Quick Points: Why you should search for Marriott award nights before logging into your account
Quick summary
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Many airline and hotel websites have mysterious and frustrating quirks, some of which may be perplexing enough to drive away your business.
Those of us who use these sites daily (for research and for speculatively booking lots of trips we may never take) have become so familiar with these eccentricities that we hardly give them a second thought anymore. But some of the quirks are useful enough that we realize we should share them with you.
Today we'll look at a quick way to make your life considerably easier when booking a Marriott Bonvoy award stay.
Log out of your Marriott account to do a calendar search
Marriott has one of the best search features in the hotel reward game. Aside from Hilton Honors, you generally won't find such a handy tool offered by World of Hyatt, Choice Privileges or others.
It allows you to search both award night and cash rates by calendar month. This is wildly useful if you've got flexible dates, as you can easily locate and book the cheapest price.
To search by calendar month, simply click on the "Dates" box and toggle to "Flexible Dates."
Here's the hitch: For some reason, Marriott will usually not display any availability unless you're logged out of your Marriott account.
As an example, you can see that Marriott shows tons of availability at Al Maha, a Luxury Collection Desert Resort & Spa, Dubai when I'm logged out of my account.
Related: How to redeem points with the Marriott Bonvoy program
But when I log into my account, all availability seemingly disappears.
You can still find availability by searching specific dates. This only applies to the calendar view. But if you were unaware of this oddity, you may give up on searching for reward nights when there's actually plenty of availability.
Related: IHG now has a calendar search to help you find the best cash or points rates
Earning Marriott points
If you're looking to book a Marriott award but are short points, you can boost your account by applying for one of the program's cobranded credit cards. For example, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card offers a welcome bonus of 95,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you spend $6,000 in purchases on the card in your first six months.
The program also allows transfers from both Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards, though you'll usually get better value through other transfer partners.
Related: 17 ways to earn lots of Marriott Bonvoy points
Bottom line
If you intend to use Marriott's Flexible Dates calendar, be sure you're logged out of your account first. If you often stay logged into your account like me, you could simply do your flexible date searches in an incognito browser to find what you need.
It's possible that you may be able to view prices on the monthly calendar while signed in, but it's a rarity. If you're seeing a suspiciously low inventory of available nights, make sure you're logged out of the Marriott website.