Marriott Bonvoy · Guide
How to read a Marriott award quote
Marriott is dynamically priced like IHG, but it has a benefit worth more than the pricing model — Stay for 5, Pay for 4 — and a certificate system that quietly conflicts with it. So the interesting question here usually isn't points versus cash. It's which of three ways to book the same stay, and the calculator costs out all three.
Where each number comes from
| Field | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|
| Nights | Your stay. Crossing five changes the answer materially. |
| Cash rate | Nightly rate on marriott.com before tax. |
| Tax | From the cash quote. |
| Resort fee | Per night. Marriott charges this on award stays at every status level, so it's owed either way. |
Show the remaining 7 fields
| Points quoted | Total for the stay using the Points rate on marriott.com. |
| Quote already has the free night | Marriott applies Stay for 5 automatically at booking, so if you pulled a five-night total from the site it probably already reflects it. Tick accordingly. |
| Your point value | 0.75¢ default, reflecting the 2026 devaluation. Older calculators still use 0.89¢, which is stale. |
| Brand base earn | 10x at most brands. 5x at Residence Inn, TownePlace, Element, City Express, Protea, Four Points Flex, Apartments and Executive Apartments. 4x at StudioRes. Per Program Rules §2.1.a. |
| Elite tier | Silver +10%, Gold +25%, Platinum +50%, Titanium and Ambassador +75%, applied to base points only. |
| Card earn on folio | 6x with a Bonvoy co-brand. Marriott's own base and elite points exclude tax, resort charges and gratuities (§2.1.c), but your card issuer pays on the total charge — which is why card earn is a separate line here. |
| Certs on hand / cap | How many free night awards you'd consider spending, and their cap: 35,000 / 50,000 / 85,000 from the co-brand cards, 40,000 from the Platinum-and-above Choice Benefit. |
Reading the result
- The verdict at the top answers points versus cash, same as the other calculators.
- The three cards below the ladder are the real output. All points, certificates plus points, and all cash — each costed in your own dollars, with the cheapest highlighted and the others showing how much more they'd cost.
- Read the line under the certificate card carefully. It's doing the thing this tool exists for: telling you when spending a certificate makes you worse off.
- Certificates are shown as a separate row rather than priced, because they're an asset you hand over, not a cost. The card tells you what handing it over actually bought.
- At four nights a flag appears pointing out that a fifth night is usually close to free in points terms.
Watch for
- The certificate trap, in one sentence: certificate nights don't count toward the five-night requirement. Put a cert on one night of a five-night stay and you're left with four points-nights, the comp disappears, and the cert has bought you nothing. On a six-night stay the same cert leaves five points-nights and you get both. The comparison works this out for your exact stay.
- Stay for 5 repeats. A ten-night points booking comps the two cheapest nights, not one.
- What it doesn't apply to. Program Rules §3.3.c states free night awards are not eligible for the Stay for 5, Pay for 4 offer. The offer also excludes Premium Room Redemption Awards, Cash + Points Awards, and Nightly Upgrade Awards.
- Certificates have no residual value. The rules are explicit: apply a cert to a night worth less than the cert and you forfeit the difference with no refund. Burn an 85,000-point cert on a 30,000-point night and 55,000 evaporates. The wasted-capacity figure tracks this.
- Top-off is capped at 25,000 points, which you may redeem or purchase. If a night costs more than your cert cap plus 25,000, the cert can't reach it — the tool says so rather than silently modeling it.
- Room tax is covered, resort fees aren't. An Award Redemption Stay includes the room and room tax; incidentals and resort fees stay on you. That asymmetry is already built into the calculation.
- Points expire after 24 months of no earning, redeeming or purchasing activity. Marriott sells points at $12.50 per 1,000 — 1.25¢ each — outside promotions, which is well above what they're worth, so buying is rarely the move.
Official references
Free Night Award redemption How certificates work, what they cover, and confirmation that resort fees remain your responsibility. marriott.com/loyalty/redeem/free-night-award-redemption.mi Supplemental terms Separate rules for All-Inclusive, MGM Collection, Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection and other partial participants. marriott.com/loyalty/terms/supplemental-terms.mi