It’s been an interesting past few years for Marriott hotels. See, back in 2015 Marriott and Starwood formally announced plans to merge. That announcement set in motion a chain of events which eventually led to the formal announcement of the Marriott Bonvoy rewards program earlier this year. However, a lot happened in between then and now so let’s go back a few years.
See, after the announcement Starwood and Marriott continued to operate independently. This meant that if you had status with one you didn’t yet have status with the other. For a while there were not reciprocal arrangements. This also meant that you could carry both the SPG Amex and the Marriott Rewards card from Chase and earn elite nights with each hotel chain each year from each card.
This continued until the end of 2018. From the end of 2018 and beyond Marriott Bonvoy cardholders could only earn a total of 15 elite nights per year. It didn’t matter if these nights came from the Amex Bonvoy cards or the Chase Bonvoy cards, but you could only earn 15 total nights. I have only ever had the Chase Marriott cards so this consolidation didn’t really hurt me, but I imagine many people ended up converting or closing one account or the other as the benefits from both cards are now similar.
My Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Elite Nights Posted
With that, even though I’m staying at hotels less and less, I still continue to carry the Marriott Bonvoy card from Chase. In fact, a while ago I published a post on why I don’t ever anticipate closing this account. It’s because, not matter what, I’ll earn a total of 15 elite nights per year, even if I don’t stay at a Marriott hotel a single time throughout the year. I love this benefit because each year, even if I don’t stay in hotels much, I still get closer and closer to lifetime elite status with Marriott.
Although I knew I would be getting 15 elite nights this year thanks to the Bonvoy Boundless card, I wasn’t sure when they would post. Marriott answered that question about 2 weeks ago when I received the following email from Marriott Bonvoy.
Below the beautiful image of an overwater villa came the following message from Marriott regarding my elite credits.
It’s interesting because these elite nights did not post on or near my card member anniversary as I expected. Instead, the nights posted in the second quarter of the year which is consistent with Marriott Rewards prior in years prior.
Sure enough when I logged into my Marriott Bonvoy account I found the following details regarding my elite nights.
As you can see, these nights put me over the threshold to earn Lifetime Silver Elite Status. While that’s great, I still have Platinum elite status from the American Express Platinum card.
Final Thoughts
Marriott has gotten a lot of flack over the Bonvoy loyalty program. For those who travel weekly, the rollout of the new rewards program and single booking website/app haven’t been as seamless as one would have hoped. Likewise, the name is simply terrible.
Overall, I’ve been overall quite pleased with Marriott’s transition from the Marriott Rewards program to Marriott Bonvoy. Other than disliking the new name, I haven’t really been affected by the changes. Sure, rooms now cost a few a lot more points, but other than that, the transition appears smooth and things like this appear to be working as well as they had in the past.
