Limited time: Earn 10x points on bookings with Homes and Villas by Marriott

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

While vacation home rentals are hardly a new concept, they have gone very mainstream in the last couple of years. With hotels continuing to limit amenities this year and travelers craving more space, vacation home rentals remain a popular option.

Even in "normal times," many hotels — especially those in certain international locations — don't offer affordable accommodations that can sleep four or more people. This means families and other groups of travelers can benefit from the extra space of a home rental. But, there were usually trade-offs: no housekeeping or room service, a lack of shared amenities and more.

Even now, many of those typical hotel amenities are on pause, and almost all of us want the ability to be self-sufficient and stay away from others, even while on vacation. But while a whole rental home can provide a spacious, alluring alternative to a hotel, many travelers still want the reliability and consistency of a major hospitality brand. Enter: Homes and Villas by Marriott. Read on for information on how to earn 10 points per dollar on these charges if you pay with the right credit card.

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Marriott first entered the vacation rental market as a trial called Tribute Portfolio Homes but has been an established brand, Homes and Villas by Marriott, since 2019. Marriott's home rental program may be the perfect bridge between sticking with a travel brand you know and trust and getting the space and conveniences of a rental property.

While some brand standards are supposed to apply to every property listed with Homes and Villas by Marriott (such as 24/7 support, high-speed Wi-Fi, premium linens and towels), Marriott isn't actually running and maintaining vacation properties across the globe. Instead, Marriott is offering a curated portfolio of homes where you can earn or redeem Marriott Bonvoy points, among other perks.

If you're considering booking a stay with this discount (or at any other time in the future), here are six things to know about the Homes and Villas by Marriott program.

Related: How to use points to book a vacation home rental

You can earn and use Marriott points

When you book a home or villa through Marriott, you'll earn 5 Marriott Bonvy points per dollar spent as well as one Marriott elite night credit for each night of your stay.

If you have elite status with Marriott, you'll get bonus points based on your elite status tier and a welcome bonus of 500 to 1,000 points, also based on your tier. Charge your booking to a cobranded Marriott card like the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card and you'll normally earn another 6 points per $1 spent on eligible Marriott purchases at hotels participating in the Marriott Bonvoy program.

However, via a new promotion that will run through the end of 2021, you can earn 10 points per dollar spent on Marriott Homes and Villas by charging the stay to your co-branded Marriott credit card, such as the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card. You can earn the 10 points per dollar bonus on up to $7,500 spent. This card currently offers a welcome bonus of three free nights (each night valued up to 50,000 points) after spending $3,000 on purchases in your first three months from account opening.

Note that only the charges processed via the Marriott Homes & Villas platform will likely trigger this 10 points per dollar offer. I have had subsequent payments made directly to the property management company, and I would assume if that were the case you may not earn the bonus points on that payment, but you would get the bonus points if made through the Marriott Homes & Villas platform until Dec. 31.

It may take a few weeks for the points and credits earned to post to your Marriott account, based on several TPG firsthand tests. In fact, my own Marriott Home and Villa stay never posted on its own, so I eventually had to follow up with customer service at Marriott to have the points manually added.

If you want to redeem points for your booking, our tests show that your Marriott points are currently worth about 0.6 cents toward a stay, though this number has varied a bit at times. Should you decide to redeem points, know that you have to either book using all points or all cash. You can't make a hybrid booking of points and cash on the same stay.

TPG's current Marriott Bonvoy point valuation is 0.8 cents per point. So while 0.6 isn't the best value, it isn't so much lower that it discounts the option entirely. For example, getting $600 in value toward a home rental out of a 100,000-point Marriott welcome bonus is hardly the worst thing ever to happen.

Related: Choosing the best Marriott credit card for you

Marriott doesn't own or manage the homes

This may or may not surprise you, but Marriott Homes and Villas is essentially a list of higher-end home rentals on an online platform. Marriott does not own, run, clean or manage the properties.

They are run and managed by property management companies such as the well-known TurnKey Vacation Rentals. There are also smaller, more regional property management companies on the platform, such as my last rental in Florida from Panhandle Getaways, which I'd previously never heard of before the trip.

This means that, while there are standards for the homes, there will be some variation from one property and company to the next. There won't be Marriott housekeepers to refresh your towels or all-white Marriott-branded linens on all the beds.

This also means that a property can withdraw from the property management company that ultimately handled your booking, leaving you in a bad situation. This isn't very common, but it does happen in the vacation home rental world.

Also, know that the charge on your credit card for the deposit and any subsequent payments may be from the property management company. This may or may not post as a travel charge and may or may not trigger the 10x promo on the Marriott cards. You can ask your card issuer to make a courtesy exception to award bonus points as if it had coded as a travel charge, but some of our tests coded as "professional services" — not travel.

Secure a flexible booking

While Marriott is very hands-off with these properties in some ways, there are some benefits to booking with Homes and Villas by Marriott.

Many (though not all) of the homes and condominiums on the site offer the opportunity to get a full refund (minus a $75 credit card processing fee) until 10 days before arrival for travel dates, through June 30, 2021.

Related: The best credit cards for family travel

What comes with each rental

Other than earning or using Marriott Bonvoy points and rack up elite night credits, a big perk of booking through Marriott is having consistent expectations for your home rental.

All of the homes and condominiums you can rent through the Marriott platform should include 24/7 support, high-speed Wi-Fi, a television, kitchen essentials (cookware, utensils, a microwave), in-unit washing machine, premium linens and towels, bathroom amenities (toilet paper, shampoo, conditioner, soap), a hairdryer, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors when fuel-burning appliances are present and pre-and post-stay professional cleaning.

Related: How to choose the best beach home rental

In our (limited) test rentals, this has all been largely the case. Though I'd say take things with a grain of salt.

At my most recent rental at the end of the summer, the Wi-Fi didn't really work downstairs, and I'm not sure if the bed linens met my own personal definition of "premium." It was all totally adequate and certainly wasn't as if we walked into a home where we had to provide our own sheets and there wasn't a drop of soap to be found (which can happen in some home rentals).

The price ranges dramatically

If you were booking a Springhill Suites by Marriott or a St. Regis, you probably have a vague idea of what those properties cost per night. However, with Homes and Villas by Marriott, you'll find beachside condos starting under $99 per night and ritzy multibedroom ski villas from $10,000 per night.

When the program launched, it had 2,000 homes in 100 destinations, a tiny footprint compared to the 5 million listings across nearly 200 countries available through Airbnb. But, the program is growing quickly and already has more than 30,000 properties -- a 15-fold increase. While that is impressive growth, it's still a smaller platform that focuses on more luxurious rentals.

Even with that high-end focus, the range of properties you can find on Marriott's platform is still pretty large, and by no means are all of them expensive. In other words, don't rule this out if you're working with a tight budget. While many of the properties are several hundred (or thousand) dollars per night, you'll also find listings such as a two-bedroom Panama City beach condo with a kitchen and living room that's bookable for $88 or 15,000 Marriott points per night.

It's not necessarily going to be luxurious, but it's more space than you'd probably find in a standard Marriott hotel within that price range.

Related: Making sense of 3 new luxury and premium vacation rental brands

Is it worth it?

There's no one perfect way to rent a vacation home or condominium.

Sometimes, you'll find the same property listed on multiple booking platforms...and occasionally for different prices.

I first booked with Marriott Homes and Villas over the summer because I liked the cancellation policy that allowed guests to cancel until 10-days before a stay and only walk away from $75 (much more lenient than most programs); the ability to earn Marriott points and elite nights; and the comfort of knowing the home should have some basic features and amenities.

My first stay wasn't 100% perfect, but I booked with them again over the winter for roughly the same reasons.

Related: What it's like to rent via Homes and Villas by Marriott

Prices on the Marriott booking platform are often comparable with what you'd find if you were booking via Airbnb's Plus program but may be higher or lower depending on the specific area or property. I am not personally itching to spend Marriott points at 0.6 cents each toward a home rental, but I still appreciate the option.

Overall, I'm very much enjoying a shift toward home rentals and the idea of earning 15,000 Marriott points on a home rental, as TPG's Scott Mayorowitz did, is pretty tasty icing on the cake. And with the current 10 points per dollar promo when charging the stay to Marriott credit cards, the stay could be even more rewarding than before.

Related: The best travel rewards credit cards for Airbnb

Bottom line

Whether for multigenerational or multi-family trips or simply for the space to spread out, I'm a big fan of home rentals.

That said, I want to know what to expect and be sure that at least some basic expectations (including towels and Wi-Fi) will be met when we arrive, so I appreciate Marriott's curation and backing in the vacation rental space. I don't exclusively book homes through Marriott's program but find them a useful resource when researching where to stay -- especially when there's a sale or a competitive cancellation policy.

And, of course, you can't argue with earning Marriott points and status along the way.

Additional reporting by Melanie Lieberman and Dia Adams.