Marriott Rewards Changes: Marriott Details its New Cash + Points Awards

Just recently, Marriott teased their upcoming changes to their Marriott Rewards program, with a promise to provide more details this week. One of the new benefits, Points Advance has actually been around for a while now, but the other three changes are actually new.

As reported, these are all positive changes. The only addition that required a detailed description is the program's new Cash + Points redemptions. This is apparently a mix of cash and points to cover single or multi-night redemption stays.

The cash and points amounts allegedly increase depending on the hotel category or tier in the case of the Ritz-Carlton. However, the increase isn't proportionate to the full points redemption amount since the amount that a client will shell out for each point differs depending on the category.

With a Category 5 hotel, the client will need to redeem 25,000 points or 14,000 points + $65. That means that there is a difference of 11,000 points by paying $65, which works out to just 0.59 cents per point. According to The Points Guy, TPG values Marriott Rewards points at 0.7 cents each. With a Category 9 hotel, there's a requirement to redeem 45,000 points or 28,000 points + $220, which will purchase those 17,000 points at 1.29 cents each.

Just last week, Marriott has teased us with a few upgrades to Marriott Rewards to be announced next week. As mentioned in Road Warrior Voices, these new changes will cause a move up in a spot or two in the rankings of the hotel rewards programs.

And with regards to the Points Sharing, it has allegedly started on October 12. Rewards members are able to have the ability to share points between family and friends, up to 50,000 points per year. The Redemption Stay Credit is also a plus. This one will be launching in November. Marriott Rewards members will earn Elite night credits for stays booked with redemption points.

But that's just not only the big surprises Marriott has installed for their valued customers. The Marriott Rewards Insiders blog claimed that the details will be spilled out about the total alterations of the program in an upcoming announcement.

Meanwhile, despite some claims that other programs already offer cash and points redemptions, Marriott is still pursuing their program changes to catch up with other hotel deals. And for their happy customers, Marriott purportedly give other options and rewards for the next year.