What are Marriott Annual Choice Benefits and Which Should Your Choose?

When you reach certain numbers of nights with Marriott and a calendar year, you'll earn annual Choice Benefits. I'll tell you about the benefits that you can pick and some things you should consider when choosing which one is right for you.

At 50 nights, including annual Choice Benefit Options, nights from staying at Marriott Hotels, as well as Elite nights, earn through promotions and credit cards, you get to pick your first annual Choice Benefit. You can choose to get $40 off a Marriott mattress, give Marriott bonboy silver Elite status to someone, make a donation, get five Elite night credits to get you closer to a higher level of Elite status and your next annual Choice benefit. or pick five suite night awards that allow you to confirm an upgrade to a premium room or suite.

When you reach 75 nights, you'll get another annual Choice benefit. You can pick from amongst the previous options or to additional options, which are to give Marriott bonboy Gold Elite status to someone or to get a free night award worth up to $40 000 points. You are allowed to pick the same thing twice, which means you can use both of your annual Choice Benefits to get up to 10% Elite Night credits or 10% Sweet Night Awards to pick the selection that you How to Choose Marriott Annual Choice Benefit before the deadline want? Log into the Marriott website and click overview.

So scroll down and click view gift. Select the one that you want and click Next Step at the end, you can confirm your selection.

Suite Night Awards - Why You Shouldn't Pick Suite Night Awards

If you don't pick anything by January 7th, you'll automatically get Suite Night Awards. Why people don’t select the mattress discount, gift status or donation? When most people reach 50% nights, they'll pick either Suite Night Awards or Elite Night credits.

Before I break down how you should decide between the two, I'll quickly explain why most people don't pick the other options. If you happen to be shopping for a new mattress, forty percent off could save you several hundred dollars, but this cannot be combined with other promotions, which can sometimes give you 30 percent off. And even with the discounts, Marriott mattresses are still not really cheap,compared to mattresses from well-known manufacturers.

Most people don't choose to give Elite status to someone that they care about because Platinum status is when most of the benefits for Marriott begins, and those lower levels of Elite status are relatively easy to earn. And while it might feel good to donate to charity, you'll get more value by picking one of the other benefits and just making a normal donation to the charity of your choice.

Suite Night Awards Vs Elite Night Credits

Suite night awards vs elite night credits. This leaves Suite Night Awards and Elite Night credits. The biggest factor that you should consider when choosing between the two is whether you'll need the elite night credits to reach 75 nights and unlock your next annual Choice benefit and Marriott titanium status.

If you already have 70 nights for the year, but you don't plan to earn any more through hotel stays or spending on credit cards like the Marriott bonvoy boundless card, then you should absolutely pick the elite night credits. Now you'll get your next annual Choice benefit, which you can use for sweet night awards, and get titanium status, which gets you benefits like additional points on Marriott stays and United Airlines silver status.

If you won't reach 75 nights, even with the elite night credits, then you should pick Sweet Night Awards. The more interesting situation is if you're trying to decide between picking Elite night credits and staying a few additional nights so that you can get to 75 nights the normal way and then pick Sweet Night Awards as your 50-night annual Choice benefit.

How Much Value Is A Sweet Night Award Worth To You?

For this you'll have to figure out the value of a sweet night award to you, compare to the cost of staying those additional nights. One thing to keep in mind is that you can't always use suite night awards for every single stay. There are some Marriott hotels that don't accept Suite Night Awards, and you'll need a sweet night award for every night of your stay, so you might not be able to use them on longer stays, assuming you can actually use your sweet night awards. How much value is that upgrade worth to you?

I see it being worth a lot if you're using it to upgrade to a bigger room for a family vacation, such as this suite at the Westin next to Disneyland that I made a video about, but it might not be useful if you mostly travel for business and don't really care for a larger room or suite.

Once you've thought about the value of sweet night awards for you, you'll have to decide if it outweighs the cost of staying extra nights at Marriott Hotels to get them. Some people hate the idea of spending more time and money at hotels, and they absolutely need to, but I personally don't mind expanding a stay a little bit or checking out a new place, assume it isn't too expensive. Remember that night's booked with points also count, so you can get five nights for as little as twenty thousand points, although these hotels aren't always easy to find or easy to get to.

Suite night awards vs free night certificate. At 75 nights, people typically pick another five suite night awards or the free night certificate worth $40,000 points. You can top off this certificate with up to $15,000 points to book a hotel that costs up to $55,000 points. I always pick the free-night certificate because I find that the five sweet night awards that I get as my 50-night annual Choice benefit are already enough. Additionally, as a Marriott titanium member, I'm already getting upgraded rooms and sometimes suites for free.

But if you happen to be doing a lot of vacationing in the coming year or you use your 50-night annual Choice benefit for elite night credits to get you to 75 nights, then you might want to pick the Sweet Night Awards.

Elite Night Credits - What You Need to Know

There's also some Niche cases for selecting Elite Night credits, such as people who have spent $220,000 dollars with Marriott, but don't have the $100 nights required to reach Ambassador status, and people who are very close to Lifetime Platinum Status but no longer stay enough to reach Platinum Status the normal way.

Just remember that if you're an American, you can get automatic Marriott Platinum Status by having the bonboy brilliant card, which also gives you $25 Elite night credits every year. You can find out more about this credit card by clicking the link on screen, or you can click the other link on screen to find out about the other benefits that you'll get when you reach 50 and 75 nights in a calendar.

Conclusion

When you reach certain numbers of nights with Marriott and a calendar year, you'll earn annual Choice Benefits. At 50% nights, including annual Choice Benefits, nights from staying at Marriott Hotels, as well as Elite nights, earn through promotions and credit cards, you get to pick your first annual Choice Benefit.

You can choose to get $40 off a Marriott mattress, give Marriott bonboy silver Elite status to someone, make a donation, get five Elite night credits to get you closer to a higher level of Elite status and your next annual Choice Benefits. When you reach 75 nights, you will get another annual Choice/benefit. You are allowed to pick the same thing twice, which means you can use both of your annual Choice Benefits to get up to 10% Elite Night credits or 10% Sweet Night Awards.