Sign Up For Marriott’s 2nd Quarter MegaBonus Promotion

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Marriott’s 1Q MegaBonus promotion is set to end on 15 April and the hotel chain has already announced the 2Q promotion that will follow it. Unsurprisingly this too is called “MegaBonus” and it starts the day after the 1Q promotion ends so there’s no gap between promotions.

Marriott’s 2nd Quarter MegaBonus Promotion

• Register via this page by 30 June 2018
• Stay between 18 April and 20 July 2018
• Starting with your third night earn 750 Marriott Rewards points per night
• Earnings from this promotion are capped at 36,000 points
• 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

Thoughts

I didn’t think very much of the 1Q MegaBonus promotion but the 2Q promotion isn’t much better!

The earnings in the 1Q promotion were capped at 50,000 points while this time around you can’t even earn enough points for a Category 8 let alone a Category 9 hotel stay – 36,000 is the maximum number of points you can earn.

The 1Q promotion offered 2,000 points per stay + 1,000 bonus points for stays that covered a weekend night and, as a “stay” can be a single night that wasn’t too bad. To earn as many points/stay in the 2Q promotion a traveler would have to be making stays of at least 3 nights in length and 4 nights  to match the previous quarter’s weekend earnings.

Not offering a bonus from the first stay in the promotion period is cheap but with the 2Q promotion it’s actually possible to not earn any points until your third stay….and that’s pathetic.

I called the 1Q MegaBonus promotion “dull and uninspiring” but compared to this I’m thinking that it wasn’t actually that bad!

I value Marriott Rewards points at around d 0.6 cents each so essentially Marriott is offering a rebate of $4.50 on every night starting with a person’s 3rd night in the promotion period – what’s the point?!

Bottom Line

This is a very poor promotion from Marriott and not one that’s designed to change anyone’s stay patterns. Marriott’s promotions haven’t been particularly good for a few years but they’re really hitting new lows at the moment.

I’m starting to suspect that Marriott is only offering promotions so that it can say that it’s still running promotions and the fact that they’re mostly worthless is conveniently ignored.

Nevertheless, 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 – it would be a shame to miss out on bonus points just because you couldn’t be bothered to register.