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Get a free Marriott night with the free Marriott Rewards credit card

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The Marriott Rewards Mastercard is, to be honest, as ‘middle of the road’ and unexciting as your average Marriott hotel.  I’m not sure that was ever the plan but that is how it worked out.

The card is free

The sign-up bonus is 10,000 Marriott points – just 20% of what you need to stay at a top Marriott hotel

The earnings rate is just 1 Marriott point per £1, which given my 0.5p per point valuation means a return of just 0.5%

You get double points when you use the card at a Marriott property or abroad

You receive Silver status in Marriott Rewards – but that isn’t worth much

And the only novelty factor – you get 2000 Marriott points every year as a loyalty bonus, which is generous given that the card is free (albeit that is only 5% of a top tier redemption!)

My full review of the Marriott Rewards Mastercard can be found here.

This week, however, Marriott Rewards has emailed selected members with an interesting offer.

You will receive a free night in any Category 1-5 Marriott hotel when you take out the card and spend £200, on top of the usual 10,000 points.

The free night is valid for six months from the date that the voucher is dropped into your Marriott Rewards account.

Marriott has seven reward categories and the ‘smart’ hotels are heavily weighted towards the top end.  In the UK, a Category 5 would only get you a night at the Marriott in Leeds for example.

The free night is probably still worth around £100 if used wisely, despite the Category 5 restriction.  Even if you don’t collect Marriott Rewards points, you can convert the 10,000 points you also receive for getting the card into 2,000 Avios.

Until November, you can also earn an extra 2,000 Marriott Rewards per month by ‘liking’ certain US Marriott hotels on Twitter and Facebook.

How to apply

The special application form for the Marriott ‘free night’ offer is here (EDIT: deleted as offer now over).

When you click through to the application form you will see a box for a ‘Promotional Code’.  Whilst this box does not auto-fill, for safety I would type MTE614 in the box which is the code for this deal.

Anyone who has previously held and cancelled the Marriott credit card will not qualify for this offer.

If you do not already have a Marriott Rewards account, I strong recommend opening one via this page (click top right) before you apply.  If you wait for the credit card people to do it for you, it may take months before you can tease the number and password out of them!

There is no closing date stated on the website but the covering email said that you had to apply by the end of July.

Bigger than usual disclaimer

There is nothing in the small print to say that this offer is only open to recipients of the original email.

Given that people often use different email addresses for different things, and often have business addresses on loyalty card accounts, they cannot realistically check applications against the list of members targetted.

That said …. if you do not receive your free night, you don’t have a leg to stand on, apart from claiming that you found the application page via Google and there were no restrictions on it.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

Marriott Bonvoy

Comments (42)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Evan says:
    4 Jul4 July 07:49

    Rob, you possibly can but don’t count on it. From my experience, these PointSavers rewards are very rarely available. That might just be me though.

    On another note, the wife and I stayed at the Courtyard Berlin over Christmas using our megabonus certificates and it was a lovely, no frills, clean, great location hotel. Highly suggested.

    • Rob says:
      4 Jul4 July 07:53

      So the ‘PointSavers Reward’ is a sale like IHG point breaks in which you get a cat.3 room for 10,000 points, but normally you’d get a cat.2 room for 10,000 points?

    • trickster says:
      4 Jul4 July 09:54

      You could easily be describing the Courtyard in Munich there too – great breakfast too.

  • andystock says:
    4 Jul4 July 08:08

    Raffles, any news on what is happening with the Hilton Honnors credit card, had a look on thier site this morning and it was completly down?

    • Nick says:
      4 Jul4 July 08:17

      The HHonors card online function has now moved to the Barclaycard platform as of the 23rd June.

      barclaycard.co.uk

      You may need to register your new card.

      • ankomonkey says:
        4 Jul4 July 09:33

        I’ve tried on two separate days to register my new HH card at mybarclaycard and got an error each time. I called Barclaycard card services (on an 0844 number) and they told me to wait a few days as they had IT problems. I got £5 statement credit from them. May be worth trying to register with the aim of earning a statement credit…

        • Nick says:
          4 Jul4 July 09:48

          Well done on the fiver! I can confirm that I was able to register my new HHonors Visa card last week, and can now view the account at the Barclaycard site. As you say, it sounds like solely an IT issue. The Barclaycard site is 100% times better than the old site, with a lot of additional information you can view about spend, etc.

        • trickster says:
          4 Jul4 July 09:55

          I had issues registering the IHG card online with mybarclaycard, but they sorted it out over the phone – no $5 credit though,

    • nick says:
      4 Jul4 July 08:50

      I found two links to the new card on the barclaycard website yesterday. Clicking the ‘apply now ‘ button on one of the links takes you to a page telling you that they are updating the ihg credit card and you can apply for it from 23 June; the other link takes you to the application page for the hhonors card. My application was referred so yet to find out if I was accepted.

    • Nick says:
      4 Jul4 July 11:56

      Follow-up on this: you can not use the voucher at what it describes (and lists) as “distinctive hotels”. I know all-inclusive hotels were excluded so no change there, but is the “distinctive hotels” exclusion new?

  • Redwood says:
    4 Jul4 July 08:20

    Oh no! I’ve just applied for this card and got it last week, with a HUGE £10,000 credit limit! I was gobsmacked when I saw the limit but I’d much rather receive a free night than £10k limit. Honestly, 1k would have been just fine.
    So I wonder, given that I’ve only just got my card, what are the chances of me teasing this free night deal out of them? Any ideas how to go about it?

    • Rob says:
      4 Jul4 July 09:58

      If you ring and say you got a letter at home last night they might have sympathy. Probably only requires them to add the code to the system.

      • Redwood says:
        4 Jul4 July 10:22

        Thanks for the advice Raffles. I rang Marriott Rewards and explained the situation but they asked if I could send a copy of the mail to them as they have no access to promotions. I gave her the web page instead and she said she’ll speak to the Creation rep who sits in their office about making me part of this promotion but that person is on holiday till Monday. Hopefully they’ll be able to make an exception :). Got all my fingers crossed. Thanks again

    • Col A-B says:
      5 Jul5 July 12:48

      Oh My Word!!
      I’ve just applied & been given a £10k limit too – that’s a shocking amount!

  • Chico Dusty says:
    4 Jul4 July 08:32

    Received this offer in the post yesterday. Was quite surprised to see Marriott finally improving their credit card offering. Will apply today.

    • Rob says:
      4 Jul4 July 09:57

      Thanks. If there is any extra info in the letter to add to what I posted here, please let us know.

  • Gabe says:
    4 Jul4 July 09:15

    I was wondering if you could spend the £200 pound slowly until you want the 6 month window.

    • Rob says:
      4 Jul4 July 09:55

      Not sure, you’d need to check the small print. That said, spending it promptly should get the voucher in your account by early August at a guess so scope to use it Aug / Sep whilst sunny.

    • Redwood says:
      4 Jul4 July 10:27

      The welcome pack doesn’t specify how this £200 needs to be spent. I’m guessing as long as your spend totals £200 in 6 months from account opening then you’ll be fine for the 10,000 reward points 🙂

  • Roger says:
    4 Jul4 July 09:29

    2nd para above: please ignore last four words.

  • ankomonkey says:
    4 Jul4 July 09:39

    Regarding the 2000 Marriott points for liking properties on Facebook/Twitter, how are people finding this? I am getting less than 50% success on Facebook. I’ve pretty much liked every property and less than half of them have sent the e-mail saying I’ll get the points if I still like them a week later. In month 1 only 1500 posted (6 e-mails) so I had to try several others until two more got the e-mail and, subsequently, the points. For month 2 I’ve exhausted the rest of the list and still only have 7 e-mails.

    I’m hoping un-liking and re-liking the successful properties in later months will work. Otherwise there aren’t enough properties that post the points to reach the goal of 10000 points… Am I alone in having such poor success with getting these to work?

    • Rob says:
      4 Jul4 July 09:53

      I got 6 in month 1 and 5 this month …. just working down the Twitter list on Dr of Credit, not started on Facebook yet

      • Simon says:
        4 Jul4 July 09:55

        I got all 8 in month one, and zero across 2 account in month 2. Just about to go for month 3.

        • Redwood says:
          4 Jul4 July 10:34

          I got 8 in month 1 and only 5 x 250 points in month 2 despite getting 8 of the initial thank you for liking/following us emails, and a week later 6 emails to say you’ve been credited 250 points. Don’t know what went wrong but still happy

    • Simon says:
      5 Jul5 July 16:21

      First month was ok.

      Facebook wasn’t working for me in the 2nd month, I liked 3 properties over a period of a week and got no emails so stuck with Twitter, then last week I got 3 emails one after the other saying I’d get 250 points for each of the Facebook properties so I assumed they had fixed a bug in the app.

      I didn’t get the points though, my Twitter likes and tweets meant I couldn’t earn another 250 points as it would take me over 2000 for the 30 day period.

    • Brendan says:
      14 Jul14 July 20:41

      Yeah noticed that too, annoying!

  • danksy says:
    4 Jul4 July 11:18

    I used your link for Marriot Rewards and took a punt on the card too 😀

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