Marriott 2026 Devaluation
Here we go again. It looks like the Marriott Bonvoy program just got another devaluation. Award rates have increased year-over-year to the tune of around 13%, according to data from TPG. The change was first noticed earlier this week by Loyalty Lobby, after Chinese award booking sites presented 5-10% flash increases across a range of properties. This appears to be a global devaluation. Here's how much the Marriott 2026 devaluation will hurt.
How Bad Is It?
Here are some quick price increase examples reported by TPG and View from the Wing, the latter of which used data from Zaozao’s hotel tracking tool. Since Marriott does not have an award chart, these do not represent averages or fixed pricing. They are illustrative examples, and you may find lower or higher prices in your own searching.
| Property | Previous price | New price |
| W Osaka | 55,000 | 58,000 |
| Le Méridien Etoile | 61,000 | 64,000 |
| SpringHill Suites Springdale Zion National Park in Utah | 74,000 | 78,000 |
London EDITION | 107,000 | 115,000 |
| New York EDITION | 109,000 | 113,000 |
| Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong | 124,000 | 127,000 |
| Mystique, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Santorini in Greece | 126,000 | 172,000 |
| The St. Regis Punta Mita Resort in Mexico | 138,000 | 168,000 |
| Ritz-Carlton Maldives | 168,000 | 176,000 |
Thanks to the dynamic pricing, some jumps are much larger than others. Marriott prices rose an average of 13% over the course of the last year, according to TPG—but some properties saw staggering leaps as high as 36.5%.
How This Might Impact Redemptions
Where this gets particularly painful is for those who are banking on free night award redemptions. Earlier this year, Marriott increased the amount of points you could use to top off these redemptions. While they once could only be topped off with 15,000 points, the allowance recently improved to 25,000 points. That was a nice win at the time, but it may have already been eroded—and maybe even should have been a sign of what was coming.
Let's take a look at a few examples from articles ToP published back in January and February of this year with ideas for using those free night awards. From our article on 5 Great Domestic Options For Your Marriott 35,000 Point Certificates, we pulled pricing as low as 36,000 points per night at Walt Disney World Swan. Here's a sample view of the calendar now. It's also worth noting that I can no longer find a 36,000-point night anywhere on the calendar.
For our guide to Domestic Options For Your Marriott 50,000 Point Certificates, we highlighted the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage, where we found points rates starting at 56,000 points per night. The lowest night I'm finding anywhere on the calendar now costs 59,000 points.
Finally, our outline of Great Domestic Options For Your Marriott 85,000 Point Certificates admittedly featured higher-end properties that required deeper searches. It may have once been possible to find an 85,000-point-night at St. Regis, Bal Harbour, Miami, not long ago. But this is the cheapest pricing I see today:
Marriott 2026 Devaluation: ToP Thoughts
Are we shocked by a Marriott deval in 2026? Well, I wish we could be. That doesn't stop the sting, though. If you are sitting on free night certificates—or a stash of points—take this as your sign to burn them sooner rather than later. That stay you imagined yourself using them for? It's hard to say how much longer it will be in reach. Will the Marriott 2026 devaluation impact you? Come over to our Facebook group and let us know.
