The day was coming, we knew that. We just didn’t know what day that would be. We do now. In October 2021, Marriott announced it was going to abolish fixed rate award charts and introduce dynamic award pricing sometime in March 2022.

That sometime has now been revealed. Before I dig into the details, here’s what we already knew.

Previous Announcements

This is what Marriott had announced in October 2021 :

• Dynamic Award pricing comes into play in March 2022.
• In 2022, pricing for around 3% of the properties will exceed the current peak rates, while
  pricing for the remaining 97% of properties will remain within the current off-peak and
  peak rates.

• In 2023, all participating Marriott Bonvoy properties will be subject to dynamic pricing
  with no upper limit. These prices will closely reflect prevailing cash rates at the
  time.

• The ability to combine Free Night Certificates (FNC’s) with up to 15,000 points, sometime
  in early 2022.

While Marriott made these fairly broad announcements at the time, the finer details have only been revealed in the past day or two. Here’s the current Marriott award chart for reference.

New Announcements

Now lets go over the recent announcements one by one.

• The date on which dynamic pricing finally kicks in is 29th March 2022.
• From 29th March onwards, pricing for 200 properties (about 3%) will increase anywhere
  between 5,000 points and 30,000 points per night for the remainder of 2022.

• From 29th March onwards, pricing for the remaining 97% properties will no longer be fixed, but will remain within the current off-peak and peak rates for the remainder of 2022.
• Free Night Certificates (FNC’s) which are issued with a fixed rate value of up to 35,000,
  40,000 or 50,000 points will be able to be topped up with up to an additional 15,000 points
  from late April 2022. The actual date will be advised later.

How much are prices going up by exactly?

Off the 200 odd properties where dynamic pricing starts 29th March :

• 37 properties are going up in price by up to 5,000 points.
• 60 properties are going up in price by up to 10,000 points.
• 79 properties are going up in price by up to 20,000 points.
• 42 properties are going up in price by up to 30,000 points.

It’s not surprising that the biggest hit to value is mostly amongst the higher end Category 7 and 8 properties where cash rates often exceed $1,000 per night. For instance :

• The Bodrum Edition in Turkey, a Category 7 property which currently tops
  out at 70,000 points and provides excellent redemption value is going up by up to 30,000
  points.

• Le Meridien Maldives, a Category 5 property which currently tops out at
  40,000 points is going up by up to 20,000 points. That is a whopping 50% increase on current prices.

• Suiran, a Luxury Collection Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, a Category 8 property which currently tops out at 100,000 points is going up by 30,000 points.

You can check out the full list of properties over here.

My Thoughts

Devaluations are hard. It takes years of saving and thousands in spend to build up a meaningful reserve of points that members hope to redeem at aspirational properties. Devaluations shatter those redemption dreams in one fell swoop.

That said, I had expected the dynamic award pricing to come through a lot worse than what was announced. For instance, the most you will pay over current maximum rates for a redemption in 2022 is 30,000 points. At 130,000 points per night, or 520,000 for a 5-night stay (with the 5th night being free), it will still be possible to extract very good award value at many of the luxury properties.

And remember, Marriott allows you to book awards some 11 months in advance. This means that until the end of 2022, it will be possible to make bookings for stays as far ahead as November 2023 for the maximum cost of 130,000 points.

It is disappointing that the ability to combine FNC’s with additional points (up to 15,000) does not come into effect until after dynamic pricing commences. Overall though, these changes are far from catastrophic and I suspect a big chunk of Marriott loyalists will feel like they have dodged a bullet.