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Marriott’s secret award chart (Updated with the latest devaluation numbers)
In 2022, Marriott abandoned award charts. Previously, if you knew a hotel’s category, you also knew how many points it would require for a free night, at least within a range from off-peak to peak pricing. That was helpful for planning for future stays and it meant that when cash prices were unusually high, you […] The post Marriott’s secret award chart (Updated with the latest devaluation numbers) appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.
In 2022, Marriott abandoned award charts. Previously, if you knew a hotel’s category, you also knew how many points it would require for a free night, at least within a range from off-peak to peak pricing. That was helpful for planning for future stays and it meant that when cash prices were unusually high, you knew you could get great value from your points since the point prices were capped. Surprisingly, all of that is still true if you know where to look. Seal the Deal Travels has discovered how to find each hotel’s secret category and they’ve put together an accompanying award chart. With just a little effort you can discover each hotel’s award price range…
Overview
Seal the Deal Travels has discovered that Marriott still assigns a category to each hotel. Further, they’ve found that most categories have strict limits to how many points can be charged for a night. Seal the Deal Travels used this information to create an award chart that shows current Marriott award pricing. The emphasis on “current” is important: Marriott changes these pricing bands once or twice a year.
The basic approach to finding a hotel’s award price range is as follows:
- Identify the hotel’s secretly assigned category
- Check Seal the Deal Travels‘ award chart (also shown in this post) to see the award price range.
One of the reasons that this technique is useful, is that it can give you a good idea of what can be done with your Marriott Free Night Certificates. You can use the secret award chart to see which category hotels can always be booked, sometimes booked or never booked with your certs (keeping in mind that you can top-off each cert with up to 15,000 points).
How to find a hotel’s category (except for Ritz-Carlton & Reserve)
Within a browser, first find the hotels award pricing for any specific night. Make sure to click through to “View Rates” to see the specific pricing for each room type. Then, right-click on the page and click “view page source“.
Once you are viewing the HTLM page source, simply search (Ctrl-F) for “prop_rewards_category_level”. In this example, the hotel I was looking at is category 6:
For Ritz-Carlton & Reserve properties, please see Seal the Deal Travels post for instructions.
Secret Award Chart
The following award price ranges were discovered and documented by Seal the Deal Travels. It is possible that some of the details aren’t 100% accurate since the values were based on what was available at the time that they searched. For example, the low-end award prices may be off because they may not have found a hotel priced at the lowest amount possible for every category that they searched. Additionally, it is very likely that Marriott will change these details in the future. For now, though, here’s what we have:
| Category | Minimum/Night | Maximum/Night |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5,000 | 18,000 |
| 2 | 10,000 | 28,000 |
| 3 | 15,000 | 36,500 |
| 4 | 22,000 | 55,000 |
| 5 | 35,000 | 76,000 |
| 6 | 40,000 | 88,000 |
| 7 | 50,000 | 105,000 |
| 8 | 52,000 | 140,000 |
| 9 | 88,000 | 152,000 |
| Exceptions | ||
| • St Regis & Ritz Carlton Maldives | 108,000 | 198,000 |
| • JW Marriott Masai Mara | 192,000 | 236,000 |
| • Ritz-Carlton Reserve Zadun | 125,000 | 212,000 |
| • St Regis Red Sea | 125,000 | 212,000 |
| • Ritz-Carlton Reserve Dorado Beach | 163,000 | 254,000 |
| • Nujuma, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve | 187,500 | 327,500 |
| • North Island, Seychelles | 443,000 | 605,000 |
Analysis
The secret award chart can be used to evaluate the usefulness of Marriott’s various Free Night Certificates. Common certificate values are 35K, 40K, 50K, and 85K and each can be topped off with up to 15K points.
35K Certs: These can be used on properties costing up to 50,000 points per night. All category 1-3 hotels can be booked with these certs. Additionally, category 4-6 hotels can be booked with these certs when priced at the lower end of the range. And category 7 hotels can be booked when priced at the absolute lowest end of the range.
40K Certs: These can be used on properties costing up to 55,000 points per night. All category 1-4 hotels can be booked with these certs. Additionally, category 5-7 hotels can be booked with these certs when priced at the lower end of the range.
50K Certs: These can be used on properties costing up to 65,000 points per night. Like 40K certs, these can be used to book any category 1-4 hotel. Additionally, category 5-8 hotels can be booked with these certs when priced at the mid or lower end of the range.
85K Certs: These can be used on properties costing up to 100,000 points per night. All category 1-6 hotels can be booked with these certs. Additionally, category 7, 8 and 9 hotels can be booked with these certs when priced at the lower end of the range.
None of the Exception hotels can be booked with any free night certificates.
Chart History
The following chart shows Marriott’s maximum pricing over time. This is a way to see Marriott’s point-price inflation. For example, between early 2022 to late 2023, the maximum price for category 5 hotels increased from 40,000 points to 69,000 points. That was a 72.5% increase. And then in 2025 the price increased to 76,000 points, which is a 10% increase over the 2023 price and a 90% increase over the early 2022 price.
| Category | Max thru 3/29/22 | Max Late 2023 | Max Early 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10,000 | 16,000 | 18,000 |
| 2 | 15,000 | 23,000 | 28,000 |
| 3 | 20,000 | 25,000 | 36,500 |
| 4 | 30,000 | 46,000 | 55,000 |
| 5 | 40,000 | 69,000 | 76,000 |
| 6 | 60,000 | 76,000 | 88,000 |
| 7 | 70,000 | 92,000 | 105,000 |
| 8 | 100,000 | 130,000 | 140,000 |
| 9 | N/A | 150,000 | 152,000 |
| >9 | N/A | 385,000 | 605,000 |
Bottom Line
Marriott still maintains an award chart but it’s hidden from customers. The good news is that, at least for now, award prices aren’t fully dynamic. This means that even when a hotel’s cash rate is astronomically high, the point price (if available) won’t be more than the top price in the award chart. So, it’s still possible to get far outsized value from Marriott points under the right circumstances.
The post Marriott’s secret award chart (Updated with the latest devaluation numbers) appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.
