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A little earlier I wrote about Starwood’s 1Q 2018 promotion so, considering they’re essentially the same entity now, it’s not surprising to find out that Marriott’s 1Q 2018 MegaBonus promotion is live too.
I’d love to be able to tell you that Marriott’s 1Q offering is significantly better than the promotion SPG has released but I can’t – it may even be worse!
The Headline T&Cs
- Register via this page by 31 March 2018
- Stay between 16 January and 15 April 2018
- Starting with your second stay earn:
- 2,000 Marriott Rewards points per stay
- 1,000 Bonus Starpoints when the stay includes a weekend night
- Earnings from this promotion are capped at 50,000 points
- “Weekend night” is defined as a Friday or Saturday night (Thursday or Friday in the Middle East)
- Not all Marriott brands are participating – ExecuStay and Marriott Executive Apartments are excluded from the promotion and owners staying at their home Marriott Vacation Club resorts aren’t eligible either.
Full terms and conditions can be viewed through this link
View from the JW Marriott Singapore
Thoughts
The first thing to mention is that a number of Marriott Rewards members (including me) are having issues registering for the promotion. Clicking through the registration link brings up this error message:
Some are speculating that this may be because Marriott may intend to add to this promotion for some of its customers but I think it’s more likely to be a simple case of IT incompetence.
As the promotion doesn’t kick-off until 16 January there’s no great urgency here (I’m sure Marriott will fix the issue eventually) but, if you’re getting this message and absolutely have to register asap, send Marriott Rewards a tweet and I’m sure they’ll help out.
The promotion itself is just plain bad.
There’s no point trying to sugarcoat it….the 1Q MegaBonus promotion is dull and uninspiring.
It may be marginally better than the Starwood promotion in that all the major Marriott brands are participating but in other ways it’s just as bad or worse.
Not offering a bonus from the first stay in the promotion period is just cheap and why Sunday doesn’t count as a weekend night is something I’ll never understand.
On top of all that the actual bonus is verging on insulting. Marriott gives away 1,000 Rewards Points to everyone and anyone on most Sunday afternoons when they answer a simple question correctly on Twitter….
….but you get absolutely no bonus for your first stay during the MegaBonus promotion.
Worse still, when you do eventually get around to your second stay the bonus is just 2,000 points (if not on a weekend night) and I value that at around $14.
$7 for answering a question on Twitter or $14 for paying for a hotel stay….not exactly tough to see just how poor the promotion is when looked at in that light.
As I mentioned when I was discussing the SPG promotion, I’m still undecided about where to stay on my upcoming Bangkok trip and I was hoping that Marriott’s 1Q 2018 promotion would finally help me make up my mind in favor of Marriott – it hasn’t.
If anything I’m tempted to book the Conrad in the knowledge that Hilton’s 1Q promotion will struggle to be less rewarding than this one.
Bottom Line
This is a poor promotion from Starwood is now followed by a bad promotion from Marriott….this doesn’t bode well for the future.
Still, everyone should still make sure they register for the MegaBonus promotion as it costs nothing to sign up and you never know when plans change and you find yourself at a Marriott property unexpectedly (they’re everywhere!).
For the next few months the weather will be play havoc with flights on a pretty frequent basis so you never know when you’ll find yourself overnighting at a property you weren’t expect to stay at – it would be a shame to miss out on bonus points just because you couldn’t be bothered to register.
