Necessary commitment for the optimal use of Marriott Bonvoy:
Budget per night: min. 100€ (better 120€)
Nights per year: min. 50
The best hotel points collection programme for me is currently Marriott Bonvoy. Especially for frequent travellers who are not always in the same city. With over 29 brands, it is a very broad chain from low-budget to high-end hotels. It offers very high coverage worldwide on all continents. Through a variety of lifestyle and lower-budget brands, it allows point earners with smaller purses to earn reward nights at high-end hotels and enjoy status benefits there (for earning nights per year, every Marriott brand participates).
There are a total of 6 status levels. Every registered Marriott member is initially a "Member", the table shows the other 5 status levels Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium and Ambassador. For every $1 spent (other currencies are automatically converted to dollars via Marriott's internal conversion rate), the guest is awarded 10 points and one night in the "Marriott Bonvoy" account. With each status level, which is dependent on the number of nights spent in the year, the number of points to be received increases. So at Silver 10% it increases to 11 points per dollar. The other point increases can be seen in Table 1.
A very convenient highlight is the guaranteed late check-out (Gold 2 p.m., and from Platinum 4 p.m.), as well as the free breakfast (there are exceptions such as Courtyard and Moxy, which only give daily vouchers of $10 per person, which are usually not enough for breakfast).
From Platinum onwards, lounge access is also included, usually from 6:30am to approx. midnight, and you can expect breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. There is also usually a happy hour in the evening hours, where beer and wine are available. However, only about 9 brands in the programme have lounges (see Table 2) - but not always! With high coverage, they are present at JW Marriott, Marriott, Sheraton as well as Westin.
A final great feature is for longer stays, if you book 5 consecutive nights, the 5th night is free.
From the Platinum and Titanium status levels, you receive an annual benefit, with the most attractive benefit for Platinum being 5 Suite Night Upgrades. These can be used for hotel bookings before a stay and you get a choice of suites (or sometimes just bigger rooms...) for the hotel you booked, which would be available for the upgrade. The hotels do not guarantee upgrades until 5 days before arrival and then notify you by mail which room category will be allocated as an upgrade. On reaching Titanium status the most attractive options are a further 5 suite night upgrades or a voucher for a night worth 40000 points (my recommendation).
The Ambassador brings a 24h option for rooms as the only additional feature. This has to be requested before arrival and is a top feature especially for short trips with one overnight stay. The guest is provided with the room from the time of arrival for 24 hours (e.g.: arrival 11.3. 11:30 p.m., departure 12.3. 11:29 p.m.).
Important: Always book via Marriott directly, otherwise the status levels will not be recognised and you will not receive any points or nights credited. Use your company codes to get the correct price and avoid paying too much.
Marriott Bonvoy is the only programme besides Hilton and Hyatt to offer Lifetime Status Level. Here the requirements are quite demanding (Figure 1). Upon achieving a Lifetime Status, one has the respective benefits of the status level for life (see Table 1).
Table 2 shows which brands are included in the Marriott-Bonvoy programme. Each brand has received a comment from the author for characterisation. The classification into the 5 categories Luxury, Up-Scale, Mid-Scale, Lifestyle & Hip and Apartment Style is also a subjective assessment by the author.
Luxury: Absolutely high-end hotels with high prices, but fantastic designs, excellent service and high-quality and extensive facilities. My favourite: W Hotels.
Up-scale: Hotels with a very high standard, often in big cities with corporate rates/contracts booked by business people (corporate consultants, auditors, sales, among others). My favourite: Marriott (as always with lounge and a compact offering)
Mid-Scale: Cheaper alternatives, which bring a good "Value for Money", but not always very luxurious standard. My favourite: Courtyard (always large rooms, gym and sauna)
Lifestyle & Hip: A category that has emerged more strongly in the last 5-7 years, where every hotel group has developed several brands and opened hotels. It focuses on Generation Y and Z and wants to give a hip cool experience that is clearly different from the classic approaches. Small modern rooms, with fewer features (uniform [smaller] room sizes, hardly any furniture), but lots of life, space and opportunities for gathering in the common areas such as the lobby (which is often converted into a breakfast room in the morning). My favourite: Moxy (damn cool spirit, which is really fun for short trips or in a group of several people)
Apartment style: category which is strongly influenced by the USA and is not yet super widespread in Europe. Created for long-term stays, you will find rooms with a well-equipped kitchen and sleeping area and living-room-like elements that are intended to enable self-sufficient living like in your own flat. But the whole thing is also extended by facilities such as sauna and gym, as well as restaurant and room service offers. From my point of view a good case for management consultants, auditors or other business people who spend a long time in one place and don't want any more hotel breakfasts or every evening restaurant. My favourite: Residence Inn (high-end style with often cool hotel facilities like gym and sauna).
Note for newcomers: Marriott is on the one hand the entire hotel group, there is Marriott also as hotel brand.
Table 3 lists personal references and subjective assessments of the author. The following categories are described:
Brand: Marriott offers the best geographical coverage in my view in combination with a wide range of very affordable hotel brands such as Moxy, Courtyard, Four Points, AC Hotels up to absolute luxury brands such as W, JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis. The Marriott Bonvoy App is good so far for the basic booking/cancellation functions. I particularly like the chat function with the hotel, which already works 1-2 days before arrival and replaces annoying phone calls. The digital check-in only works partially, you can get a digital key, but often you still have to go to the reception for signatures on the registration form etc., at some hotels the digital check-out is not yet really well implemented.
Upgrades: At Marriott, you are usually always upgraded one room category from Gold. However, this usually only means an increase of 3 square metres or a higher floor. For first stays and short stays (1 night), you often get significantly better upgrades, even to larger suites.
Lounges: You always have access for yourself and a guest (who has to be officially registered in the room). In practice, I have experienced relatively few controls in the last 10 years. So it is a good idea to invite work colleagues, business partners or friends/relatives. The lounges to which the status levels Platinum, Titanium and Ambassador always have access are very individually designed per hotel. As a rule, in the morning there is a complimentary continental breakfast with 3-4 hot options (egg dishes, sausages, bacon, mushrooms etc.). In the evening usually from 17:30/18h to 20/20:30h there is a small dinner with a cold salad and dessert buffet that varies greatly in size and quality. In addition, there are always 2-4 warm options (soups, but also very good dishes such as fish, game, etc., so not just cheap pasta or chicken wings - but there are also in some hotels). This is usually accompanied by beer and wine / sparkling wine. In some hotels, this often-named happy hour goes on until late in the evening (11/24 p.m.). JW Marriott, Marriott and Westin usually offer a very good standard here. Sheraton has a somewhat more limited offer and also not very high quality. Here I have the impression that over the last few years (also before Covid) a very strong austerity course was taken. During the day there are mostly soft drinks and occasionally bread / pastries and usually a few bowls with sweets (chocolate, chewy sweets, gummy bears, etc.) or salty snacks (nuts, crisps, etc.).
Important to know: If you upgrade to an Executive or Club room (designation varies) without Platinum, Titanium, Ambassador status level, you are entitled to lounge access.
Wellness: The wellness quality is very mixed and invidual in the hotels. The best wellness areas in Germany are at the Roomers Hotels (Munich and Baden-Baden belong to the Autograph Collection, Frankfurt to Design Hotels). As a rule, the classic big brands from the Luxury and Up-Scale segments have good wellness areas and gyms. In the mid-scale segment, you can usually rely on Courtyard hotels and usually always find a gym + sauna there. AC Hotels can sometimes also surprise positively here. With the other brands, you will rarely find wellness, but usually a gym.
Best Hotels: Here you will find an overview of my personal favourite hotels. The Roomers Hotels impress with a very hip modern style with cool features (e.g. bathtubs in the bedroom, free vodka in the icebox next to the sauna, stylish wellness areas, top-equipped gyms, top restaurants and bars). My personal favourite for a weekend with high-class wellness, mega breakfast and dinner in the Moriki restaurant and party in its own hip bar on the ground floor is Roomers Baden Baden - you don't even have to leave the hotel!
Another highlight is the Westin in Hamburg. If you upgrade to one of the Junior Suites here, you have a dreamlike view over Hamburg. The wellness area as well as the lounge are also very good and definitely worth a visit. Even though the lounge unfortunately did not have a view to the outside, but windows to the inside of the glass building - not really a smart solution.
Reward Nights: Marriott currently still has a rewards system where the point prices for an overnight stay fluctuate the least compared to other hotel groups. Here you can already find good hotels from 15,000 points (especially with AC Hotels in Spain, there are some highlights). A great feature for longer stays is that for bookings of 5 consecutive nights, the 5th night is free.
As a calculation example, at 120€ per night, this is:
- without status 12.5 nights
- at Titanium and in 4 stays already within 5.2 nights.
I will present how this works in calculation examples in later guides - stay tuned).
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