Marriott elite standing affords some spectacular advantages to frequent vacationers. However the perks get notably compelling when you accrue at the very least 50 elite nights in a calendar yr and attain Marriott Platinum Elite standing.
One of many advantages you will obtain is the power to decide on a Marriott Annual Alternative Profit. You may choose one when you attain 50 elite nights in a calendar yr and a second if you get to 75 elite nights — additionally the milestone at which you will earn Marriott Titanium Elite standing.
When you accrued at the very least 50 elite nights with Marriott Bonvoy throughout 2024, the deadline for choosing your Alternative Profit is Feb. 1, 2025. That is truly extra time than in earlier years, the place the deadline was sometimes the primary week of January.
That can assist you make the most effective choice, I am going to focus on the Marriott Annual Alternative Profit choices obtainable at every tier.
Marriott Annual Alternative Profit overview
You earn a Marriott Annual Alternative Profit when you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar yr. You may earn a second Annual Alternative Profit after reaching 75 elite nights in a calendar yr. Nonetheless, as you will be taught later on this information, the Marriott Annual Alternative Profit choices aren’t similar at each tiers.
Learn how to choose your Marriott Annual Alternative Profit
To pick out your Annual Alternative Profit(s), go to this web page on Marriott’s web site. It’s essential to check in to your Marriott Bonvoy account to decide on your profit.
You may’t change your choice when you make it, so select correctly. When you’re eligible for a 50-night and a 75-night profit, you should choose each throughout the identical session.
Associated: 29 greatest Marriott inns on the planet
When to pick your Marriott Annual Alternative Profit
When you accrued 50 or 75 elite nights in 2024, you should choose your Annual Alternative Profit(s) by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1, 2025. When you do not make your choice(s) by the deadline, Marriott will mechanically select Nightly Improve Awards for you.
Each day E-newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Each day e-newsletter
Be part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s consultants
Learn how to earn Marriott Bonvoy elite nights
Incomes 50 or 75 elite nights in a calendar yr could sound daunting. Nonetheless, Marriott supplies a number of methods to earn elite nights. You may earn elite nights at collaborating Marriott manufacturers if you ebook straight with Marriott, even when redeeming Marriott factors or utilizing a free night time award certificates.
You too can earn elite night time credit with choose Marriott Bonvoy bank cards. You may earn as much as 25 elite night time credit every year with a Marriott shopper card and an extra 15 with a Marriott enterprise card. Some Marriott playing cards even provide further elite night time credit if you hit particular spending thresholds.
Lastly, it is price noting that you should attain the relevant elite night time thresholds in an effort to unlock a Alternative Profit. Whereas the Marriott Bonvoy Good® American Categorical® Card comes with computerized Platinum Elite standing so long as your account stays open, that does not qualify for a profit choice. It’s essential to attain 50 elite night time credit to earn a Alternative Profit.
Associated: This is why you want each a private and enterprise Marriott Bonvoy bank card
50-night Annual Alternative Profit choices
You may unlock your first Marriott Annual Alternative Profit if you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar yr. Your choices for the 50-night profit earned by way of nights in 2024 are as follows:
- 5 elite night time credit
- 5 Nightly Improve Awards
- $1,000 off a mattress
- $100 charity donation
- Present Marriott Silver Elite standing to a different member
Most of those advantages are troublesome to worth, so let’s look at every choice extra carefully. I am going to begin with the choices which are unlikely to make sense for many elite members.
Present Marriott Silver Elite standing
Giving standing to another person would possibly initially sound like a very good choice. However Marriott Silver Elite standing is not price a lot, as the first perks are a ten% factors bonus on paid stays and precedence late checkout.
As an alternative of utilizing your Marriott Alternative Profit to present standing, you could possibly encourage your pal or member of the family to earn Marriott standing by way of a bank card. For instance, major cardholders of the no-annual-fee Marriott Bonvoy Daring® Credit score Card get computerized Silver Elite standing and 5 elite night time credit every calendar yr as a cardholder perk.
Give a $100 charity donation
You may choose a $100 donation to a number of charities — together with the United Nations Worldwide Youngsters’s Emergency Fund, the World Wildlife Fund and the Arne M. Sorenson Hospitality Fund — as your Marriott Annual Alternative Profit.
The $100 charity donation is a pleasant contact and could possibly be the best determination if you cannot use every other Annual Alternative Profit choices. Nonetheless, I might want to earn factors and miles on a donation to a charity of my alternative and preserve my capability to pick one of many different advantages.
Associated: How one can donate your factors and miles to charity
Get $1,000 off a mattress
When you love the mattress at a selected Marriott model, you should buy a brand new one to your residence. If you are going to purchase a Marriott mattress, it is best to contemplate deciding on a promo code price $1,000 off the complete retail worth for mattresses and field springs from choose Marriott manufacturers as your Annual Alternative Profit.
Nonetheless, you possibly can’t mix the one-time $1,000 low cost with different affords. Though this Alternative Profit can provide nice worth, comparatively few persons are available in the market for a particular lodge mattress. As such, this selection will not apply to most vacationers.
Obtain 5 elite night time credit
Selecting 5 elite night time credit to your Marriott Annual Alternative Profit is sensible for some vacationers. Marriott will put up the elite night time credit to the yr you earned them. So, selecting elite night time credit could also be helpful for those who fell 5 or fewer nights wanting incomes Titanium Elite standing or a brand new Marriott Bonvoy lifetime standing through the 2024 calendar yr.
Obtain 5 Nightly Improve Awards
Every Nightly Improve Award is legitimate for a one-night confirmable improve to pick premium rooms and suites designated by every property. So, you’d want six Nightly Improve Award certificates to request an improve for a six-night reservation.
Many members save their Nightly Improve Award for stays at high-end Marriott Bonvoy properties, whereas others accumulate them for nights they’d like more room. Nonetheless, some members discover it troublesome to make use of these awards, and upgrades will not begin clearing till three days earlier than your arrival.
When you go for 5 Nightly Improve Awards as a Alternative Profit, your awards will expire Dec. 31 of the yr following the one wherein you earned them. So, for those who reached 50 nights in 2024 and selected 5 Nightly Improve Awards as your Alternative Profit by Feb. 1, 2025, your Nightly Improve Awards will expire Dec. 31, 2025.
75-night Annual Alternative Profit choices
After you attain 75 elite nights inside a calendar yr, you will earn Marriott Titanium Elite standing and obtain a second Annual Alternative Profit. When you reached this threshold in 2024, listed here are your selections for this profit:
- 5 elite night time credit
- 5 Nightly Improve Awards
- $1,000 off a mattress
- $100 charity donation
- Present Marriott Gold Elite standing to a different member
- Free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors
As you possibly can see, the alternatives listed here are largely the identical as these obtainable after hitting the 50-night threshold. I am going to skip over the charitable donation, Nightly Improve Awards and mattress low cost since I’ve already mentioned these choices within the earlier part. Likewise, I will not focus on gifting Gold Elite standing since incomes Marriott standing by way of bank cards is comparatively straightforward.
Nonetheless, let’s take a better take a look at the opposite two choices.
Obtain 5 elite night time credit
Earlier on this article, I thought-about how some vacationers would possibly choose 5 elite night time credit because the 50-night Annual Alternative Profit to succeed in Titanium Elite or lifetime elite standing. Nonetheless, it might additionally make sense for Titanium Elite members to decide on 5 elite night time credit to earn Ambassador Elite standing. This standing tier sometimes requires 100 elite nights and $23,000 in annual Marriott spending.
This selection will doubtless solely make sense for those who ended 2024 inside 5 elite nights of a better lifetime elite standing tier or with 95 to 99 elite nights and at the very least $23,000 in annual qualifying spending with Marriott.
Get a free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors
The ultimate choice, distinctive to the 75-night Annual Alternative Profit, is a free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors. This free night time award is barely extra useful than the 35,000-point free night time award certificates related to lots of the Marriott Bonvoy playing cards.
Based mostly on TPG’s December 2024 valuations, 40,000 Marriott factors are price $340. So, that is undoubtedly a useful choice. Nonetheless, if you have already got numerous Marriott Bonvoy factors and excellent free night time awards to cowl your future travels, you could need to select one other profit.
Which Marriott Annual Alternative Profit must you select?
The perfect Marriott Annual Alternative Profit for many loyalists on the 50-night tier is 5 Nightly Improve Awards. On the 75-night tier, the most effective Annual Alternative Profit is often 5 extra Nightly Improve Awards or a free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors.
Nonetheless, the 5 elite night time credit could also be an amazing alternative in the event that they’d allow you to qualify for Ambassador Elite, Titanium Elite or lifetime standing. Likewise, the $1,000 low cost is probably going your greatest wager if you wish to purchase a Marriott-brand mattress.
You could surprise what I sometimes choose for my Annual Alternative Advantages. Once I earned Titanium Elite standing in 2021, 2022 and 2023, I picked 5 Suite Evening Awards (now Nightly Improve Awards) for my 50-night alternative and a free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors for my 75-night alternative.
Nonetheless, I solely accrued 71 elite nights in 2024, so I plan to decide on 5 elite night time credit as my 50-night profit. By doing so, I am going to attain 76 elite nights for 2024, giving me Titanium Elite standing by way of February 2026 and a 75-night alternative I have to make by Feb. 1, 2025. For the 75-night alternative, I am going to doubtless select 5 Nightly Improve Awards so I’ve these in my account when getting information factors for tales. Nonetheless, I consider the free night time award price as much as 40,000 factors would doubtless present extra worth to me if I did not need entry to the Nightly Improve Awards for editorial causes.
Backside line
Marriott’s Annual Alternative Advantages are useful, with ample choices at every threshold. The choices aren’t valued equally, so rigorously contemplate which profit will likely be Most worthy for you earlier than deciding.
Earlier than concluding this text, it is also price mentioning that the Marriott Bonvoy Good Card affords the same profit: the Good Earned Alternative Award. Cardholders earn a Good Earned Alternative Award after spending $60,000 on eligible purchases with their Bonvoy Good card in a calendar yr. Good Earned Alternative Awards — which you should choose by Feb. 1 of the yr following the spend — embody a alternative of 5 Nightly Improve Awards, a free night time award price as much as 85,000 factors or $1,000 off a mattress from any Marriott Bonvoy retail model.
