In the previous post, I mainly covered how to use Marriott Travel Packages, the redemption chart, how to choose an airline transfer partner and hotel category, and how to earn Marriott points through credit card welcome bonuses. In this post, I’ll take a deeper look at how to accumulate the large number of points needed for these packages, along with a few clever ways to use them.

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[12/6 Update] Earlier, I went through a lot of trouble to redeem one of the hidden 5-night mini packages. However, I’ve heard that there can be issues when actually using a 5-night package: the hotel may check whether you are really a time share owner/vacation club member. If not, they may cancel your 5-night reservation. With that in mind, I looked into possible solutions and spoke with Marriott customer service several times. Here’s what I found:

  • Add points and convert it back to a 7-night certificate: Previously, there were DPs saying that if you called in, you could pay the difference in points and convert the original 5-night certificate into a 7-night certificate. A 7-night certificate can of course be used normally and does not have the vacation club requirement. (I called twice, and both reps said it could not be converted to 7 nights, so this path may no longer work.)
  • Refund 10,000 points: Customer service said the 5-night certificate could be refunded as points, but each certificate can only be refunded for 10,000 points. This is actually a very poor deal. One free night is worth about 25,000 points, and even factoring in Stay 4, Get 5th Night Free, five nights are still worth about 100,000 points! Of course, if you truly have no hotel need, taking back 10,000 points is still an option... after all, you already got a lot of value when redeeming the travel package in the first place.
  • Exchange for a new 5-night certificate under the new category system: Marriott adjusted hotel categories during this period. Most of the old cat 1-5 properties were remapped to the current cat 1-4. To use the old 5-night certificate, you need to exchange it for a new cat 1-4 5-night certificate. One important point: after the exchange, the expiration becomes one year from the exchange date, effectively resetting the expiration. If you don’t need to use it right away, you can wait until the original certificate is close to expiring before making the switch. The process is to first refund it for 10,000 points, then use those 10,000 points to get the new certificate. (This also indirectly confirms that refunding the certificate only gets you 10,000 points.)

My experience: After customer service refused to let me add points and convert it to a 7-night certificate, I brought up the issue that this 5-night certificate could be difficult to use. The rep said that as long as the certificate is in your account, Marriott will honor it. As long as it is converted into the new 5-night certificate, it should work normally. The rep also said a note was added to my account, which may help reduce hassle when booking a hotel with the certificate. (This solution was worked out between the rep and his supervisor, so it seems fairly reliable, though it still needs to be verified through actual stays.)

In short, if you are holding one of the older 5-night certificates, it’s best to call customer service and discuss it with them if you want to reduce the hassle of using it. Try to get a more official solution on record.

[7/12 Update] We previously mentioned that there is actually a hidden mini package that can be redeemed. The top-tier option is 235,000 (5 nights Cat 5 + 132,000 UA), and the lowest-tier option is 165,000 (5 nights Cat5 + 55,000 UA). Compared with seven nights, five nights fit most trips better and require fewer Marriott points. More importantly, the 5-night package is actually more valuable, because more of the points are converted into higher-value UA miles. Below I’ll share what I learned from making more than a dozen phone calls.

  • Does the 5-night travel package exist? Yes, for now. Whether it will still be available after August 1 is unknown. The official explanation is that the 5-night + miles package can only be booked for Marriott Time Share and Vacation Club members—the so-called big spenders. In general, even Marriott’s top-tier elites cannot book it. However, some employees with incomplete training may process the redemption without checking your eligibility.
  • How to book the 5-night travel package: Call +1 800-321-7396 and say you want to book a travel package. Then emphasize that you want five nights + miles. If the rep gives the official explanation above, don’t keep arguing—just hang up and call again.
  • What kinds of reps will book it for you: Here’s a summary of the different types of reps I ran into.
    • Rep A: What’s a Travel Package? Which city do you want to book in? Which hotel do you want? (These reps don’t know what the package is. If you go back and forth and they still don’t understand, and they don’t even ask for your member number, you can basically just hang up.)
    • Rep B: Travel Package... oh, let me take a look. Then after a long hold: OK, I’m back. Let me book it for you—give me your member number. (These reps may not have known what a travel package was at first, but learned after asking around. However, they often only partly understand it and may just go ahead and book the 5-night version for you.)
    • Rep C: Travel Package, right? OK, give me your member number, tell me which airline miles you want, and which Cat do you want for the 7-night stay? (These reps are the experienced/proficient type, so there’s usually little hope. My suggestion is to be direct and say up front that you want the 5-night version. 90% will give you the official answer that it’s not allowed.)
    • Rep D: Travel Package, OK. What Cat do you want for the 7-night hotel stay? What? Five nights? We only have seven nights. If you just want a hotel stay, I can help you book it directly with points, and you can buy the airfare yourself. (These reps don’t know the 5-night version exists, so there’s basically no point continuing. If you insist they ask a supervisor, you’ll probably get the official answer 100% of the time.)
    • Rep E: Travel Package, mm... OK, got it. Let me open the screen first. Yes, found it. Give me your member number. Which airline do you want? (These reps know the option exists, but they’re not very experienced with it yet, so there’s a good chance they don’t know about the restriction on booking the 5-night version. The system probably lets them directly choose either five nights or seven nights, and they’ll just select it for you. If you get one of these reps, your chances are pretty good.)
    • Rep F: Very heavy Indian accent, completely impossible to understand. (Hang up and call again—there’s not much else to say.)
  • What time of day makes it easier to book:
    • During the daytime, there are generally more U.S.-based reps. Most are Rep C or D, with a smaller number of E. Based on my very incomplete personal sample, around 20% are E, 70% are C, and 10% are D. So the success rate is about 20%. However, daytime calls may involve long hold times, which can be a waste of time.
    • From late night until before 7 a.m., it’s mostly India-based reps. A and F make up a large share, and B/C/D are rare. The advantage is that you usually don’t have to wait long to get through, and Rep F generally doesn’t spend much time arguing with you. The downside is that Rep B is less common, and B will usually put you on hold for about 3-5 minutes to figure out what this is and where to find it in the system.
  • Is it worth calling repeatedly? If you don’t have a huge points balance—just enough for a few packages—then the value difference between 7 nights and 5 nights is not actually that big. It depends on how you personally balance your time against the value you’re trying to squeeze out. If you have enough points for several packages, then I’d recommend making more calls, since the 5-night version is easier to use and offers higher overall package value. In fact, once you find a rep who can book the 5-night version, the process is simple. Once they understand what you want, each package takes only about 2 minutes.
  • Should I redeem ASAP? For both the 7-night and 5-night versions, the answer is basically the same. Marriott Travel Packages will be changed on August 1, and after that the airline-miles portion will be devalued significantly, while the hotel portion may stay roughly similar. My suggestion is to redeem as soon as you can if you’re planning to do it. This devaluation is fairly severe. For details, see: New Marriott Travel Package Chart Announced
  • What are the risks if I redeem now? There’s basically no risk on the miles side, but on the hotel-certificate side, whether it’s 5 nights or 7 nights, it could be converted back into points at some unknown value. Another possibility is that it continues to be honored under Marriott’s new hotel-category system. That would actually be even better, since the categories overall shifted down by one level. My personal view is that if you already have an immediate hotel need, go ahead and redeem it now and use the certificate.
  • What if you don’t have enough Marriott points?: My suggestion is to aim for the top 235,000-point tier. If you are short on points, you can buy SPG points; there is currently a 35% off discount, which is a very good deal. The purchased points post almost instantly, and they also transfer to Marriott almost instantly; you can see it after logging in and out. If your family members have points, you can also tell customer service that you want to combine them so you can redeem the Hotel + Air Package / Travel Package together.
  • My personal redemption experience: I dealt with all of the agents mentioned above, and ran into some of them multiple times. The whole calling process took about an hour, and it seemed to be right around the shift change from the India call center to the U.S. call center. After several rounds of A and F, I got B; then after switching again, the call got disconnected. After that it was basically C and D in rotation, and I finally got E and completed the redemption. My elite status was Gold, and LD was Silver; both came from credit cards. Based on my phone experience, no one brought up elite status at all.

Ways to Earn Marriott Points

There are several main ways to earn Marriott points:

  • Marriott hotel stays (10 points/$, with a 25% bonus for Silver and Gold members, and a 50% bonus for Platinum members)
  • Chase Marriott Premier sign-up bonus and spending (87,500 Marriott points as a sign-up bonus, 5x at hotels, 2x on airfare, dining, and car rentals)
  • Chase Ritz-Carlton spending (5x at hotels, 2x on airfare, dining, and car rentals; it previously had a 140,000 Marriott-point sign-up bonus)
  • Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) points 1:1 to Marriott via Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP)
  • Marriott shopping portal (https://marriott.rewards.com/)
  • United Airline Silver members can transfer points 1:1 (up to 50,000 per year)
  • Other Marriott members can transfer points to you (each person can transfer up to 50,000 to you per year, with a $10 fee)
  • Buy Marriott points directly (1.25 cent/point, annual cap of 50,000)
  • Combine points with other members when redeeming

The Foundation of the Travel Package

The points you or your family earn from staying at Marriott hotels, plus Marriott credit card sign-up bonuses, can be considered the foundation of a Travel Package. For people who do not stay at Marriott hotels very often, when there is no 140,000-point sign-up bonus on the Chase Ritz-Carlton, the only way to build up a large balance is usually by pooling sign-up bonuses from family members’ Chase Marriott Premier cards. If you do not even have the base points to begin with, then there is really no point in considering a Travel Package at all.

I want to emphasize the importance of base points here because the 7-night Cat 1-5 certificate in a Travel Package requires a fixed number of points. If you happen to need about 7 consecutive hotel nights, redeeming a Travel Package uses the same number of Marriott points as redeeming Marriott hotel stays directly. At the same time, transferring Marriott points to other programs without going through a Travel Package is usually a poor value. So rather than redeeming those points directly for hotels, it is better to use them as the foundation of a Travel Package. Once you have that base, all of your remaining Marriott points can be turned into more valuable airline miles through a Travel Package.

The bonus from the Travel Package

Suppose you already have the base 150,000 Marriott points. Then the remaining 120,000 points could come from UA and UR points. Some people may feel that transferring high-value UA or UR points (1.6 cents/point) into lower-value Marriott points (0.7 cents/point) is not worth it. But if you look further ahead, those points will ultimately become airline miles through the Travel Package, and redeeming for UA also gives an extra 10% bonus. Doesn’t that effectively make it like transferring UR to UA miles at 1:1.1? On top of that, you could also convert to programs such as AA and AC. Looking at it from another angle, the Travel Package allows your UR points to reach many major U.S. and European transfer partners at a 1:1-equivalent path. I will explain this in more detail in the next section. Therefore, in my opinion, if you are going to redeem a Travel Package and you have already chosen the airline miles program you want, it is best to use UR or UA points to force your balance up to the highest miles tier possible, so you can maximize the Travel Package bonus.

If you do not have the base 150,000 Marriott points, should you still use valuable UR and UA points to force your way into a Travel Package? That really depends on your own situation. If you have a lot of UR points and want miles with a non-UR transfer partner, then using a Travel Package to convert into other airline miles can still be a good option.

When UR should not be used to top off a Travel Package

In some cases, using valuable UR points to top off a Travel Package would be a bad idea. The main reason is that UR can be redeemed for cash at 1 point = 1 cent. If we can buy Marriott points at less than 1 cent each, then you could cash out UR and use that cash to buy even more Marriott points. In that case, transferring UR directly to Marriott at 1:1 would be kind of foolish.

When does this happen? The key is SPG point sale promotions. We know that SPG points can be transferred to Marriott at 1:3. So if we can buy SPG points for less than 3 cents/point, that is equivalent to buying Marriott points for less than 1 cent/point. In that case, it is actually better to cash out UR first and then use the cash to buy SPG points.

【3/16 update】 Buying points on the SPG website: now through 4/30 there is up to a 30% discount on purchased points through the SPG website:

The sweet spot is buying 20,000-30,000 points. If you buy 20,000 SPG points, it costs $490; if you buy 30,000 SPG points, it costs $735. That works out to 2.5 cents/point, which is below the 3 cents/point threshold discussed above. Since SPG point sales are processed through points.com, you can also get additional cashback.

So by simply watching SPG point sale promotions, you can decide whether it makes sense to use UR to transfer to Marriott points for a Travel Package. Of course, if you are only short by a small amount of Marriott points, then transferring a little UR to top off the balance is still acceptable.

Summary

Besides credit card sign-up bonuses and point transfers, Marriott’s shopping portal can also provide some points. However, the earning rates there are relatively low, so you are still better off using the UR Mall for online shopping rewards. As for buying points to top off a Travel Package, that approach is only suitable for people with a very strong need for airline miles, especially those redeeming for business or first class.

To sum it up, the best way to build toward a Travel Package is:

  • Mainly rely on credit card sign-up bonuses, use combining and sharing as supplements, patch the rest together through other methods, and use transfers to top off the balance

Best Uses of the Travel Package

After all of the discussion above about Travel Packages, let’s look at a few examples of how useful they can be. Of course, the premise is that you already have the base points needed for a Travel Package.

Use Case 1: Large-Scale Points Conversion

  • Convert UA miles: We know that UA miles cannot be transferred between UA accounts, let alone converted into AA miles, AS miles, or ANA miles—which would be amazing, since AA/AS/ANA are often much better value than UA for business class awards between the U.S. and China. But if you have UA Silver status, you can convert UA miles into Marriott points, and then use a Travel Package to turn them into AA miles, AS miles, or whatever miles you actually need. Of course, you could also first transfer them into your own Marriott account, then move the Marriott points to someone who has enough points to redeem a Travel Package, and then have that person convert them through the package into their UA miles. That is effectively the same as transferring your UA miles to that person.
  • Convert UR points: UR points are usually transferred to UA miles, but with a Travel Package, UR points can effectively be converted 1:1 into AA, AC, AS, ANA, and many other airline miles. This gives people who do not like using UA miles—or who feel UA is poor value for business or first class awards—a way to get much better use out of UR points. So with a Travel Package, UR points become one of the most flexible currencies you can have.

Use #2: Increase the value of your points

  • Boost UA miles: As we know, choosing UA miles in a Travel Package comes with a 10% bonus. So if you already have UA miles, you could first convert them into Marriott points, then convert them back into UA miles through a Travel Package. Wouldn’t that increase those UA miles by 10% for free?
  • Boost UR points: If you want to transfer UR points to UA miles, why not first convert your UR points into Marriott points, then convert them into UA miles through a Travel Package and pick up that extra 10% bonus?
  • Boost Marriott points: You can also use a Travel Package to convert lower-value Marriott points into higher-value airline miles. Not bad!

Use #3: Stack transfer bonuses for even more value

UA, AA, and AC have all offered bonuses for converting hotel points into their miles, usually in the 20%-25% range. These promotions tend to appear several times a year, so transferring during a bonus period can mean getting even more value on top of an already valuable deal.

For example, the two promotions below:

When transferring hotel points to UA, you could earn an extra 25% in UA miles, and Travel Packages also trigger this 25% bonus! So if you redeem a Travel Package during such a promotion, you could get Marriott points converted to miles at 1:1 + a 10% UA mileage bonus + a 25% UA mileage bonus. That is pretty awesome.

When transferring hotel points to Air Canada (AC), you could earn about 25% extra AC miles, and Travel Packages also trigger this 25% bonus! So if you redeem a Travel Package during such a promotion, you could get Marriott points converted to miles at 1:1 + a 25% AC mileage bonus. Still a very solid deal.

If you are interested in stacked deals, keep an eye on:

Use #4: Southwest Companion Pass

A Travel Package can also be redeemed for Southwest Airline points, and those points count toward the requirement for the Companion Pass (CP). With CP, you can redeem miles for one person and get a companion ticket added for free, which is basically buy one, get one free.

Suppose you have 270,000 Marriott points. If you redeem them for a cat1-5 seven-night package + 120,000 SW points, you can immediately earn CP. Keep in mind that Marriott points themselves are worth about 0.7 cent/point, so 270,000 points are worth only about $1,890. But after converting to SW and earning CP, the value of CP + 120,000 miles alone is about $3,840, meaning that seven-night CAT 5 hotel stay is basically free! For a more detailed introduction to CP, see:

Use #5: The legendary small package

Maybe redeeming for 7 consecutive nights feels out of reach. But in fact, besides the standard 7-night Travel Package, Marriott also has an internal 5-night mini package. It requires fewer points, while the airline mileage chart is the same as the 7-night version.

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Image from Frequent Miler blog

This 5-night redemption does not appear on the official website and is only available to Marriott Time Share and Vacation Club members. However, it is said that if you ask customer service, some agents may still let you book this smaller package. My suggestion is that if you want to redeem it, try calling a few times to see whether you can get one of these mini packages. The reason is that the ratio of airline miles to total Marriott points is better than with the 7-night package, so more Marriott points are effectively being boosted in value. Of course, another reason is that 5 nights may simply be more practical for many trips.

Conclusion

If you already have a decent base of Marriott points, Marriott Travel Packages can be extremely versatile and valuable. At the moment, Marriott credit cards offer the highest rewards. If you apply together with family members, you could quickly put together the base 170,000 Marriott points needed for the lowest-tier mini package.

For more analysis on how to use and redeem Travel Packages, see: