Marriott 2,500 bonus points per stay promotion, and a potential trick

Marriott has finally revealed a new global promotion for bonus points, which you can register here.

The terms are:

  • Valid for stays between 13 August and 18 October
  • You earn 2,500 bonus points for each paid stay
  • After three paid stays, you earn a one-time bonus of 5,000 points in addition

Just like its previous promotions, stays paid for using points are not eligible for bonus points. This promotion is fairly generous by Marriott standard, although I thought it would be for at least three months given people’s motivation for travel is going to stay low for quite a while.

Note that the bonus is per stay, and splitting a stay into separate bookings won’t work, as long as they are consecutive nights at the same hotel. A usual way to work around this is by switching between two hotels every day, although it’s a fair bit of work just to earn some points!

There is an interesting trick in China though – Marriott has very close partnership with the travel platform Fliggy (subsidiary of Alibaba), and stays booked through Fliggy are valid for points and night credits accrual too. It turns out to be impossible, or at least difficult to merge bookings if they are from mixed platforms, so a one-night reservation via Marriott followed by another via Fliggy is likely to give you two set of welcome / bonus points, even if they are at the same hotel.

Fliggy works only in China, or at least in Chinese though. Whether there’s another platform like it I have no idea, as usually third-party bookings won’t earn you any points at all.

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