Marriot Bonvoy Covid-19 Member Updates

With most hotels and airlines struggling to stay afloat, loyalty programs become a dual edged sword for most companies. Marriott has had numerous sales from 50% more in gift card value to the points promotion still on-going. Now they've got more good news for us. Marriott will be launching 2 updates for members to maintain elite status due to the travel disruption.

#1 Marriott will be offering off-peak redemption rates on bookings made from June 15- June 30.

This is however only applicable for stays through July 31. Although this seems like a good marketing move at first, It is quite unlikely that people will be making use of this. The masses probably will not travel by 31 July, therefore, I'm unsure of how useful this is. Especially since the elite benefit guarantee is temporarily suspended, not sure why you would still spend your nights with Marriott.

#2 Marriott will be crediting 50% of the Elite Night Credits in late July based on the status earned in 2019. I am slightly more optimistic on the value of this, as this counts toward lifetime nights and the 50 / 75 nights choice benefits. Although, we technically wouldn't have to requalify for elite status in 2020, so the benefit of this really depends on whether you are chasing lifetime status with Marriott and if you are close to getting the annual choice benefit. But hey, if you're short of hitting the next status, this might be useful.

Do note that this is based on your status tier earned in 2019, not the actual number of nights you had.

So if you were a platinum, you would get 25nights, even if you had maybe 60 actual nights.

A titanium member would get 38 nights and so forth.