Marriott Points Value In 2021

If you are new to collecting Marriott points you are probably wondering what they are ‘worth’? Or perhaps you’re wondering if it makes sense to convert your American Express Membership Reward Points into Marriott points? In this post, we are going to take a look at Marriott Points’ value and how to value your own points!

So what’s my Marriott Points Value?

There are few different considerations when trying to work out your own Marriott Points’ Value so please read each section to gain your own understanding of how to value Marriott points.

Earning through staying at hotels

If you are earning through staying at hotels your valuation might be purely based on the value you can get when spending them. Remember if you choose to stay at Marriotts over other brands you might be paying a premium for these points if comparable options are cheaper. For example, if another hotel is charging £100 for room + breakfast and is comparable quality & location to a Marriott charging £150, you are ‘paying’ £50 for the points you earn from your stay.

If someone else is ‘paying’ e.g. your employer all this can completely go out the window as you aren’t paying for your points, particularly if you don’t have a choice of where to stay.

Credit Card Spend

If you are earning Marriott points through credit card spend remember that by earning or redeeming points for Marriott Points you are exchanging for them instead of other potential options. Whether that is instead of putting spend through a cashback credit card or redeeming for a different point scheme e.g. Avios or Nectar, there is always a ‘cost’ involved.

Earning through a Membership Reward American Express

For example, rather than spending on an Amex membership reward card (1 point per £1), you could put your spending on the Amex Platinum Everyday Card which earns 0.5% on spending up to £10,000 & 1% on spending above that. That means you’d in effect be paying 0.5p a membership reward point if you spend under £10,000 a year.

Another option you could compare to is the Amazon Platinum Card (potentially good if you shop at Amazon a lot), if you are an Amazon prime customer you’d receive 3 points per £2 spent at Amazon and 0.5 points per £2 elsewhere. 1000 points equal a £10 voucher which means by ‘choosing points’ you’d be missing out on 1.5p of Amazon credit per membership reward point on spending at Amazon and 0.25p worth on spending elsewhere.

Earning through the Marriott Bonvoy American Express

For example, rather than spending on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express (2 points per £1), you could put your spending on the Amex Platinum Everyday Card which earns 0.5% on spending up to £10,000 & 1% on spending above that. That means you’d in effect be paying 0.25p a Marriott Bonvoy point if you spend under £10,000 a year.

Another option you could compare to is the Amazon Platinum Card (potentially good if you shop at Amazon a lot), if you are an Amazon prime customer you’d receive 3 points per £2 spent at Amazon and 0.5 points per £2 elsewhere. 1000 points equal a £10 voucher which means by ‘choosing points’ you’d be missing out on 0.75p of Amazon credit per Marriott Bonvoy point on spending at Amazon and 0.125p worth on spending elsewhere.

If you are looking for a good comparison of cashback/reward credit cards take a look at Money Saving Expert’s guide here – https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-credit-card-rewards/

We normally collect membership reward points and use them for Avios points, so by choosing to convert to Marriott points instead we are missing out on our value of an Avios point. We value Avios at 1p (How To Work Out Avios Point Value?) and membership reward points transfer 1:1 into Avios. Membership reward points transfer 2:3 into Marriott, so as we get 3 Marriott points for each 2 membership reward points we’d value a Marriott Points at 0.66p

If someone else is ‘paying’ e.g. your employer all this can completely go out the window as you aren’t ‘paying’ for your points.

But It’s not that simple…

Whilst you may have a perceived value of your Marriott Points from this… it doesn’t mean you will ever ‘meet’ your valuation. Before you convert into Marriott Points you should always check the value you get from using your Marriott points compared to paying cash. If you value Marriott Points at 0.66p there is no point redeeming for them if you are only getting 0.3p value at a hotel.

To work out what value you’d get for a redemption divide the cost in cash by how many points it would cost you for the same stay. Here are some examples…

A one-night stay at the London Marriott Hotel County Hall on an August weekend costs £319 or 100,000 points. If you divide £319 by 100,000 you get 0.00319, almost 0.32p a point… not great!

A one-night stay at The London EDITION on a September weekend costs £404 or 50,000 points. If you divide £404 by 50,000 you get 0.00808, just over 0.8p a point… much better!

Where you can more value from your points is when you are redeeming for ‘peak’ events where cash rates are high e.g. New Year’s Eve…

A one-night stay at the Sir Albert, Amsterdam, a Member of Design Hotels on New Year’s Eve costs approx £351.60 or 40,000 points. If you divide £351.60 by 40,000 you get 0.00879, almost 0.9p a point

A one-night stay at the AC Hotel New York Times Square on New Year’s Eve costs approx £483.01 or 60,000 points. If you divide £483.01 by 60,000 you get 0.0080501666666667, just over 0.8p a point.

Another example where you can get more value from your points is redeeming for high-end luxury hotels…

A one-night stay at The St. Regis New York in December costs approx £1070.81 or 85,000 points. If you divide £1070.81 by 85,000 you get 0.0125977647058824, just under 1.26p a point… nice!

A one-night stay at the Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands in May costs approx £2,983.18 or 100,000 points. If you divide £2,983.18 by 100,000 you get 0.0298318, just under 3p a point… very nice!

Don’t forget in all our examples you would get a better pence per point rate when booking 5 nights if you are a Marriott elite member. This is because of Marriott’s Stay for 5, Pay for 4 benefit – https://help.marriott.com/s/article/Article-22250. To calculate the value here simple divide the total cash price for the entire stay by the discounted points amount.

But always remember this value is only true if you would of paid cash instead of the points. Aspirational bookings are great but not the best way to gage value of your points unless that’s all you ever make!

Conclusion

As you can see the value of Marriott points is very variable and depends on how you earn them, if you are exchanging for them over another redemption & the hotels you use them at. Make sure before you exchange any points into Marriott Points make sure you understand what value you’d be getting for any redemptions. What do you value your Marriott points at?