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Marriott has brought back a promotion that originally debuted back in June and which allows Bonvoy members to book most of the properties in Marriott’s portfolio at off-peak award rates. This time around the promotion is a little more generous than the June promotion as the travel window is a month longer, but be aware that the booking window is still relatively short.
Key Information
- Book by 14 December 2020
- Stay by 28 February 2021
- Marriott says that ~90% of its properties are participating
- There are no blackout dates for participating properties
Quick Thoughts
Considering award rates are supposed to vary according to demand (i.e only hit “peak season” territory when a property looks it may have a high occupancy rate for a given night), it’s a little surprising that any Marriott properties are charging anything other than off-peak pricing right now.
Across large swathes of the northern hemisphere, January and February aren’t particularly busy months outside of a pandemic so as far as a lot of properties in Europe and North America go, this isn’t much of a deal – the hotels participating in this promotion will almost certainly have been selling most of their nights at off-peak pricing anyway.
If you’re going to hunt around for a truly good deal I suspect that you may have to turn your attention to properties in the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, and other select tropical areas where demand is likely to be highest in the first two months of the year.
The best place to start is with the current Marriott award chart (so you know what properties with off-peak pricing should cost):
From what I’ve seen so far, Marriott’s properties in the Maldives do not appear to be participating in this promotion (in all cases a random 5-night stay in January is pricing up at more than it should if the hotels were offering all nights at off-peak rates) but luxury properties like the Solaz in Cabo…
…the Ritz-Carlton on Maui…
…the Aruba Marriott Resort…
…and the Ritz-Carlton St Thomas…
…are all showing off-peak pricing across all the nights I’ve checked (all the images above show the cost of a 5-night stay).
Don’t forget that if you don’t quite have enough Marriott Bonvoy points for your preferred booking, it may be worth buying points in Marriott’s latest sale in which it’s offering a 50% bonus on purchases through 22 December.
Bottom Line
Approximately 90% of properties in the Marriott portfolio are offering their rooms at off-peak pricing for stays made in January and February. Bookings must be made by 14 December and you’ll find that some of the ultra-luxury properties in areas like the Maldives have opted out, but there are still nice deals to be had in some very attractive regions of the world.
Featured image: Ritz-Carlton St Thomas
