Can You Buy Marriott Points

The Amex Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant is currently offering 75,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you use your new card to make $3,000 in purchases within the first three months. The card has a $450 annual fee (see rates and fees).

can you buy marriott points

Marriott Bonvoy is offering a bonus on points purchases until April 3, 2023. Rather than their usual tiered bonuses, it appears that the standard offer across the board is for a 40% bonus when you buy at least 2,000 points.

At a cash price of $1,250 (USD) for 140,000 points (with the current 40% bonus), which would be more than enough for a night at Al Maha on many dates, it definitely makes sense to buy points instead of pay cash if a luxury booking is on your radar.

For example, at the lower end, the Courtyard Phnom Penh offers better value on points that with cash. You can find dates under 10,000 points per night at the PointSavers rate. Against a nightly cash price of $118, an 8,000-point booking is a value of 1.5 cents per point (CAD).

Marriott Bonvoy has 38 airline partners. For most programs, Bonvoy points can be transferred to airline miles at a rate of 3:1, with a 5,000-mile bonus for transferring in increments of 60,000 Bonvoy points.

After transferring points to Bonvoy, the annual fees represent acquisition costs below 0.2 cents per point (CAD). Indeed, all of the above cards offer good value for the Marriott Bonvoy program.

Marriott Bonvoy members may be surprised to learn that they can now buy points during the booking process for a hotel room. While you've always been able to buy Marriott Bonvoy points, this new ability offers two improvements. First, it can be done during the booking process itself. Second, these points are in addition to your normal limits. Here's what this means for travelers.

Marriott Bonvoy members always have the ability to buy points. You can buy up to 100,000 points per year before any discounts or bonuses are factored in. You can track the latest promotions to buy Marriott points at a discounted rate here.

While the ability to buy more points to complete a redemption booking isn't necessarily new, there are two features that we want to highlight regarding the ability to buy Marriott Bonvoy points during the booking process. Here are the reasons why this is newsworthy.

Firstly, you can buy points during the booking process. This avoids needing to go buy the points and then return to complete your booking. Perhaps the room you wanted might disappear. Maybe not, but buying points separately is obviously more cumbersome. Now, you can buy Marriott points during the booking process without exiting the reservation system on the website.

I wanted to test this out for myself and see what the process is like to buy Marriott Bonvoy points during the booking. I currently have 65,935 points in my account. Thus, I wanted to find a property that costs less than 165,935 points for the stay. Why? If I can only buy 100,000 Marriott points while booking, it can't cost more than 100,000 points over what I currently have.

I ran a search for hotels in New York City since there are a lot of options there and also some pretty expensive hotels. I found the AC Hotel New York Down available for 105,000 points for a 5-night stay. Note that it's incorporating the 5th-night free perk in that price.

This is definitely an interesting development from Marriott. In addition to your annual limits for receiving points from other members and buying up to 100,000 points, you can now add to that by buying up to 100,000 points during your hotel booking process. If there are sales at the time, those are automatically factored in.

Hot Tip: Remember that the best ways to earn Marriott Bonvoy points are either by staying at a Marriott-branded property or utilizing a Marriott Bonvoy co-branded credit card. Purchasing points is one of the most expensive ways to earn points, and comes at a huge cost, even with various promotions and bonuses.

Buying Marriott Bonvoy points, even with a 40% bonus, is expensive and should only be done in the most limited of circumstances. You may wish to use points to top-up your account for an upcoming redemption, or compare the cash rate of a particular stay to purchasing the total amount of award points needed to cover that stay.

Marriott's latest buy point sale is about to come to a close. Through this buy points promotion, targeted Bonvoy members will receive a 40% bonus when they buy Marriott points by April 3, 2023. That brings the cost down to 0.89 per point.

Before we get into the details of this promotion, let's point out that buying points generally isn't a great idea. Especially without a bonus or discount, the price to buy points is typically higher than the redeemable value they present.

With that said, there are two cases when buying miles can be a smart move. The first is when topping off your account balance for a specific redemption. The second is when the price to buy points for a redemption is cheaper than paying for the same product outright.

It's important to remember that Marriott Bonvoy started introducing dynamic pricing in March 2022. And all properties switched to dynamic pricing in 2023. We don't know how much this is going to affect the value of Marriott points, so you should have a plan to use any Bonvoy points that you purchase before then.

With this in mind, we've picked a few of the most aspirational Bonvoy properties to demonstrate how you could save a bunch of money by buying points instead of paying the (often astronomical) cash rate.

While Marriott has switched to dynamic pricing, it's harder to squeeze value out of Marriott Bonvoy points. Redemptions at the Westin Kyoto now range between 35k to over 145k Bonvoy points per night. If you buy Marriott Bonvoy points with a 40% bonus (0.89 per point), you could save a little by buying the required Bonvoy points for as low as $560 per night for the dates in our example.

After adding in taxes and fees, you're facing a cost of over $3,500 per night (at the current exchange rate) to stay in Eden. However, you can snag some nights for as low as 120,000 points per night. If you buy Marriott points with a 40% bonus, you'll only have to pay $1,086. That's still a lot of money, but it's about $2,500 per night, less than the cash rates.

Don't forget that Bonvoy loyalty members can effectively get up to 20% off five-night award stays, thanks to Marriott's 5th Night Free Benefit. This could make for a pretty lucrative opportunity if paired with this promotion and low points cost property.

For example, the Protea Hotel Lusaka Safari Lodge has its own game reserve on-site! You can pay as little as 5,000 points per night. For example, you can visit in March 2023 for just 24,500 points for a 5-night free stay. If you buy those points with a 40% bonus, you'll pay just $223 total (under $45 per night). That's less than the typical cost for just two nights at this property!

Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to 40 different airlines. Most of those transfer at a 3 to 1 transfer ratio with a 5,000-mile bonus for transferring 60,000 points. That means that a 60,000-point transfer would yield 25,000 airline miles. This 40% bonus on buying Marriott points allows you to mint airline miles at 2.15 each.

For example, you can buy 60,200 Marriott points through this promotion for $537.50. If you transfer 60,000 Marriott points to most airlines (but not American, Delta, Korean, or Avianca), you'll end up with 25,000 miles. That's 2.15 per mile.

The rate is even better if you transfer to United MileagePlus. As part of United's recently revised partnership with Marriott, transfers of at least 60,000 Bonvoy points to United get an additional 10,000 bonus miles. So, you'll end up with 30,000 United miles for every 60,000 Bonvoy points transferred. That means you can mint United miles for just 1.79 each through this Marriott buy points promotion.

It bears repeating that buying miles isn't for everyone. For most people, it's a lot easier to accumulate Bonvoy points through a sign-up bonus on a Marriott co-branded credit card. However, this buy Marriott points promotion could be a terrific opportunity for folks with a plan to use points in a hurry.

Does anyone know how often they do bonus point buys? I missed this promotion. I am looking to buy points to top off what I earned through a sign up bonus and have enough to do the buy 4 get a fifth free. Since you can only buy 100k per year I need a bonus to get the 130k points to complete my stay.

This is a good offer; mainly for use overseas hotels and resorts.However, right now with traveling overseas extremely limited, it may not be worth it if the points expire before you can use them.Of course, if you have a Chase or American Express Marriott Bonvoy card and use it once in a while, the points should not expire.

Thanks for the tips! Useful as usual!I am currently at the Sheraton Grand Rio Resort in Rio de Janeiro and they have fantastic offers for as little as 20,000 points per night. This means that for 80,000 points one can have a 5 night stay (with the fifth night free) at this great beach front hotel. And if you have a high Bonvoy status, they will make sure to put you in a fantastic oceanfront suite!

As another person stated, this is tempting. As I have not been racking up points traveling since March, this might be a good source of miles to use once I do start traveling. Especially in either using the points for the United/Marriott package or for a direct transfer to United. Need to do a quick check of both accounts before the end of today.

Marriott terms are confusing about who can buy points (and bonus). It says 30 day old a/c with qualifying activity OR 1 year old a/c without qualifying activity.Strangely, most points recommending portals suggest it is 90 days without qualifying activity.My a/c was signed up in March 2020 (6 months old) and does NOT have any qualifying activity.Can I buy points (+ bonus) 041b061a72