Thank the “IT” managers…
If a hotel usually asks for $1200 a night, and you have the ability to book it for just 60,000 points per night instead – do you think the hotel is particularly excited? The shocking answer: no. Hotels don’t mind when guests use points, but at the highest end hotels, they strongly prefer cash, and are known to “game” the availability of rooms using points, to keep too many enthusiastic points travelers from enjoying the worlds finest hotel rooms and beaches. While it’s already a great time to book the world’s best hotels using Marriott Points, an even more exciting window is coming up – so get your points balances topped off and ready.
We recently wrote about the incredible renaissance for using Marriott Points, which is now. There are the cool opportunities using “Moments”, but there are also many of the world’s best hotels up for grabs, which were previously a part of Starwood – and are now part of Marriott Rewards.
Follow along for a second.
When the two programs (Marriott and Starwood) were separated, Starwood charged up to 35,000 points per night for their best standard hotels. In the merger, those points converted 1:3 into Marriott Rewards, so what was 35,000 Starwood became 105,000 Marriott. On top of that, Starwood had some hotels which required even more points, up to the present equivalent of an insane 270,000 Marriott Points per night. From now through December 31st, ALL of those hotels only require 60,000 Marriott Points per night, which is the equivalent of 20,000 Starwood Points from earlier in the year. That’s bonkers, and a savings of up to 210,000 Points per night. You can even book into 2019 – and it gets better!
This date may soon hold a dear place in your heart. According to View From The Wing, the IT for the two hotel groups will be further integrated, and all SPG hotels will use the Marriott revenue management system. In plain English: SPG hotels, which currently play naughty games with the availability using points to keep people from using points, will lose that ability on December 11th, and the new, higher points rates won’t kick in until December 31st, 2018. That gives you a 20 day window to lock in the very best hotels in the world, for stays all through 2019, at the exceptional max rate of 60,000 points per night. Come January 1st, the new “highest” rate per night will be 100,000 Marriott Rewards Points on peak dates, 70,000 off peak and 85,000 standard. And fifth night free still applies!
You can currently book many of the most sought after Marriott and SPG hotels for 60,000 points per night. Here are a bunch of the most ridiculously nice ones on offer. That’s already live, and very exciting, but when we wrote about this last week, many readers explained that their dates were not available using points. If you have lofty goals for your Marriott Rewards Points in 2019, this 20 day timing window in mid December is going to open the proverbial floodgates on room availability using points and allow many travelers to lock in truly aspirational hotels and non astronomical points rates. It’s exciting stuff.
