Yesterday I received an email from Marriott about buying gift cards at a fairly attractive discounted rate. It seems for about the next week, Marriott is offering a 20% discount on all e-gift card purchases. This gift card discount seems to be yet another attempt from a travel brand to raise cash. See, even though people aren’t staying at hotels, Marriott and other brands still have to pay certain expenses. With that in mind, many travel brands are coming up with creative ways to raise cash to help get them through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marriott Bonvoy Gift Card Discounts
I discovered this promotions through one of the many emails I receive from Marriott on a weekly basis. Generally these emails are easy to ignore, but every now and then one catches my eye that might represent fantastic value. In this case, I think a 20% discount on Marriott gift cards that never expire is a great deal!
The email from Marriott started out like most other emails from the brand and included a nice picture of a father playing with his boy in what appears to be a hotel room. This got me thinking, won’t most people want to travel to get away from their kids?
More importantly, this email introduced a promotion from Marriott to save on electronic gift card purchases. Specifically, from May 11 through 17, 2020, customers can same 20% on all Marriott Bonvoy electronic gift card purchases. After introducing the promotion, the email also helped explain to Bonvoy members exactly what a 20% discount means. For example, a $1,000 gift card costs just $800 during the promotional period.
Taking advantage of this promotion is incredibly easy. You can of course use the link, found in the email, to visit the e-gift card portal. Likewise, you can visit Marriott’s Gift Card Portal and find a link to the promotion there.
How To Buy 20% Off Marriott Gift Cards
Marriott is making it extremely easy to take advantage of this promotion. All you have to do is visit the e-gift card site and add a Marriott gift card to your card.
When browsing available gift cards it looks like only certain gift cards qualify for the 20% off discount. However, you can actually add any gift card you want to your cart and select any value you want, as long as it’s $5,000 or less. When checking out, you can confirm that you’re getting the 20% discount as noted below.
Now, there are two notable restrictions associated with this particular promotion. The first is that only gift cards of $50 or more qualify. This means you couldn’t buy a $10 (for $8) for example. Second, you can only purchase up to $5,000 of gift cards (for $4,000) per person, per credit card, per day. For what it’s worth, that $5,000 limit applies to all Marriott gift card purchases.
Is 20% Off Gift Cards A Good Deal?
I’ll admit, when I first got the email from Marriott about the 20% discount I scoffed. After all, why would I give Marriott money if I have no idea when I’ll be able stay at a hotel again. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I realized this is actually a pretty decent promotion.
The reason this is potentially a good deal is because Marriott gift cards never expire. So, let’s say you’re self-employed and you spend $5,000 on hotels annually. If you know you’re going to have to stay in hotels once we’re able to travel again, you’re effectively reducing your hotel expense by 20%.
This is also a great deal if you’re reimbursed for your travel expenses from your employer. See, you’ll pay for your stay with the gift card and your employer will reimburse you in full for the room rate. So, let’s say the room cost $1,000 for the week. You pay with a gift card that only cost you $800 and then your employer pays you back $1,000. If you do this you’ll end up pocketing an extra $200.
Finally, because you’re buying these gift cards directly from Marriott, the charge should count as a travel expense. Therefore, you should earn bonus points with your credit card for buying gift cards. In the case of a Marriott Bonvoy card, you should earn 6X Marriott Points on these purchases. You’ll also earn points on the stay later on as well.
Final Thoughts
Although this is clearly an attempt from Marriott to raise cash, I still think it’s a fantastic opportunity to buy pre-paid travel. For example. if you use the gift cards in the next 12 months, you’ll get a 20% annual return on your investment. If you don’t use the gift card for 24 months, that’s still a 10% annualized return.
All in all, that’s a much better return than you’ll get by letting that money sit in a savings account. Still, you don’t want to tie up your cash in Marriott gift cards if you may run into liquidity issues over the next few months, but if you have some cash available, this promotion does represent a fantastic value.
