Marriott Full Dynamic Pricing Live for 2023 Bookings
UPDATE: Second round of devaluation starting March 2023. Read more about it here. See how Marriott still assign award categories to their hotels on the backend.
It seems Marriott has implemented the full dynamic pricing for bookings starting in 2023. So I dug deeper by playing around with the flexible calendar in 2023 on hotels that I stayed at or piqued my interests that I can remember which Category they used to belong to when Marriott Bonvoy still had their award chart.
In 2022, Marriott introduced dynamic pricing, but the points requirements are still bound to the former award chart. In 2023, Marriott would “take the gloves off” by implementing the full dynamic pricing model. Now, there seems to be traces of them when you try to book hotels in 2023 on points.
I will reference Marriott’s former award chart as it’ll be useful still as reference and what we could expect going forward in 2023 with Marriott’s dynamic pricing.
Keep in mind that I would mostly show 1 example only on each Categories on this post. I made sure to look up multiple properties on each Categories to make sure that they’re consistent with my theories. Obviously with Marriott’s 8000+ hotel footprint, I cannot manually check every hotels out there. But, feel free to play around with the calendar for your hotels of interest with their matching former Category to see if they’re consistent with this post.
Category 1 Hotel
I used Courtyard Tashkent as an example for a Category 1 hotel. I had first-hand knowledge that this was a Category 1 hotel, and redeemed 8000 points for 1 night at this hotel from my recent Central Asia trip.
As you can see, the hotel would charge 10,500 points per night on certain dates in August 2023. This exceeds the former Category 1 Peak rate at 10,000 pts per night. A max of 5% increase from former Peak.
But, we can still have the chance to book it at the original Category 1 range of 5000-10000 pts/night as shown on July 30,2023. Keep in mind that the price amount can change up or down over time with dynamic pricing model.
Category 2 Hotel
I used Baku Marriott Hotel Boulevard as an example for a Category 2 hotel. While I did not stay here on my Azerbaijan trip last year, I’m quite familiar with the Marriott pricing in that country.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 16,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 2 Peak rate of 15,000 pts/night. A max of 6.67% increase from former Peak. Also, the date of April 30 is also when the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix happen in 2023. Coincidence? I think not.
Category 3 Hotel
I used Sheraton Bishkek as an example for a Category 3 hotel. Indeed, I stayed here for a night on my last night in Kyrgyzstan and redeemed 17,000 points for it.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 21,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 3 Peak rate of 20,000 pts/night. A max of 5% increase from former Peak.
Category 4 Hotel
I used W Istanbul as an example for a Category 4 hotel that I stayed at on a trip to Turkiye in earlier 2022.
I struggled to find Category 4 hotels that have the award redemption rate exceeding the original Peak rate of 30,000 pts/night. I tried looking into other former Category 4 properties like St. Regis Astana, Ritz-Carlton Almaty, W Doha, W Amman, and Marriott Mena House, Cairo. Could it change in the future? Who knows. But, do let me know if you can find a Category 4 hotel exceeding 30k points per night in 2023!
Category 5 Hotel
I used The Ritz-Carlton, Astana as an example for a Category 5 hotel that I stayed at recently in Kazakhstan.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 42,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 5 Peak rate of 40,000 pts/night. A max of 5% increase from former Peak.
If these prices would stay true for the former Category 5 in 2023, then it’d still be possible to redeem a 35,000 Free Night Certificate with up to 7000 points top up at its most Peak rate. Back then before the top up feature, you wouldn’t be able to redeem the 35k certificates on Category 5 hotels at Peak rate of 40k pts/night. So, there’s a bit of a relief that you’d have no problem with redeeming the FNC on the former Category 5 hotels in 2023 as long as you have the points to top up.
Category 6 Hotel
I used Hotel Citrine in Palo Alto as an example for a Category 6 hotel.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 63,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 6 Peak rate of 60,000 pts/night. A max of 5% increase from former Peak.
If these prices would stay true for the former Category 6 in 2023, then it’d still be possible to redeem a 50,000 Free Night Certificate with up to 13,000 points top up at its most Peak rate. Back then before the top up, you wouldn’t be able to redeem the 50k certificates on Category 6 hotels at Peak rate of 60k pts/night. So, there’s a bit of a relief that you’d have no problem with redeeming the FNC on the former Category 6 hotels in 2023 as long as you have the points to top up.
Category 7 Hotel
I used the Palace Hotel in San Francisco as an example for a Category 7 hotel.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 74,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 7 Peak rate of 70,000 pts/night. A max of ~5.71% increase from former Peak.
Category 8 Hotel
I used The St. Regis San Francisco as an example for a Category 8 hotel.
The highest rate for 1 night for this hotel that I found is 106,000 pts/night. This exceeds the former Category 8 Peak rate of 100,000 pts/night. A max of ~6% increase from former Peak.
Keep in mind that Marriott increased the points requirement of some hotels up to 30,000 points (PDF). All of them turned out to be former Category 7 hotels. You could say that they’re former Category 7 hotel turned Category 8 as they now share points requirement range. I used The Bodrum EDITION as an example of the affected property.
The concerning part of this is that it won’t be possible to use the 85,000 FNC from the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant or The Ritz-Carlton Card, even with the 15,000 points top up, at certain dates. Thus, flexibility in your scheduling would be required if you want to use those FNC’s.
Hotel with 120,000 Points per Night Max
Some former Category 8 hotels had the points requirement increased by up to 20,000 points, thus requiring a max of 120,000 points for a night. A well-known affected property is the Al Maha Desert Resort in Dubai.
Throw in The Ritz-Carlton Maldives for good measure.
While it’s unfortunate that some of the most aspirational hotels can now cost 120,000 pts/night, the good news is that I couldn’t find anything exceeding 120k pts/night. The silver lining is that it’s easier to plan ahead if you’re interested in these types of properties knowing that they won’t cost beyond 120k a night. It’s also still possible to top up 85,000 pts FNC on certain dates at these kind of hotels as long as you’re flexible, or even be willing to go on off-season like monsoon season in Maldives, or scorching hot Dubai in July.
Conclusion
Here’s a visual representation of the upcoming points requirement increase to expect in 2023:
| Category | 2022 Max Points/Night | 2023 Max Points/Night | % Max Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10,000 | 10,500 | 5 |
| 2 | 15,000 | 16,000 | 6.67 |
| 3 | 20,000 | 21,000 | 5 |
| 4 | 30,000 | 30,000 | 0 |
| 5 | 40,000 | 42,000 | 5 |
| 6 | 60,000 | 63,000 | 5 |
| 7 | 70,000 | 74,000 | 5.71 |
| 8 | 100,000 | 106,000 | 6 |
| 120k Pts Max | 120,000 | 120,000 | 0 |
It’s very interesting that most Categories increase up to 5% maximum compared to the original award chart Peak rate. It’s also a bit reassuring that the properties with 120k points max requirement don’t go beyond that (hopefully).
To be honest, if these changes are true, then it won’t be as bad as many people thought. In all Categories, Marriott appears to put a cap on the max amount of points required for redemption. If you’re flexible, you can still book on the original points range. But, I’d still be cautious, or optimistically cautious at most since things can change in the future. It could serve as a good precursor on what’s to come in 2023.
I highly suggest that you book as early as you can on the hotels you want, and on the dates you want to lock in the prices to adapt to dynamic pricing. Since points booking have very generous free cancellation policy, you can periodically check the prices over time before checking in. If you then see lower prices, you can simply update your booking and get some points back from your original booking.
St Regis Bora Bora Category 8 they just maxed at 126k from 120k.
Yes, there’s a systematic change recently across the board :(. Check my new post about it (https://sealthedealtravels.com/blog/marriott-bonvoy-devaluation-march-2023/)