Marriott Bonvoy Rewards: Everything you need to know in 2024

With a huge global footprint, Marriott is a hotel chain sure to be on any traveler’s radar. You might wonder, should you sign up for Marriott Bonvoy—the group’s loyalty program—and strive for elite status? What about opening a Marriott credit card to make your stays more rewarding?

We’ll help you evaluate the state of Marriott Bonvoy in 2024 and determine if it’s a good fit, and also show how it compares to competitors such as IHG One Rewards and World of Hyatt.

What is Marriott Bonvoy Rewards? 

Marriott Bonvoy is the Marriott hotel group’s loyalty rewards program. Join for free and you’ll start earning points that you can cash in for stays and upgrades—as well as Elite Night Credits that count toward higher status. 

Something to know before we dive in: Marriott sometimes refers to itself as both Marriott and Marriott Bonvoy. As a result, folks often refer to the rewards program as Marriott Bonvoy Rewards to just clarify that they’re talking about rewards, not the hotel chain in general. Heck, we did it in the title. 

Anyway, for context, the Marriott/Marriott Bonvoy family of hotels currently comprises 35 brands with nearly 8,700 properties in 139 countries. That staggering figure makes Marriott’s global presence larger than IHG’s (close to 6,400) and Hyatt’s (more than 1,300) combined. 

Here’s a list of hotel brands currently under the Marriott corporate umbrella: 

• AC Hotels
• Aloft Hotels
• Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy
• Autograph Collection
• City Express
• Courtyard
• Delta Hotels by Marriott
• Design Hotels
• EDITION
• Element Hotels
• Fairfield Inn & Suites
• Four Points
• Four Points Express by Sheraton
• Gaylord Hotels
• Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
• JW Marriott
• Le Méridien
• Marriott Executive Apartments
• Marriott Hotels
• Marriott Vacation Club
• MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy
• Moxy Hotels
• Protea
• Renaissance Hotels
• Residence Inn
• Ritz-Carlton Reserve
• Sheraton
• SpringHill Suites
• St. Regis
• The Luxury Collection
• The Ritz-Carlton
• TownePlace Suites
• Tribute Portfolio Hotels
• Westin
• W Hotels

If any of these look familiar or enticing to you, it’s worth signing up for Marriott Bonvoy today. Even as a free member you’ll instantly unlock 10X points on most Marriott purchases (5X on extended stay and rental brands), free Wi-Fi, digital check-in/keys and exclusive member rates. Basically, money on the table. 

The rest of the program is a mixed, mostly positive bag. It’s hard to earn status if you spend a lot of money but don’t stay a lot of nights, and there are no milestone rewards to look forward to every 10 nights like some other programs offer. But the points are valuable and some of the Marriott-branded credit cards are generous to compensate for the program’s overall shortcomings.

How do I earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status? 

For starters, there are only two ways to earn Marriott Bonvoy status: 

That’s it. Unlike with IHG One Rewards or World of Hyatt, there’s no way to earn status by accumulating nights or points—only nights. 

This is an odd choice to us because it means there’s no extra reward (status-wise) for staying at Marriott’s high-end properties. Even if you spend 24 nights at the St. Regis Maldives Vommuli (which could easily approach or exceed a $100,000 bill), you still wouldn’t be any closer to Gold Elite status than someone spending 24 nights at the comparatively humble Courtyard Marriott Atlanta Airport for probably between $3,000 and $4,000 total. 

That’s definitely something to keep in mind if you were expecting to earn status faster by booking at high-end properties. Because unlike Hyatt and IHG, Marriott doesn’t seem to measure loyalty by money spent—only time. 

But even though points won’t count toward status, they’re extremely easy to earn and pretty valuable to boot. We’ll talk redemption values in a later section (hint: they’re good), but in the meantime, here are all the ways you can pile up Marriott Bonvoy points: 

• Marriott purchases (stays, upgrades, dining, spa etc.).
• Spend with Marriott Bonvoy credit cards (e.g. the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card, offering a welcome bonus of 155,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 on purchases within the first six months from a account opening (70,000 points higher than usual), and an extra 6X on Marriott purchases on top of what you earn for membership in the program and your elite status)
• Dine at over 11,000 restaurants as part of Eat Around Town.
• Book with Marriott’s cruise partners (e.g. Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian).
• Car rentals (500 points per rental with Hertz, 250 with Dollar or Thrifty)
• Host events at Marriott Bonvoy properties.

For the most part, you’re probably going to be amassing most of your fortune by booking with Marriott and using your Marriott-branded credit card. The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card is our favorite since it offers a 5 free nights (valued at 50,000 points for each night) after spending $5,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening—for an annual fee of just . 

Bonvoy Boundless cardholders also earn an additional 6X on Marriott purchases for using the card, 1X for having Silver Elite status (automatic with the card), and 10X for being a Marriott Bonvoy member for a total of 17X. 

Speaking of status, let’s shift gears and discuss what you’ll unlock with each tier—and whether it’s worth booking enough nights to earn status in the first place.

To view rates and fees of the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card, see this page 

Is Marriott Bonvoy status worth it? 

Yes. You’ll start getting room upgrades once you reach Gold Elite status (25 nights), and while you won’t earn a 100% free night until you hit Titanium Elite (75 nights), the rising point multipliers at each tier will help you earn enough points to redeem several free nights along the way. 

Here are some of the highlights of what you’ll unlock at each tier: 

Member (free to join)

• 10X points on most Marriott purchases (stays, upgrades, dining, spa etc.).
• Complimentary in-room Wi-Fi.
• Mobile check-in/key.
• Exclusive member rates.

Silver Elite (10 nights)

• 11X on Marriott purchases.
• Priority late checkout.

Gold Elite (25 nights)

• 12.5X on Marriott purchases.
• Enhanced room upgrades.
• 2 p.m. late checkout.

Platinum Elite (50 nights)

• 15X on Marriott purchases.
• Welcome Gift upon arrival (varies by location—typically a 500- to 1,000-point bonus, $10 food and beverage credit or free breakfast).
• Choice of one Annual Choice Benefit. Highlights include: five Nightly Upgrade Awards, $1,000 off a mattress from a Marriott Bonvoy brand, gift of Silver Elite status, five Elite Night Credits toward Titanium Elite status.

Titanium Elite (75 nights)

• 17.5X on Marriott purchases.
• Choice of one Annual Choice Benefit. Same options as at Platinum Elite, plus: one free night credit worth up to 40,000 points, gift of Gold Elite status.

Ambassador Elite (100 nights plus $23,000 in qualified spending)

• Ambassador Service with an assigned personal ambassador. 
• Your24 = choose your check-in/check-out time.

While we’re glad to see room upgrades at the 25-night tier (IHG and Hilton make you wait until the 40-night tier), there are still two major drawbacks to Marriott Bonvoy hiding in plain sight. 

The first is the aforementioned lack of a way to earn status with points. Again, this makes it much harder to earn status if you tend not to stay at Marriott properties very often—but spend big when you do. 

Second, aside from the Annual Choice Benefit at 50 and 75 nights, Marriott Bonvoy doesn’t really have “Milestone Rewards” like IHG One Rewards and World of Hyatt do. Milestone Rewards are extra bonuses you unlock every 10 nights after night 20, and they can range anywhere from a pair of breakfast vouchers all the way to a bonus free night. 

Without these Milestone Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy leaves large, 25-night gaps between Gold/Platinum/Titanium with very little to look forward to in terms of new status or perks. 

Thankfully, even though the crawl to Titanium Elite may be long and uneventful, you’ll still be earning a truckload of points along the way. 

How can I redeem Marriott Bonvoy points? 

Marriott Bonvoy gives you plenty of options for redeeming your points, but for the most part you’ll want to save them for your next hotel stay. 

Various estimates pin the value of a Marriott Bonvoy point to about 0.9 cents when cashed in for Marriott stays and upgrades. When redeemed for anything else, their value drops to 0.8 cents or less. Sometimes it can be worth swapping hotel points for airline miles—but that may not be the case here, since most of Marriott’s nearly 40 airline partners only take Marriott points at a 3:1 ratio. That said, Marriott points transfer to some airline programs that not every other flexible program does such as Alaska Mileage Plan and American AAdvantage.

So while you’ll probably be hoarding points for your next hotel stay, here’s a complete list of redemption options for the curious:  

• Hotel stays, upgrades and other purchases at Marriott properties.
• Flights and rental cars with more than 250 travel partners (booked through a third party Marriott partners with, not via points transfer).
• Cruises booked through Marriott Bonvoy’s Cruise With Points program.
• Transfers to nearly 40 airline partners (most at a 3:1 points-to-mile ratio).
• Shopping for merchandise such as headphones and fashion, as well as gift cards.
• Marriott Bonvoy Moments aka select dining, concert and sports experiences.
• TSA Precheck for 25,000 points.
• Gifts or donations to charities or other Marriott Bonvoy members.

Now that we’ve covered how to earn status and how to cash in the points you’ve earned, we’ll compare the program as a whole to rival programs all competing for your loyalty. 

How does Marriott Bonvoy compare to other loyalty rewards programs? 

By not allowing you to earn status with nights or points, Marriott Bonvoy is a little less friendly to big spenders than World of Hyatt or IHG One Rewards. Plus, both of those programs offer Milestone Rewards every 10 nights, so you’re always just a few bookings away from more rewards. 

That said, Marriott Bonvoy points are among the easiest to get (10X just as a base member, and 17X total per dollar spent on Marriott purchases with the Boundless card) and have pretty solid value for a hotel point (~0.9 cents a pop). 

Marriott also has a bigger footprint worldwide than all three of its main rivals (IHG = close to 6,400, Hyatt = around 1,300 and Hilton = more than 7,000), so you may have more ways to redeem your points in a given city or country. 

All things considered, Marriott Bonvoy is an excellent rewards program with a slight bias toward folks to spend more nights versus spend more money. If you’re the type of traveler hoping to earn status after booking a few short stays at extremely high-end properties, you may feel more rewarded by World of Hyatt. But if you’re more interested in points than status, Marriott Bonvoy has you covered. 

Please note that card details are accurate as of the publish date, but are subject to change at any time at the discretion of the issuer. Please contact the card issuer to verify rates, fees, and benefits before applying. 

Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions, and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefits guide for more details. Underwritten by Amex Assurance Company.