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It’s hardly groundbreaking or likely to entice anyone into making a stay they weren’t already planning on making but Marriott has opened up a new promotion. This promotion is targeted at guests who choose to collect frequent flyer miles on their Marriott stays rather than Marriott Rewards points.
The first thing to point is that, although Marriott partners with over 40 airline loyalty programs, the bonus miles are only available to guests crediting to one of four US airline loyalty programs – the links to register for bonus miles in each of those programs are below:
- American Airlines
- Delta
- Southwest
- United Airlines
The next important thing to point out is that, although guests earn 1,000 bonus miles per stay, they are limited to earning 5,000 miles in total with this promotion….so you’re not going to be parlaying this into a First Class flight to Sydney.
The full terms and conditions can be found on each of the pages linked above but here are the highlights:
- Registration for this promotion is required (American, Delta, Southwest, United)
- Offer valid on stays made between 1 June and 31 August 2016
- All reservations need to be made by 15 July 2016
- Only stays at properties located in the US, Canada Caribbean and Latin America qualify for the promotion.
- Marriott Rewards members need to have opted to earn mils (not Marriott Rewards points) in their profiles.
- 1,000 miles earned per stay
- Maximum 5,000 miles can be earned from the promotion
- Not all Marriott chains qualify for this promotion. Only stays at the following Marriott brands will qualify:
- JW Marriott
- Autograph Collection® Hotels
- Renaissance® Hotels
- Marriott Hotels®
- Delta Hotels®
- Gaylord Hotels
Thoughts
If you’re a regular at Marriott properties, earning miles is not the best use of your stays or nights – you would get a lot more value out of the loyalty program if you were earning Marriott Rewards points, so this promotion really isn’t for you.
If, on the other hand, you’re not a regular with Marriott at all then collecting airline miles makes sense – you’re unlikely to build up any kind of meaningful Marriott Rewards balance if you only stay once in a while so you may as well accumulate miles in a frequent flyer program you use more often.
If you’re a Marriott regular then you probably stopped reading this post a few paragraphs back so I’ll move on to occasional visitors to Marriott properties:
Regardless of how infrequently you may stay at a hotel chain you should always be a member of its loyalty program – you never know when it may come in useful.
If you’re an infrequent visitors or if you just happen to have a random Marriott stay coming up you should:
- make sure you have a Marriott Rewards account
- make sure it’s set to earning miles (not Marriott Rewards points)
- make sure you sign up for the promotion
Even if you don’t have a Marriott stay booked you should sign up – it costs you nothing and you never know when plans suddenly change and you find yourself at a Marriott when you weren’t expecting to.
Bottom Line
Marriott Rewards is becoming more and more adept at coming up with underwhelming promotions. This one isn’t quite as terrible as their truly uninspiring 2016 Global Promotion but it’s hardly going make anyone go “wow! I’ve just got to book some more Marriott stays”.
The amusing thing is that Marriott is promoting this as their “biggest airline promotion of the year” (if this is big I’d hate to see small!)…so I don’t hold out too much hope for anything better in 2016.
The fact that only full-sevice Marriott’s appear to qualify (no Courtyards, Residence Inns etc…) and that only 4 frequent flyer programs are participating is pretty disappointing and will make this promotion useful to an even smaller demographic than it already was.
Regulars at Marriott properties can ignore this promotion as it really isn’t worth your while. Others should sign up just in case it comes in useful….you never know.
