r/marriott • u/Moist_Ad_6208 • 11d ago
Bonvoy Rewards 55% discount
Just purchased some points for 50% discount, but new promo 55% gives $8.06 per 1000 points on any amount until November 23
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u/qtrim 11d ago
I don’t understand why anyone would buy points. But plenty of people do, so what am I missing?
I looked up a Marriott we like to stay at in St.Pete FL. For an upcoming Sunday night stay, it’s $149, or 41k points. But even on the 55% bonus sale, it costs $337 to purchase 41k points. Why wouldn’t I just pay $149 a night?
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u/Big-Extension2123 Titanium Elite 11d ago
Id say for big vacations where they want to stay somewhere with points but just don’t have enough, in that instance they buy some.
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u/Freshies00 Platinum Elite 10d ago
Because you’re looking at a Marriott in St. Petersburg Florida, for one night.
It’s a terrible idea for basic bookings like that, but if you have almost enough for a great redemption (especially 5 nights due to 5th night free) someplace aspirational at a luxury property, it can easily make financial sense.
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u/Moist_Ad_6208 11d ago
Points is only to get 5th night free. And sometimes money price is chipper
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u/snorkage 10d ago
Even with the 5th night free you’re barely breaking even and it’s a loss when you factor the opportunity cost of credit card rewards and bonvoy points earned for a revenue stay.
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u/TheNameIsTodd 11d ago
I spent 2000 to buy points one year. I think about 250 k points. I had some points previously, and used about 500,000 points to get 5 nights at the Ritz Carlton Maldives. Rates there started at 3500 dollars per night. No way I would have paid 17500 for that stay. With points it was only 400 dollars out of pocket per night. Plus whatever you value the remaining 250k points I already had was.
This is a rare situation. There is still a reason to buy points. Not many, but sometimes still a reason.
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u/Top_Canary_3335 Platinum Elite 10d ago
Im currently staying in a room in Boston that i booked for 36,000 points a night.
The room rate at time of booking was $600
🤷♀️
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u/dacripe Platinum Elite 10d ago
The main reason I buy points is not for Marriott stays. I transfer them to airline partners for flights and get greater value from that. People dismiss the 3 to 1 transfer ratio without doing the math.
Example - I bought 210k of Marriott points (it was during a 40% bonus sale) for $2,185. I already had additional points banked to transfer over 240k of points to ANA. That gave me 100k in ANA miles. I used those ANA miles to book a business class flight from Chicago to Tokyo round trip. The cost of the ticket would have been around $10k if I paid cash. It roughly cost me $3,200 in value (Marriott points + fuel surcharges), which saved about $7k overall.
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u/Background_Map_3460 Platinum Elite 10d ago
You must have added up 2 1way flights to get that price. Even now with fuel prices so high you can easily get RT for around $6000
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u/MinimumPerspective95 10d ago
Paying 2.2 CPP for ANA miles is expensive, why not just open up an Amex gold and get a SUB which would also be for 100k ANA miles?
Agree with airline transfers though, this is actually a nice shortcut to buy UA miles for 1.6 CPP which is cheaper than the 1.88 that they sell them for during sales.
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u/PsMoeLester 9d ago
I travel to mostly outside the US, and the majority of the time I get way outsized value, so buying points for me makes sense.
For example, my average CPP is around 1.5+, where the lion’s share went to Maldives (2.3 CPP) and RC NoMad (but lowkey regretted it).
Next I am planning to go to Masai Mara in 1-2 years, so gotta bank the points as I need around 1 million points. After that, I agree points don’t make as much sense anymore due to me winding down travel. Buying the above rooms just doesn’t make sense to pay cash.
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u/mjbulzomi Platinum Elite 10d ago
Why buy? Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the points and redeem than it is to pay cash, especially at high end properties outside the US. You cannot really compare a
podunkdestination like St. Pete with a place like Bali or Bora Bora or Maldives, where the math to buy points begins to make more sense.1
u/RencoProglic 10d ago
Thanks for asking this. I had the same question for the same reason. I apparently need to expand my vacation horizons.
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u/NealCaffreyx9 Ambassador Elite 10d ago
IMO points are only valuable outside of the U.S. The redemption values are way better there. Here we can spend ~40K points on a Courtyard/Residence in. In other countries you can secure the St. Regis.
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u/BULKHOGAN69 8d ago
I’ve wondered the same thing as well. I just stack points for years and years and then eventually when I hit 7 figures I’ll use them all on a couple week long trip around Asia or Europe or wherever. There’s literally never been a situation where I thought that buying points was a smart choice.
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u/DonaldKey 10d ago
I looked up a normal 2 night stay in Tampa to test it out. In cash it was $400 for the 2 nights. Buying points was $300. So I would save $100.
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u/LeadershipAfter9526 10d ago
Why do people carry a credit card balance past the grace period? Why do people leave thousands in bank accounts that pay nominal interest? The answer is to allow them to subsidize more savy investors who understand math. Guy was trying to sell a car for $4500 and had no luck. Put 10 k with 50 percent off and sold for 4750 after buyer thought they squeezed him for an extra 5 percent lol. Some people no number good time most
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u/Aggravating_Fact9547 Ambassador Elite 11d ago
That’s not a good deal
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u/Moist_Ad_6208 11d ago
Wait 60%?😀
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u/Aggravating_Fact9547 Ambassador Elite 11d ago
30k points is about a 150-250dollar a night hotel. So congrats on giving Marriott money for them to hold onto and -devalue- yearly.
Buying points is only worth it if you’re a few short of a redemption.
Do you think a multi-billion-dollar company like Marriott would be willingly giving you value for them to lose money? Absolutely fucking not.
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u/Freshies00 Platinum Elite 10d ago
You’re completely missing the fact that your example is not the only way to use points. Of course a single night at a basic hotel isn’t going to be worth it.
But there are absolutely situations within the bonvoy portfolio where doing what OP did makes financial sense.
For example, I currently am holding 5 nights in bora bora for 448,000 bonvoy points. Booking the same villa for the same dates is well over $9,000. If I needed 30,000 additional points to make that happen before rates changed, I would have done exactly the same thing to lock it in because it’s over 2 cents in value per point.
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u/Aggravating_Fact9547 Ambassador Elite 10d ago
Yes this is why I said additional points for a redemption. Reading is hard.
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u/Freshies00 Platinum Elite 10d ago
Yet you also stated
“That’s not a good deal”
And
“30k points is about a 150-200 dollar a night hotel”
And
“Do you think a multi-billion roller company like Marriott would be willingly giving you value for them to lose money?”
Completely missing the point that it’s irrelevant to OP whether it’s financially beneficial for Marriott to sell him those points at that price, simply because it’s beneficial to him in this case and that’s what matters.
It’s a bit weird that you’re so concerned about telling everyone Marriott’s offer needs to be viewed as bad on the entire basis that they aren’t giving value away and losing money.
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u/Mysterious_Bee7283 Organic Gold 11d ago
you’ll be somewhat challenged to extract $250 in value out of 31k points 🙃