Score a Marriott Category 6 hotel for only 35,000 points with PointSavers
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
With the advent of Marriott's dynamic award pricing comes some pretty amazing redemption opportunities — namely, that Category 6 hotels may be available for use with the up to 35,000-point free-night certificate offered as an anniversary perk on the Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card from Chase.
Normally limited to Category 5 and under hotels, new tiered pricing means that when you're booking an off-peak date that has a PointSavers rate, your nightly award rate drops to 35,000 points per night — giving you the ability to use one of these certificates at a hotel that typically requires 50,000 points per night on standard dates but could climb as high as 60,000 points on peak ones. That's awesome! Marriott has already confirmed that these hotels are bookable with the certificate — though be aware that there's a glitch in the system that means you'll currently need to call in order to book.
Marriott has an official list of PointSavers hotels, which at the time of writing has some 35+ hotels available. But the best way to find these rates is to search your property with the calendar function, which you select by changing your date range to "flexible dates." This will populate a monthly calendar from which you can select off-peak PointSaver rates:
Keep in mind that while Marriott's list does have quite a few properties, it's not even close to a full catalog of all PointSavers properties. Take a look at St. Ermin's Hotel, listed next February at the discounted 35k rate:
I was also able to find several different San Francisco hotels with availability:
Even the Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort is down to 35k points this fall, which is a solid deal:
Though there's no perfect way to search for this availability, there are some things to keep in mind. First, these PointSavers rates often come around when there's construction being done on the hotel (to compensate for the inconvenience), or there's some other outside force that warrants a lower price. This means that as you would imagine, during unseasonable weather or periods of low occupancy, you're more likely to find a PointSavers rate. Additionally, larger cities with a greater number of Marriott properties yield better results than towns that may have a single Category 6 hotel — basically, your odds increase when there are more hotels available.
Finally, remember that you must have both an off-peak date and a PointSavers rate to be able to use these 35,000-point free night certificates at Category 6 properties.
While the examples given here are for the 35k free night certificate, this same strategy applies for the up to 50,000-point annual free night awarded at hotels participating in the Marriott Bonvoy program (certain hotels have resort fees) by the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card at your first card renewal month and each card renewal month afterwards. This will allow you to stay at Category 7 hotels on all off-peak dates — whether it has a PointSavers rate on your desired date of travel or not.
While it's easy to hate on Marriott's choice of dynamic award pricing, there are a few bonuses to come out of it. Tying your free night certificate to a points value rather than a category means that during off-peak times — and PointSavers rates — you can snag some incredibly high-end hotels for free.