worth it? It sure is, however, you don’t always have to wait for the best time to buy them. What we mean is that there is more than one way to get Marriott points and one of them is simply signing up for a co-branded Marriott card and then spending money as per the terms and conditions mentioned on it and from there you can again get bulk points as well as other benefits.
So it is not necessary to buy points if you can find yourself a credit card that is cheaper and more beneficial than purchasing points and can get double benefits for the price of one.
But if credit cards don’t interest you and you still are looking for the perfect time to buy Marriott points then you might want to keep visiting their website daily or sign up for email updates from the company where they provide you with all the promotional updates.
From here you can find out if the company has a campaign going on and what kinds of discounts or bonus offerings are being offered by them. From here you can see for yourself when the time is ideal to go ahead and buy Marriott points. But how to buy Marriott points cheap? Let us find out.
How to buy Marriott points cheap?
In all honesty, it might be a bit late for this question at the moment. If you asked this in October or probably even November or December then you would have stood a chance to benefit from the discount or bonus offer promotions that were active at the time. You had time up to December 20, that is, almost to the neck of the holiday season that you could avail of these wonderful benefits.
However, it’s never too late with brands like Marriott as they have campaigns and promotions running around the year. This is why you can earn double points for Homes and Villa stay up to April 30, 2023, provided that you make a booking between 9 and 25 January.
Now it may not answer your question of how to buy Marriott points cheap but it indirectly does provide you with an option to score more points and thus your original end goal is met.
Apart from this, there is not much you can do except wait for a discount offer or bonus offering promotion to come up. Another indirect way of achieving more points would be to sign up for one of the co-branded Marriott cards and then try and get a credit statement on it by fulfilling the terms and conditions.
This way you could get back some of the money spent on getting the credit card or the money spent using the credit card to qualify for the welcome bonus that gets you points. Is buying Marriott points worth it? Yes, it is but when you don’t have much of an option and still want them then instead opting for a credit card that gets you it might be your best bet.
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Marriot Points: Pros and Cons
We have been talking about Marriott’s points being worth it and a good offering throughout the article but that doesn’t mean there are no downsides to it. The rewards program of Marriott is certainly not the best or the worst. It lies somewhere in between and the reasons for it are mentioned below.
Pros
Marriott is one of the biggest hotel brands with more than 7,000 properties and 30 brands to offer to customers. There is a good chance you will once in your life find yourself coming across a Marriott property or you might also frequent it and if that is not a good reason to consider getting Marriott points then we don’t know what is. Getting Marriott points makes your bookings cheaper than what you would pay with cash and makes the trip more affordable.
The more points you earn the more stays you can enjoy at the Marriott property and the more you stay at a Marriott property the more points you earn. So the cycle keeps on going and you come out as the real winner.
Using Marriott points you can benefit from the 5th-night free program where you pay for or redeem points for 4 nights and get a 5th one for free. Buying Marriott points worth it because you can convert them to air miles and use them at 40 airline’s frequent flier program.
Cons
For all the efforts and money spent on collecting and buying Marriott points, know that you may still end up not getting a booking. Individual hotels can limit the number of bookings that you can avail via points and so certain properties and festive seasons can be a time when you can try all you want but still end up without a booking due to lack of availability.
Marriott’s competitors waive resort fees on fee night awards but that is not the case with Marriott and so while your hotel stay might be free because of booking on points be ready to spend money by paying resort fees.
Up until December 31 2022 expiry of Marriott points was put on hold but you need to know that your points can expire if you don’t make a qualifying activity in 24 months. And so you can spend years collecting these points only to lose them because you were forced to use them but didn’t.
The ending might have not been ideal but allow it not to take away anything from the fact that buying Marriott points worth it. You know the cost to buy Marriott points and how buy Marriott points promotion schemes can be the best time to score more points for a lesser sum. If you can wait for the best time to buy Marriott points and know other ways how to buy Marriott points cheap then you could see yourself largely benefitting from it. And so with that our verdict is in green or positive on Marriott points, it may not be the best reward program out there but then it is also far from being the worst.