Update 4/1/20: Flexible cancellation has been extended until June 30th, 2020.
Marriott is the latest hotel chain to announce it’s response to COVID-19. The biggest changes are to the Marriott cancellation policy, the new rules for hotels worldwide are as follows:
- For guests with existing reservations for any future arrival date, including reservations with pre-paid rates that are typically more restrictive, we will allow full changes or cancellation without a charge up to 24 hours prior to arrival,* as long as the change or cancellation is made by April 30, 2020. Please note that any changes to existing reservations will be subject to availability and any rate differences.
- For guests making new reservations for any future arrival date, including reservations with pre-paid rates, between today and April 30, 2020, we will allow the reservation to be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival date.* Please note that changes to the reservation will be subject to availability and any rate differences.
Keep in mind this is for reservations booked directly with Marriott. Marriott is advising those with third party bookings to contact the booking provider directly. In addition Marriott has announced:
- Marriot Bonvoy points will not expire until August 31st, 2020 (e.g no points will expire between now and that date)
- Suite night awards that are due to expire on December 31st, 2020 will be extended for one year until December 31st, 2021
- Free Night Awards (as part of a credit card benefit, Annual Choice Benefit, Promotion or Travel Package) with an expiration starting March 1, 2020 will be extended through January 31, 2021. The system will automatically complete the updates by the end of April 2020.
- Marriott has also unofficially paused category changes at mainland China hotels that were supposed to go into effect on March 4th.
At this stage it’s not clear if Marriott will be extending elite status or making it easier to qualify for elite status for the 2020 year.
Hat tip to VFTW
Just got an email from Marriott that included this information (amongst other things).
“For Our Marriott Bonvoy Members
I also want to take a moment to address our Marriott Bonvoy members. Like many of you, frequent travel is a way of life for me and most of the Marriott team. It is the way we connect, get inspired and evolve our business every day. While it is the right thing to do, it’s been hard not to be able to travel. We know that when you get back in the air and on the road, your points and status will be important to you.
• Status Extension: We want you to be able to enjoy the status that you earned in 2019. With that in mind, the status you earned in 2019 will be extended to February 2022.
• Points Expiration: To provide you ample time to redeem points, the expiration of points will be paused until February 2021. At that time, your points will only expire if your account has been inactive for at least 24 months.”
Burn mf burn
I have a free night for having the credit card and it still sets to expire in June.
I also have three 7 night packages I bought prior to the merger and they are still set to expire in august 2020.
Wonder what this means for events booked Marriotts…
Have a wedding Jun 6, wonder if they will allow cancellations for that or what happens if there’s a banning of large gatherings.
So when they say cancellation without charge, does that mean you actually get a refund? Because I booked a prepaid stay that said free cancellations but when I read deeper, it says any amount prepaid will not be refunded which was the entire amount. So pretty much, their “free cancellation” is we won’t charge you any more to cancel and we’ll keep the entire amount you paid.
Marriott reserves the rights to undo these changes.
Wow one of my certs expired 2/25 and sold one expiring 3/5 for really cheap…
How do you sell a cert?
Question – with the existing certificates being extended, will they be issuing new ones on the anniversary date potentially giving two overlapping certs?
We had a Hyatt free night set to expire in early March. I just checked and I don’t see an expired certificate, but there’s an available one good until some point in 2021? Do we think Hyatt is doing this too?
Hyatt will do the same thing, just called Hyatt rep this morning and she told me Hyatt is planning to extending FN for six month or one year (not sure right now), and will announce very soon.
I had success getting both my certificates extended to March 2021 after cancelling a reservation for which I would have used them
– 23 Feb: booked using 2 free night certificates for 20-22 March (25k to expire in March, 35k to expire in Apr 2020)
– 11 Mar: cancelled reservations but no automatic return of certificates
– 13 Mar: called via phone to return certificates, new expiry date on both: 13-Mar-2021