Not everything is as it seems, or as we were told last year, even.
As I wrote yesterday, you now have until February 7th to choose your 50 or 75 night Marriott Choice benefits. Many of us were waiting until January to choose a free night for the 75 night benefit because we’d been told that it would be valid until the end of the year following the year in which it was chosen (not earned). In fact, the language persists at the bottom of the Choice Benefits page.
But when you go to select the Free Night Award, you get this message.
I was convinced this was an error and it should be Dec 2020, based on prior discussions.
But our beloved Starwood Lurker reports via FlyerTalk that the December 2019 date is indeed (now) the accurate date.
Knowledge is power, so better to know before choosing your benefit, but it’s disappointing that they made this change.
Since there is also some confusion around expiration of a few of the Choice Benefits, let me clarify:
- Suite Night Awards chosen now for status earned in 2018 will expire December 2019.
- Elite Nights (5) will be credited to the year in which the Benefit was earned. So, this would only be useful to select today is you were at 70 or more (or 95 or more) nights and it would get you to the next Elite level.
- And as stated above, Free Night Awards for status earned in 2018 will expire Dec 2019.
As an aside, and I won’t devote a post to this, Marriott has officially confirmed this morning that Marriott Bonvoy is the new program name, launching in February, and that Platinum Premier (75 night) status will henceforth be known as Titanium Elite and 100 nights will now get you Ambassador Elite. The benefit to us with these changes is that there should be less on-property confusion around what level you are. Right now, you have Platinum, Platinum Premier, and Platinum Premier with Ambassador and many check-in agents don’t seem to know the difference. This should help there.
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