Beginner's Guide to Earning Marriott Bonvoy Points

In this post, I'll explain the four basic ways that you can get Marriott points and how many points you can get from each method. The obvious way to earn Marriott points is by staying at Marriott hotels and most of their hotel brands. You'll earn 10 points per dollar spent. This includes most things that you can bill to your room. At the Marriott brands listed on the screen, you'll only earn five points per dollar; at Marriott Executive Apartments, you'll only earn 2.5 cents per dollar. So, staying at the other Marriott brands is best if you want to earn more points. If you have Marriott elite status, you'll also get a certain percent bonus on top of these base points. Specifically, you'll get 10 for Silver, 25 for Gold, 50 for Platinum, and 75 for Titanium and Ambassador status.

Four Basic Ways to Earn Marriott Points

Another way that you can sometimes get bonus points is by going to your promotions tab on the Marriott website and activating any special promotions. Some of which will give you bonus points. The second way to earn Marriott points is through dining. Even when you aren't staying at a Marriott hotel, at participating restaurants and bars in Marriott properties around the world, you can earn 10 points per one US dollar spent. This is particularly useful in Asia and Australia where they have a published list of participating restaurants, and they often have promotions where you can get discounts and bonus points if you are a Marriott Elite member. There's also a published list of participating restaurants in the Americas that doesn't include the United States and Canada. In these two countries and other parts of the world, you can earn Marriott points at restaurants and the participating brands on screen.

A Guide to Maximizing Your Rewards

But it's a little bit more hit or miss whether they'll actually give points to you, so make sure you do ask them. You can also earn Marriott points at some spas inside Marriott hotels, so make sure you ask them as well. If you're from the United States, you can also earn Marriott points through the Eat Around Town program. Just go onto the website and enroll your credit card, then use this credit card at the participating restaurant on the list. You'll earn four Marriott points per dollar if you don't have elite status with Marriott, and you'll earn six Marriott points if you are an elite member. Sometimes they'll have promotions that increase these amounts or give you bonus points. The third way to earn Marriott points is through credit cards. Marriott has credit cards in many countries such as Canada, the UK, Korea, and more, but I'm most.

Familiar with their credit cards in the United States because that's where I'm from. For all of their US credit cards, you'll earn two points per dollar on general spending, and they each have their own bonus categories. The no annual fee Bold card earns three points with Marriott, while the other cards earn six points with Marriott's spend. You can push pause to see the differences in their other bonus spending categories, or you can go to my referral links in the description if you're interested in signing up for any of them. Just be sure that the sign-up offer is good because they can change from time to time. If you have certain credit cards from Chase or American Express, you can also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points or American Express membership rewards points over to Marriott. But, this is not generally advised because these points tend to be worth more if you can transfer them to airlines.

In the case of Chase points, transfer over to Hayek instead of Marriott to book hotels. The next way to get Marriott points is to just buy them from Marriott. If there's no special promotion going on, then it'll cost you 1.25 cents per point. You can buy in increments of 1,000 points and a maximum of 100,000 points in a calendar year. I think Marriott points are worth on average 0.7 cents per point, so it really doesn't make sense to buy Marriott points unless you have a very specific redemption coming up and happen to be short on points. Another way that you can earn Marriott points in the United States is through Uber. You can find out more about that by clicking the video that's right here. To find out more about how to use Marriott points and what they're worth, you can click the other video that's right here.

Conclusion

In summary, there are four basic ways to earn Marriott points: staying at Marriott hotels and most of their brands, activating special promotions on the Marriott website, dining at participating restaurants and bars in Marriott properties around the world, and using Marriott co-branded credit cards. The elite status also provides bonus points for each stay. It is important to know which Marriott brands offer the highest point-earning potential and to check for promotions and participating restaurants before making purchases.