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We’ve seen many airline and hotel programs providing elite status extensions over the past few weeks and now Marriott has joined the ranks. Early on Marriott provided a pause on the expiring of points and extensions of free night awards but held off on any news about elite status extensions or reduced qualification requirements. Now we have news of extensions for anyone who earned status from 2019 but still no word about reduced qualification requirements for those who do not have status.
Here are the details as provided by Marriott:
Status Extension: We want you to be able to enjoy the status that you earned in 2019. With that in mind, the status you earned in 2019 will be extended to February 2022.
Points Expiration: To provide you ample time to redeem points, the expiration of points will be paused until February 2021. At that time, your points will only expire if your account has been inactive for at least 24 months.
Suite Night Awards (SNAs): We have extended the expiration of suite night awards by one year from December 31, 2020 to December 31, 2021.
Free Night Award (FNA): Members who currently have an active Free Night Award (FNA) expiring in 2020 as part of their credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to use it through January 31, 2021. (Exception: Members in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan the Free Night Awards will be extended 12 months into 2021 from the date of expiration).
The great news is that your 2020 status will now be valid until February 2020 instead of February 2021 – a full year of extra status.
A screen shot showing elite status extension:
As to points expiration, this has been extended even further. Originally Marriott was not going to expire any points that were due to be lost by August 31, 2020. Now that is pushed back to February 2021. Remember Marriott points don’t expiry if you have some sort activity at least once every 2 years.
Suite Night and Free Night Awards extensions have not changed since the previous announcement. We have two Free Night Awards set to expire this September which means they should be extended to January 31, 2021. The expiry dates have not changed yet in the account so I’ll be sure to keep an eye on those. These Free Night Awards include those provided as an anniversary bonus from Marriott Credit Cards so if you have the card and received the certificate in mid to late 2019 it should be extended as well.
The only news we are now awaiting from Marriott Bonvoy is if they will be reducing the criteria required for earning elite status. Holding out is something many programs seem to be doing as I think they are hoping there will be a return to somewhat normal travel sooner than later. If that’s not the case, which seems likely, we may see these programs revisit that topic based on if and when we see that resumption in travel..
Again, this is good news from the Marriott Bonvoy program to now be following in the footsteps of other hotel and airline programs in providing elite status extensions.
Learn more about this announcement here.
