Marriott Bonvoy will continue a “soft landing” policy this year for the 2026 member year.
This means that no matter what status you earned, you will not drop more than one level below.
Example: You were Ambassador in 2025 (your status will expire February 2026) and you stayed 0 nights in 2025. You might have expected to have no status at all in 2026, but with this soft-landing policy, you would be grated Titanium status (one level down) for 2026.
If the policy continues next year (it may or may not!) then you’d become Platinum the following year and Gold the year after that, assuming you didn’t qualify for a higher tier.
The reason they don’t announce this early in the year is so that if status matters to you, you will try for it organically – knowing that there is no guarantee of the soft landing. But then in practice they have been granting soft-landings, presumably to keep you in the flywheel.
This is detailed on the Marriott FAQ page.
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