10,000 Bonus Marriott Rewards Points + HEX Upgrade For UK Stays

Marriott Rewards has launched a 10,000 Marriott Reward Points promotion for Marriott Elites (silver status or higher) thinking of heading to London this summer, but just how good a deal is it?

The full prize is 10,000 bonus Marriott Rewards points and a free upgrade to a Business First carriage on the Heathrow Express service but there are a few conditions that come with the offer.

The first thing to notice about this offer is that you have to book a “premium room”.

The exact wording of the offer is:

From June 15 – August 31, 2015, stay in a premium room on Thursday – Sunday nights (Friday or Saturday required) and receive a free upgrade to Business First class carriage on the Heathrow Express and 10,000 Marriott Rewards bonus Points.

(Note: You will need to be logged in to your Marriott Rewards account and be a Marriott Rewards Elite member to see the details of this offer)

The wording of the offer is a bit confusing because it talks about stays having to be between Thursday and Sunday and then goes on to add that you must stay on a Friday or Saturday night as well – so that automatically negates a Thursday night stay or a Sunday night stay.

Put simply (which is what Marriott should have done) the offer is this:

Fulfil the following criteria and you qualify for 10,000 Marriott Rewards points and a Heathrow Express upgrade:

• Stay in a premium room
• On a Friday or Saturday night
• At a participating London area hotel
• Between 15 June and 31 August 2015

Apart from the fact that you have to book a premium room there is one other issue with this offer:

The promotional rate that’s offered with the bonus points and the HEX upgrade is a refundable rate. This means that if you’re sure of your dates and you know that you’re not going to need to cancel, you can’t make use of any prepaid rates that the hotels may be offering on the same level of room.

So, not only would you be paying extra for a premium room (to get the bonus) but you’d also be paying extra for the right to cancel a reservation you have no intention of cancelling.

Take the London Marriott Hotel County Hall as an example:

For a randomly selected Friday in July the promotional rate is £425/night ($663/night)

But you can get the same room for £373/night ($582/night) if you were prepared to prepay and forgo the bonuses.

That’s a difference of £52/night ($81/night) just to get the bonus points and a Heathrow Express upgrade.

If you were planning on booking a premium room anyway (before you’d ever heard about the bonus) then this may be a price worth paying – approximately 0.8 cents/bonus point.

But the math gets worse when you factor in what you’d pay if you prepaid for a standard room – which costs £333/night ($520/night).

Now the difference between the regular room rate and the promotional rate is £92/night ($144/night) and that’s a big difference if you didn’t think you needed a premium room in the first place.

My advice to anyone considering this is to give it a lot of thought. Would you have booked a premium room had you not known about this offer? If the answer is ‘no’ then this offer is probably not for you. If the answer is ‘yes’ then you may be able to get value out of it.

Take a look a the list of participating hotels (below) and see which ones may suit your needs. There are a few hotels that are included in the promotion whose rates drop at the weekend so, with a little bit of research, you may be able to find a good deal in there.

Click through here to see the full offer details and, if you’re planning on making a reservation online, be sure to use the promo code E0P (E-zero-P).

Participating Hotels:

Hotels in Central London

• London Marriott Hotel County Hall
• London Marriott Hotel West India Quay
• London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square
• Grosvenor House, A JW Marriott Hotel
• London Marriott Hotel Kensington
• London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch
• London Marriott Hotel Park Lane
• St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel
• London Marriott Hotel Regents Park
• London Marriott Hotel Maida Vale

 Hotels Outside London:

Hayes – London Heathrow Marriott Hotel

Hounslow – Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel

Slough – Heathrow/Windsor Marriott Hotel

Twickenham – London Marriott Hotel Twickenham

Hat Tip to Loyalty Lobby for this bit of news.