Less Than 48 Hours To Go Before Marriott’s Hotel Category Changes Kick In

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At the beginning of last month, Marriott announced one of the more benign series of hotel category changes that most of us can remember but with a little over two hundred properties changing categories in two days time, it’s still worth remembering that some properties should be booked asap while bookings at others should be put off for a few days.

I ran the numbers on the hotel category changes in a post when the news first broke (so use this link if you want more details) but, in brief, this is what you need to know:

• 201 properties will be moving hotel categories on 3 March 2021
• 51 properties will be moving up one category or more
• 150 properties will be moving down one category
• 3 properties are moving from Category 6 to Category 7 which will put them mostly out of range of free night certificate issued by the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Credit Card.
• 6 properties are moving from Category 5 to Category 6 which will put them mostly out of range of the free night certificates issued by the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card (review) and the Marriott Bonvoy Business Card (review).
• 2 properties are moving from Category 7 to Category 6 which will put them in range of the free night certificate issued by the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Credit Card (during Off-Peak & Standard seasons).
• 11 properties are moving from Category 6 to Category 5 which will put them in range of the free night certificates issued by the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card (review) and the Marriott Bonvoy Business Card (review) (during Off-Peak & Standard seasons).

The Marriott Bonvoy Award Chart

The hotel category changes are a little meaningless without a little context so, for reference, here’s the Marriott Bonvoy award chart which shows how many points are required to book a property in each category.

Properties To Watch

Getting More Expensive

Only one Marriott property is moving up more than one hotel category and that’s the Schloss Lieser in Germany which will go from being a Category 3 property to being a Category 5 property in two days’ time. A few other notable properties that will cost more points/night in a couple of days time include:

• Las Alcobas in Mexico City (Category 6 to Category 7)*
• The Langley in the UK (Category 6 to Category 7)*
• Mesm Tokyo (Category 6 to Category 7)*
• The W Aspen (Category 7 to Category 8)

• The W Xi’an (Category 4 to Category 5)
• The JW Marriott Gold Coast Resort & Spa in Australia (Category 5 to Category 6)**
• Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa (Category 5 to Category 6)**
• Residence Inn Ocean City (Category 5 to Category 6)**
• Sheraton Kauai Coconut Beach Resort (Category 5 to Category 6)**
• Aloft Ocean City (Category 5 to Category 6)**
• The Lytle Park Hotel, Autograph Collection (Category 5 to Category 6)**

*These properties will no longer be bookable using a 50,000 free night certificate outside of off-peak dates.
**These properties will no longer be bookable using a 35,000 free night certificate.

Getting Cheaper

Considerably more properties are moving down a hotel category than are moving up so we’ll be seeing 150 properties costing fewer Bonvoy Points from 3 March onwards. Here are a few of the more notable movers:

• The Grand Hotel Suisse Majestic in Switzerland (Category 7 to Category 6)*
• JW Marriott Parq Vancouver (Category 7 to Category 6)*
• The Ritz-Carlton Jakarta (Category 5 to Category 4)
• The JW Marriott Muscat in Oman (Category 5 to Category 4)

• Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre (Category 6 to Category 5)**
• JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Shanghai Pudong (Category 6 to Category 5)**
• La Caserne Chanzy Hotel & Spa Autograph Collection (Category 6 to Category 5)**
• Moxy Lausanne City (Category 6 to Category 5)**
• The Opus, Westchester (Category 6 to Category 5)**
• The Glenmark, Glendale, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel (Category 6 to Category 5)**

*These properties will now be bookable using a 50,000 free night certificate on off-peak and standard dates.
**These properties will now be bookable using a 35,000 free night certificate on off-peak and standard dates.

Buy Marriott Bonvoy Points At A Discount

If you’d like to book a Marriott property that’s moving up a hotel category but don’t quite have enough points, the current Marriott Bonvoy Points sale may be of help.

Through 22 March, Marriott is offering Bonvoy members a bonus of up to 50% when they buy at least 2,000 points in a single transaction. That puts the cost of Bonvoy Points at ~0.833 cents each and that may be a low enough cost to make it worth using this sale to top up an account.

See this post for my full thoughts on the Bonvoy Points sale.

Bottom Line

Marriott’s latest hotel category changes will be coming into effect in under two days’ time so if you’re considering making a booking at one of the properties that will be moving up a category, now is the time to make that booking.

Book at Marriott.com