Marriott Free Night Certificates

Hotel Strategies, Credit Card Reference

Every year you keep the Marriott Rewards credit card, you will receive a free night certificate good at a Category 1-5 (out of 9) hotel. You can also sometimes receive Marriott certificates from different promotions. However, occasionally these are only good at Category 1-4 hotels.

Marriott Credit Card Guide

With the changes from the new unified Marriott / SPG rewards program, you can receive free night certificates from all of he program's credit cards, the certificates are capped based on the points requirement of the hotel room (not the hotel category), and most of the certificates are capped at higher-levels.

Just to be clear, other hotels also limit their certificates to only certain categories of hotels, however Hyatt Category 4 hotels still include very nice Hyatt hotels in most cities, and even IHG 40,000 point-per-night certificates will get you a solid hotel in many fairly expensive locations, while Marriott Category 5 hotels would not provide any options.

Nevertheless, most people can still get value out of the certificate. There are thousands of available hotels, and it just isn’t that difficult to get more value than the $85 annual fee. Many of these hotels have room rates in the $150 per night range. Sometimes, rates are even higher. There are just better hotel night certificate options out there for most people, and you don’t want to get stuck with too many certificates to use effectively.

Quick take on the new Marriott certificates

The new Marriott certificates more valuable, because they will be capped at 35,000 points (or more) per night, rather than at the equivalent of 25,000 points per night, and can be used across the entire program, including SPG and Ritz hotels. The certificates can be used at many of the hotels that had previously been in Category 6, or even Category 7, at least during the non-peak season. B

You'll also be able to earn certificates from many more cards, and easily earn multiple certificates per year. The revised Marriott personal and business cards will now provide a 35,000 point certificate, the existing SPG cards will start providing certificates on anniversary dates after August 1st, and the new SPG premium card and revised Ritz card will provide 50,000 point certificates.

Card	Max Points	Annual Fee
Chase Marriott Premier Plus	35,000	$95
Amex SPG Personal	35,000	$95
Chase Marriott Business	35,000	$95
Amex SPG Business	35,000	$95
Amex SPG Luxury	50,000	$450
Chase Ritz Carlton Card	50,000	$450

For most people, with these changes, the Marriott / SPG certificates will probably become more valuable than the Hyatt and IHG certificates.

Great places to use your old certificates

Here’s some links to get your imagination going.

Since Marriott hasn't released the hotel categories for the new unified program, no one is exactly sure which hotels will fall into each point-level. As a result, no one has written any articles about the best available options.

Expiration rules

The stay must be completed within 12 months from the date of issue. Don’t let it expire.

If it looks like it is going to expire, you can try calling customer service to extend the certificate, explaining that you’ve been having trouble finding a stay in the right “category” of hotels. There are many reports of people able to get their certificates re-issued, but we wouldn’t count on it.