Marriott Bonvoy 2020 Category Changes
W South Beach, a Marriott Bonvoy Category 8 Property
To the Point
Marriott Bonvoy has just shaken the travel rewards and points community once again by announcing that a shocking 1,686 of their hotel properties will be moving up into a higher priced rewards category. Sadly, only 499 hotel properties will be moving down into a lower rewards category. This announcement comes just months after Marriott Bonvoy introduced peak and off-peak category pricing in September of 2019 which also increased some points redemptions costs significantly. The new and unexpected 2020 changes in properties categories will go into effect on March 4, 2020, which does not give us much notice.
By the Numbers
By the numbers it appears that only 29% of all Marriott Bonvoy properties are actually moving categories, but only 7% of those are moving down. This means that 22% of these properties will be costing you more points to stay. This is a significant change compared to the only 6% of properties that changed in 2019. A large majority (70%) of the category increases are occurring between categories 2 to 4. For example, a total of 322 Courtyard Marriotts, 287 Fairfield Inns and 251 Residence Inns will be moving up within these lower end categories.
One of the more devastating blows of this increase in category pricing will be to the American Express Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant cardholders. The American Express Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card provides an annual free night certificate, but only for properties that cost up to 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. This category change will cause the annual free night to lose the ability to be used at 95 hotel properties, and only gain 9 additional hotel properties at which you can redeem. As for people looking to redeem points for Marriott Bonvoy's top tier category 8 hotel properties, you will need to pay up to 100,00 points for 24 properties which are unfortunately moving up from category 7 to 8. This a 33% increase which will create a total of 95 category 8 hotels. Check out a full 2,185 property list of Marriott Bonvoy's category changes for 2020 here.
2,185 Marriott Bonvoy Property Category Changes
Getting “Bonvoyed”
Marriott Bonvoy disappointingly continues to make changes for the worse for it's loyalty program by increasing property award rates and making it more difficult to redeem the free night certificate. Luckily, there are a few W Hotel's that will be reduced in category including the W Aspen, moving from category 8 to 7 and the W Washington D.C. which is moving from category 7 to 6. Since W Hotel's are usually our preferred brand, we are excited about these two small changes. We are not as excited about the W Punta Mita moving from category 7 to 8, especially since we have been itching to make it there. We noticed that the Renaissance Aruba is moving from Category 5 to 6, and are very happy we have a points redemption already booked there for Spring 2020. Keep in mind these category changes do not go into effect until March 4, 2020 so if you have points to burn, you still have time to lock in current points redemption rates before they get "Bonvoyed".
What do you think about these Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program changes? Are you missing SPG as much as we are? Comment down below, or direct message us on our Instagram or Facebook!