New Marriott MegaBonus Promotion – Stay Twice. Get A Free Night

Marriott MegaBonus

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Both Marriott at Starwood have released their fall promotions concurrently (not that surprising considering Marriott now owns Starwood) but both are quite different from one another. I’ll discuss the Starwood promotion in another post so, for now, I’ll focus on what Marriott’s latest MegaBonus promotion is all about.

Marriott MegaBonus – Fall 2017

The headline “Stay twice. Get a free night” is a clever but slightly deceiving one for Marriott to use. Yes, technically the phrase is true – if you stay twice you will indeed get a free night….but it’s not quite that simple.

First the terms and conditions you should know:

The asterisk on the third point is important because it leads to a big caveat in the terms and conditions (emphasis is mine):

Marriott Rewards members who register for this promotion by November 30, 2017 will earn one (1) free night award at a category 1-5 hotel (value of standard free night award ranges from 7,500 points for Category 1 hotels to 25,000 points for Category 5 hotels) after two paid stays* made between September 12, 2017 and January 15, 2018, at participating Marriott®properties.

So the free night actually comes with quite a big restriction – it has to be taken at a Category 1-5 property. That puts the promotion in a different light.

Yes, of course I knew that Marriott would put this restriction in – this isn’t my first rodeo! – but the MegaBonus headline could easily be misconstrued by someone new to all of this.

There’s also a further two important restrictions.

Per Marriott:

  • Maximum one (1) free night award earned with this promotion per member to be redeemed for a future stay at participating Marriott Rewards category 1-5 properties.

  • Free night award will expire six (6) months after the date of issuance.

So the most you can earn in the latest Marriott MegaBonus promotion is 1 free night, limited to Category 1-5 properties and which has to be taken within 6 months of the award being issued – great.

The full T&Cs can be accessed via the promotion page.

a group of logos on a white background

Bottom Line

Marriott has fewer and fewer useful or nice properties in the Category 1-5 range as each year passes (which is why I have trouble using the free night that comes with the Chase Marriott Visa Card each year) so just that one restriction would make this promotion a tough one to get excited about.

Add in the fact that you can earn just one bonus night throughout the 4 months that this promotion is running and the fact that you have just 6 months in which to use the free night once you get it and this promotion looks pretty weak.

Yes, if you have Marriott stays booked then the bonus you’ll get for doing what you were going to do anyway is nice….but who would change their plans just to hit this promotion target? You’d have to be mad to suddenly move some stays from Hyatt/Hilton/IHG just to get a Category 1-5 free night at a Marriott property.

Still, having said that, everyone should probably register for the Marriott MegaBonus promotion even if you think you won’t be staying at any Marriott properties in the next few months – you never know when plans may change and a Category 1-5 certificate is better than nothing!

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