Marriott Bonvoy have just announced a new buy points promo, offering a 50% bonus when you buy 2000 points or more until 25th March.
You can keep track of all the hotel Buy Points prices, offers, and points values, on our Points & Miles buying guide page.
The annual purchase limit of 50,000 points has also been doubled for this promo, so you can buy a total of 150,000 points.
There is a limit of 50000 per transaction (excluding bonus) so to take the full allowance you will have to make 2 transactions, buying 50000 + 25000 in each one.
Remember that purchased points do not count towards elite status. Your account must be at least 30 days old before you can buy points.
You can also gift points to another account.
With this promo, 75000 points would cost $625 which is about £480. That makes a cost of 0.64p per Bonvoy point. The rates aren’t tiered – it’s the same price per point if you buy 2000 or if you buy 100000.
What is a Bonvoy point worth? I value a Marriott Bonvoy point around 0.65p. That’s my valuation because it is easy to get that value.
You can get more than that, but you could also get a lot less. It’s all about picking your redemptions carefully, and using your points where you get the best value. 0.65p is easy to achieve without putting too many limits on where and when you use them.
With this promo then, you should have no trouble breaking even. If you have a planned redemption in mind where you can get over 1p of value then you would come out ahead quite nicely, and that sort of value is easy to find.
I never suggest buying speculatively, and you don’t need to. You can price up your potential reward nights to see if you would be better off buying points. Don’t forget to account for the value of the points you would earn if you were paying cash.
Remember though that there is a round of category changes due to take effect on 4th March, and there are new restrictions on reward inventory which may make it harder to redeem in popular hotels at peak times.
There is another good use of Marriott Bonvoy points, which is to convert them to airline miles.
With this 50% bonus you could buy 60000 Bonvoy points for $500 or about £384. Those 60k points could be transferred to airline miles at a rate of 3 to 1 and with an extra 5000 miles when you exchange 60000 points.
That would mean you are effectively buying 25000 airline miles for £384, which is a little over 1.5p per mile.
That’s not great, but if you have a redemption in mind where you will be getting much better value than 1.5p, and you need to top off your account to make the redemption, then this can be a good opportunity.
For example, it is possible to buy Etihad points this way, and use them to fly the amazing Etihad Apartment first class.
Don’t buy speculatively, but if you have a plan, you should jump on this. You can transfer to lots of airlines, including these ones. For some of these, this is the only way to “buy” miles:
- Air France KLM
- ANA
- Air New Zealand
- British Airways
- Emirates
- Etihad
- Japan Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar
- Singapore Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
The page to buy Marriott Bonvoy points with a 50% bonus is here.
Remember, you need to use a credit card with a 0% foreign exchange fee. Regular credit cards typically have a 3% charge and you would have to factor that in to your value calculation.
You could use a card like Revolut which gives favourable exchange rates. You can get a free Revolut card and a £5 bonus after you make your first payment if you join through this link.
You can also use the Curve card for fee-free foreign currency transactions. Use the promo code WZJLW when you sign up for Curve and get £5 free after your first purchase.
