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Remember to select Marriott Annual Choice Benefits by Feb. 1: Here's what to pick
Katie Genter is a digital nomad who has traveled full time since June 2017. She writes and edits stories about points and miles, and loyalty programs, often letting her personal experiences color these stories.
January 16, 2026 • 11 min read
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Quick summary
Marriott Annual Choice Benefits are available to members who reach 50 or 75 elite nights in a calendar year, with different options at each threshold.
Eligible members must select their benefit(s) by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1 of the following year, or Marriott will automatically assign Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Choices at 50 nights include five elite night credits, five Nightly Upgrade Awards, a $1,000 mattress discount, a $100 charity donation or gifting Silver Elite status; at 75 nights, options expand to include gifting Gold Elite status and a free night award worth up to 40,000 points.
The most valuable benefits for most travelers are typically the Nightly Upgrade Awards or the free night award at the 75-night level.
What to consider
Selections are final and cannot be changed once made, so careful consideration is required.
Nightly Upgrade Awards expire Dec. 31 of the year following when they are earned and only clear within five days of arrival (three days for select brands).
Five elite night credits may help you reach a higher status tier or lifetime elite status if you are close to the threshold.
What you'll miss from the article
A detailed comparison of each benefit option and guidance on which selections best align with different travel goals and status strategies.
Generated by AI with support from our editorial team.
Comments
By commenting, you agree to our Community Guidelines to help create a positive space for conversation. The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser, our partners, or The Points Guy (“TPG”). They have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these parties. All responses are submitted by individual contributors, and neither the bank advertiser, our partners, nor TPG are responsible for ensuring that all posts and/or questions are answered.
Marriott elite status offers some impressive benefits to frequent travelers. But the perks get particularly compelling once you accrue at least 50 elite nights in a calendar year. At this point, you'll unlock Marriott Platinum Elite status, but you'll also get the ability to pick a Marriott Annual Choice Benefit.
You can select one Marriott Annual Choice Benefit when you reach 50 elite nights in a calendar year and another when you get to 75 elite nights.
If you accrued at least 50 elite nights with Marriott Bonvoy during 2025, the deadline for selecting your Choice Benefit is Feb. 1. So, here's what you should know about selecting Marriott Annual Choice Benefits, including the available options and how to make the best choice for your upcoming travel.
Marriott Annual Choice Benefit overview
You earn a Marriott Annual Choice Benefit when you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar year. Then, you’ll earn a second Annual Choice Benefit after reaching 75 elite nights in a calendar year. However, the Choice Benefits options differ between the two tiers.
How to select your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit
To select your Annual Choice Benefit(s), visit this page on Marriott’s website. You must sign in to your Marriott Bonvoy account to choose your benefit.
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You can’t change your selection once you make it, so choose wisely. If you’re eligible for a 50-night and a 75-night benefit, you must select your 50-night benefit before you can select your 75-night benefit.
When to select your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit
If you accrued 50 or 75 elite nights in 2025, you must select your Annual Choice Benefit(s) by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1. If you don’t make your selection(s) by the deadline, Marriott will automatically choose Nightly Upgrade Awards for you.
How to earn Marriott Bonvoy elite nights
Earning 50 or 75 elite nights in a calendar year may sound daunting. However, Marriott provides multiple ways to earn elite nights. You’ll earn elite nights at participating Marriott brands when you book directly with Marriott — even when redeeming Marriott points or using a free night award certificate.
The St. Regis Hong Kong. ERIC ROSEN/THE POINTS GUY
You can also earn elite night credits with select Marriott Bonvoy credit cards. You can earn up to 25 elite night credits each year with a Marriott consumer card and an additional 15 with a Marriott business card. Some Marriott cards even offer additional elite night credits when you hit specific spending thresholds.
Finally, it’s worth noting that you must reach the applicable elite night thresholds to unlock a Choice Benefit. Although the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card comes with automatic Platinum Elite status as long as your account remains open, that doesn’t qualify for a benefit selection.
However, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card does offer a similar benefit — the Brilliant Earned Choice Award — that cardholders earn after spending $60,000 on eligible purchases with their Bonvoy Brilliant card in a calendar year. Brilliant Earned Choice Awards — which you must select by Feb. 1 of the year following the spending — include a choice of five Nightly Upgrade Awards, a free night award worth up to 85,000 points, 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points or $1,000 off a bed from any Marriott Bonvoy retail brand. The discount on a bed purchase is only available if you earned your Brilliant Earned Choice Award based on spending in 2025 or before, though.
You’ll unlock your first Marriott Annual Choice Benefit when you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar year. Your options for the 50-night benefit earned via nights in 2025 are as follows:
Five elite night credits
Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
$1,000 off a mattress
$100 charity donation
Gift Marriott Silver Elite status to another member
Most of these benefits are difficult to value, so let’s examine each option more closely. I’ll start with the options that are unlikely to make sense for most elite members.
Gift Marriott Silver Elite status
Giving status to someone else might initially sound like a good option. However, Marriott Silver Elite status isn’t worth much, as the primary perks are a 10% points bonus on paid stays and priority late checkout.
Instead of using your Marriott Choice Benefit to gift status, you could encourage your friend or family member to earn Marriott status via a credit card. For example, primary cardholders of the no-annual-fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card (see ) get automatic Silver Elite status and five elite night credits each calendar year as a cardholder perk.
Give a $100 charity donation
You can select a $100 donation to several charities — including UNICEF, the World Wildlife Fund and the Arne M. Sorenson Hospitality Fund — as your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit.
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The $100 charity donation is a nice touch and could be the right decision if you can’t use any other Annual Choice Benefit options. However, I’d prefer to earn points and miles by donating to a charity of my choice and maintain my ability to select one of the other benefits.
If you love the mattress at a particular Marriott brand, you can buy a new one for your home. If you're in the market for a Marriott mattress, you can select a promo code worth $1,000 off the full retail value for mattresses and box springs from select Marriott brands as your Annual Choice Benefit.
Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa, Waikiki Beach. CLINT HENDERSON/THE POINTS GUY
However, you can’t combine the one-time $1,000 discount with other offers. Therefore, check whether the promo code offers sufficient value compared to other discounts to justify its selection.
Receive 5 elite night credits
Choosing five elite night credits for your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit is smart for some travelers. Marriott will post the elite night credits to the year you earned them (which may be different from the year in which you chose them).
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Choosing elite night credits may be useful if you fell five or fewer nights short of earning Titanium Elite status or a new Marriott Bonvoy lifetime status during the 2025 calendar year. If you select five elite night credits to clear the 75-night threshold for Titanium Elite status, be sure also to select your 75-night Annual Choice Benefit before the deadline.
Receive 5 Nightly Upgrade Awards
Each Nightly Upgrade Award is valid for a one-night advance, confirmable upgrade to select premium rooms and suites designated by each property. For example, you’d need five Nightly Upgrade Award certificates to request an upgrade for a five-night reservation.
Suite at the JW Marriott Bogota. KATIE GENTER/THE POINTS GUY
Many members save their Nightly Upgrade Award for stays at high-end Marriott Bonvoy properties, while others collect them for nights they’d like more space. In 2025, I used Nightly Upgrade Awards to secure a suite at the Moxy Glasgow Merchant City and a one-bedroom suite at the Element Toronto Airport. However, keep in mind that Nightly Upgrade Awards don’t start clearing until five days before your arrival (or three days before arrival for Edition, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis stays).
If you opt for five Nightly Upgrade Awards as a Choice Benefit, your awards will expire Dec. 31 of the year following the one in which you earned them. So, if you reached 50 nights in 2025, your Nightly Upgrade Awards expire Dec. 31, 2026.
75-night Annual Choice Benefit options
You’ll earn Marriott Titanium Elite status and a second Annual Choice Benefit after earning 75 elite nights within a calendar year. If you reached this threshold in 2025, here are your choices:
Five elite night credits
Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
$1,000 off a mattress
$100 charity donation
Gift Marriott Gold Elite status to another member
Free night award worth up to 40,000 points
The choices here are mostly the same as those available after hitting the 50-night threshold. I’ll skip over the charitable donation, Nightly Upgrade Awards and mattress discount since I’ve already discussed those options in the previous section. Likewise, I won’t discuss gifting Gold Elite status since earning Marriott status via credit cards is relatively easy.
However, let’s take a closer look at the other two options.
Receive 5 elite night credits
Earlier in this article, I considered how some travelers might select five elite night credits as the 50-night Annual Choice Benefit to reach Titanium Elite or lifetime elite status. However, it could also make sense for Titanium Elite members to choose five elite night credits to earn Ambassador Elite status. This status typically requires 100 elite nights and $23,000 in annual Marriott spending.
This option will likely only make sense if you ended 2025 within five elite nights of a higher lifetime elite status tier or with 95 to 99 elite nights and at least $23,000 in annual qualifying spending with Marriott.
Get a free night award worth up to 40,000 points
The final option, unique to the 75-night Annual Choice Benefit, is a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. This free night award is slightly more valuable than the 35,000-point free night award certificates associated with many of the Marriott Bonvoy cards.
TPG’s January 2026 valuations say 40,000 Marriott points are worth $280, making this a valuable option. However, if you already have a large number of Marriott Bonvoy points and outstanding free night awards to cover your future travels, you may want to consider another benefit.
Which Marriott Annual Choice Benefit should you choose?
The best Marriott Annual Choice Benefit for most loyalists at the 50-night tier is five Nightly Upgrade Awards. At the 75-night tier, the best Annual Choice Benefit is usually five more Nightly Upgrade Awards or a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. However, the five elite night credits may be a great choice at either tier if they’d let you qualify for a higher status tier.
You may wonder what I typically select for my Annual Choice Benefits. When I earned Titanium Elite status in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025, I picked five Nightly Upgrade Awards (previously called Suite Upgrade Awards) for my 50-night choice and a free night award worth up to 40,000 points for my 75-night choice.
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However, I only accrued 71 elite nights in 2024. So, I selected five elite night credits as my 50-night benefit to reach 76 elite nights for 2024, requalify for Titanium Elite status and obtain a 75-night choice. For my 75-night choice, I chose five Nightly Upgrade Awards. The free night award worth up to 40,000 points was likely a more valuable choice, but I wanted access to some Nightly Upgrade Awards since I didn't choose any as my 50-night benefit.
Marriott’s Annual Choice Benefits are valuable, with ample options at each threshold. The options aren’t valued equally, so make sure to carefully consider which benefit will be most valuable for you before deciding.
If you aren't sure what to choose, the most valuable option at the 50-night tier is usually Nightly Upgrade Awards. Meanwhile, the best option at the 75-night tier is usually more Nightly Upgrade Awards or a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. Whatever you decide, select your benefit by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1.
