When Marriott Bonvoy first announced that it was introducing peak and off-peak pricing, we all assumed that it would look something like the peak and off-peak chart used for British Airways Avios redemptions. (The 2020 Avios peak and off-peak calendar is here.)
We thought we would see whole months, or at least chunks of weeks, marked as either peak, off-peak or standard. We were wrong.
What has actually happened is that hotels jump between peak, standard and off-peak reward pricing from day to day.
We touched on this on Sunday in Anika’s review of Marriott Canary Wharf but I wanted to look at it in more detail. Marriott Canary Wharf is a good example because, as a Central London hotel, there are substantial swings in the cash price from day to day depending on how many events are going on in the city.
Here is the Bonvoy redemption pricing for October 2019 (click to enlarge):
Of the 31 days in October, there is redemption availability on 24 of them:
1 night is ‘peak’ at 40,000 Bonvoy points
16 nights are ‘standard’ at 35,000 Bonvoy points
7 nights are ‘off-peak’ at 30,000 Bonvoy points
The distribution is random. Sundays are most likely to be off-peak, but not always. The only peak night is a Saturday which is usually low yield.
Let’s compare this to cash pricing though:
Cash prices go from £105 to a whopping £586.
When you look at the cash prices versus the points prices.
The one ‘peak’ night at 40,000 points is selling for just £177!
The seven ‘off peak’ nights at 30,000 points are selling for (in date order) £361, £161, £228, £105, £262, £216 and £220
The 24 ‘standard’ nights at 35,000 points are selling between £121 and £586
Put another way …..
The average price of an ‘off peak’ night is £221, but 1/3rd of the ‘Standard’ nights are priced at £224 or less.
What can we draw from this? Marriott Bonvoy, at least on this example, has not moved to a purely revenue-based redemption model. It is NOT as simple as saying ‘this hotel charges peak points when cash rates are above £xxx and off-peak points when cash rates are below £yyy’.
Is this good or bad? Is it actually better for members that the allocation is fairly random? I’m honestly not sure. The more random it is, the more chance of being able to get ‘outsized’ value on a redemption, but it also means that there will be more occasions when points look like bad value.
In reality, we need to give Bonvoy a bit of time to bed down the peak and off-peak methodology. For now, though, you need to take extra care to compare points rates and cash rates when planning a redemption to ensure you are getting good value.
How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points via UK credit cards
As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Marriott Bonvoy points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!
Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Marriott Bonvoy Gold status for as long as they hold the card? It also comes with Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Gold, Shangri-La Golden Circle Jade and Melia Rewards Gold status. We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here.
Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Marriott Bonvoy points.
About Head for Points
OT Was trying to find the PP lounge in T1 Frankfurt without luck. A quick search revealed that I can access with Amex Plat. A nice lounge it is too. Guessing much nicer than the PP one. https://www.americanexpress.com/us/campaigns/lufthansa/
I believe you have to be flying lufty though. I tried to get in flying AC and no joy
Indeed you do. Thankfully I was, plus with an hour delay, it was well worth it.
OT: Which cc lets you pay your bill with Revolut?
VM
How much have you been topping up on your Revolut via vm/ihg etc per week / month?
My VM has stopped taking curve as payment with hsbc prem cc in background. Anyone else having problems?
don’t think we said curve, but rather revolut!
IHG
Thank you
not Barclaycard
Apologies o/t but may be of interest to some… The Eurostar Carte Blanche threshold is rising to 2400 points or 32 journeys from 24th October.
Think bob may of covered this
Covered, I think., 4-6 weeks ago here by Rob.
At Rob’s coverage there was much mirth by posters that the excuse given by Eurostar is “for the comfort of passengers in the Eurostar lounge and…. bla bla”. Quick to spot was that the actual overcrowding of the Eurostar lounges, is not by Eurostar’s Carte Blanche (the level that has been hit by this change) customers, but all the Amex cardholders.
Yet for some reason Eurostar, who say they care so much for the comfort of passengers that they had to vastly increase the spend required with Eurostar to achieve Carte Blanche status, did not do the obvious and just stop accepting Amex cardholders (that don’;t have the required Eurostar status) into the Eurostar lounges.
I know this point of view may upset a lot of Amex cardholders here, however 🙂
Is the amex plat/eurostar tie up a bit of a cash cow then?
It’s “free money”, put it that way. Let’s imagine that Amex pays £500,000 per year (I figure I completely made up – but let’s assume 100 users per day across all the lounges of which Eurostar wants £15 per person) for the rights to let Plats use the lounge. It takes someone very sure of their job security to wave goodbye to that.
No problem with that.
It’s just that Eurostar takes their customers for fools. they are trying to say they raised the bar for entry to Carte Blanche at least partly because the Eurostar lounges got overcrowded – whereas the true Carte Blanche customers are, in fact, being squeezed out by the paying Amex customers.
I call it lying on the part of Eurostar and actually, making life worse for their best customers whilst lying about it.
The only thing that would have ****ed me off more about this is, if Eurostar had somehow used hte words “carefully curated” on this announcement. 🙂
What about ‘carelessly curated’?
Carte Blanche gives you fast track check-in (open until 10 minutes before departure), leading (in theory) to a fast track security/passport control lane, and IIRC allows you to bring a guest into the lounge.
Amex Plat gives you lounge access for yourself only, and none of the other benefits.
So the benefits are not really comparable. Granted, the fast track security/passport control experience isn’t always great (probably part of what they’re trying to fix) but the check-in queues at peak times are a huge difference.
On checking if a points stay booked in miami was any cheaper points wise under the new system i found an amenity charge of $22 per night was now on my booking that was not there at time of booking. I assume this is a new enchancement to the hotels facilities. Anybody any experience of avoiding paying in this scenario. I have email of original booking with no fee mentioned. I have the option of rebooking for 5K points less but this would lock me into the new amenity fee.
I have had charges, such as resort fees, removed from my bill at US hotels several times without problem when I pointed out that this was not notified on my confirmation (and produced said confirmation) so I do not think I should be obliged to pay it.
I would actually cancel, for this, if the hotel won’t put a note on my booking and give me an email that this extra charge will not be made.
It’s not always that bad a deal. Worth finding out what it gets you.
Recently paid $35 in NYC which got me $35 of F&B (2 great drinks in bar) and $50 in laundry (shirt, boxers, trousers/shorts) sorted I thought I did pretty well out of it going home with a clean suitcase of clothes rather than my usual dirty laundry.
So you save 5000 points but have to pay $22? Might be ok especially if the fee gets you something.
OT: Any recommendations for hotel in London for the fireworks, room with view or rooftop? Shangri-La too expensive. Anyone looked at Sunborn London?
Come to Edinburgh, both the party and the fireworks are better, celebration go on for days and it’s not dead like London over Xmas and New Year. Better still, if its fireworks you’re after then best option of all is Pattaya International Fireworks Festival; all New Year and Olympic displays are insignificant by comparison.
Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, especially the terrace suites.
OT i’m really struggling with the Monese promo.
I had an account already, added avios account, just added a tenner by bank transfer (Debit card just wouldn’t work), it’s showing “Oops there’s a problem” in promotions and I can’t figure out how to solve that to get into the Avios draw. please help!!!
also, how do I add PayPal?
I hope Ryanair charges Alex £100,000 then when he needs to get back to Spain.
Sorry Eli, that reply was meant to be to Anna.
I’m having problems with Jones too, having deposited £100, I can now not get anything out by the card or bank payment. A support message to them has not been answered in three days.
I should add hat i’m doing this from abroad!
can that be the source of all my troubles?
Reports in the media that BA tried to charge stranded (and jobless) Thomas Cook cabin crew $10k each for their only available seats (in CW) back from Las Vegas. They were told they couldn’t use jump seats as they are no longer cabin crew. Pretty low, if true.
Wouldn’t surprise me, sounds like typical BA behaviour
Absolutely outrageous.
I am sure there is some safety rule that would stop Thomas Cook crew even off-duty, using the jump seats on a BA aircraft.
However not to help the crew out by giving them, at least, BA staff rate equivalent (if not free) is just low.
The TC crew probably knew their airline was going under but went on duty anyway as “that’s the job”. They are even more deserving than those holidaymakers being rescued under ATOL. Probably they are owed wages as well.
As the Germans would say, “Gemein.” I hope other airlines are quietly helping out stranded TC crew.
The BA staff rate IS the jump seat; they standby for a normal seat then go to a jump if the flight is full.
Free tenner on the Post Office Travel Money Card – it’s because they’re giving a £15 bonus.
So you can factor in the worse exchange rate and ATM fee, which together were about £5 in my case, so I’m £10 up.
You can see the ATM fee chargeable for your currency in ‘Fees’, then add this on to the minimum loading (£50) and also make it a round ATM-withdrawable number so that you can withdraw the lot in one go when you are next abroad.
Card is delivered free to your address.
I’m also going to see if my wife can just pay it all online towards a bill out in our place in the sun, which might be neater for us.
Which cards can you load it with? I thought about getting one of these recently but as I recall it wouldn’t work with Curve.
I used my debit card as the credit cards have a habit of seeing it as a cash advance & charging you £5