The Offer
- Marriott is currently offering a 60% bonus when you purchase 2,000 or more points by June 30th, 2020. You can also purchase up to 100,000 points (normal annual limit is 50,000)
The Fine Print
- Transactions must be completed between 9:00 AM ET May 18, 2020 and 11:59 PM ET June 30, 2020 to be eligible for the 60% bonus points offer with a minimum purchase of 2,000 points.
- Purchased points do not count towards Marriott Bonvoy Elite status.
- A member may purchase or receive as a gift from another member a combined maximum of 100,000 points during the promotional period only. Points that have been already purchased or received as a gift in 2020 are included in the 100,000 points limit.
- Points may be purchased in increments of 1,000, with a minimum purchase of 2,000 points required.
- Points can be purchased at a rate of $12.50 (USD) per 1,000 points.
- Points purchases will be processed up to 7 business days after purchase.
- Base points purchased will be deposited into members’ accounts first. Bonus points will be deposited up to 48 hours after that initial deposit.
- You must be a member in good standing to both purchase and receive points.
- A new member may purchase points thirty (30) days after enrollment if their Marriott Bonvoy account reflects qualifying activity as described in the Marriott Bonvoy Program Rules. After ninety (90) days from enrollment, a new member is eligible to purchase points regardless of their account activity.
- Once points have been purchased or gifted, no refunds will be permitted.
- Purchasing points using a Marriott Bonvoy™ co-brand credit card will earn points as an everyday purchase.
- This offer is valid only for points purchased through the promotion’s Buy Points or Gift Points pages.
- All Marriott Bonvoy Program Rules apply and can be found at https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/terms//default.mi.
Our Verdict
Points normally cost 1.25¢ per point, under this promotion the price is reduced to 0.78¢. If you go through Topcashback then you can get a further 2.5% back. These are sold through Points.com so won’t qualify for any sort of travel credits/category bonuses are unfortunately. Personally I’d need to see points drop to 0.5¢ or lower before I was a buyer. Buying points speculatively is always a risk and I do not trust Marriott at all based on Marriott’s previous actions.
Funny, cause didn’t they just sell a zillion points to Amex on the cheap? But for us loyal customers, we get to pay MORE than the fair value of the points? Nice. Real cute. Really lets you know what and whom is important to them.
I won’t even purchase these at .50. Won’t hear trsort fees, destination fees, city fees and other f.u. fees the points are worth less than that.
There are some redemptions where you can get close to 1c/point but not in USA. Yeah, 0.5c/point is about right maybe even less now that the packages have been devalued. This also makes their supermarket promo pretty unattractive to me.
The other thing to bear in mind is that you normally earn 10 points per dollar spent (before taxes) at most properties plus a bonus depending on your elite level. For example, you get a 50% bonus for platinum. Plus you get 6 points per dollar spent if you use a Bonvoy branded credit card. That means a Platinum would get 21 points per dollar spent. You don’t get any of this if you pay with points. This doesn’t look like much of a deal to me.
The recent 20% off GC deal is much better and you still get all the bonus points if you use a GC.
Better to MS at grocery stores for 6x up to $7500 before end of July than buy points..
Except most of us aren’t (or shouldn’t be) doing unnecessary things outside
true this flu season has been nasty
I beg to differ. We should be MSing Simon vgcs until they open their malls. They aren’t getting enough business with the several thousands of orders each week. Way easier