Marriott’s New 2018 Promotion [You Might Need to Read This]

I wrote earlier about SPG’s new promotion for 2018 but Marriott also just announced its new “MegaBonus” promotion for 2018. You can register for the promotion using this link right here.

Issues with enrolling in the promotion

Note that many people are having issues signing up for this promotion.

When they attempt to sign-up they see a message which states the following:

A Note About This Promotion

We’re sorry, but there was an error in directing you to this promotion.

The reason for this error could be:

• You’re trying to access a miles promotion and are a points-earner, or vice versa
• You are not eligible for this promotion
• This promotion has expired

This has led a lot of people to believe that this promotion is targeted but this is not the case.

I checked with Marriott and they told me that people are having issues probably because of some technical issue that hasn’t been resolved yet. If this happens to you then in order to register, all you need to do is call Marriott and request to be enrolled in the MegaBonus promotion. You can call: 1-801-468-4000.

The actual promotion, much like the SPG promotion is pretty lackluster. For stays between January 16 and April 15 you’ll earn the following points:

• 2000 bonus points per stay starting with your second stay
• 1000 additional points for stays that include a weekend night (Friday or Saturday, but Thursday or Friday in the Middle East)
• Bonus points earnings will have a cap of 50,000

Comparison with the SPG Promotion

This is how the new Marriott promotion compares with the SPG promotion.

• If you spend $300 on your second hotel stay with Marriott including a weekend night, you’d earn 3,000 base points (with no status) plus 3,000 bonus points for a total of 6,000 Marriott points which comes out to $48 (at a rate of .8 cents per point) for a 16% return. 
• If you spend $300 on your second hotel stay with SPG including a weekend night, you’d earn 600 base points (with no status) x 2 for 1,200 points plus 500 bonus points for a total of 1,700 SPG points which comes out to $40.80 (at a rate of 2.4 cents per point) for a 13.6% return. 

Final word

Obviously, the higher you go with your spend, the better the return will be for SPG compared to Marriott since the SPG bonus points are tied to how much you’re spending while Marriott offers a flat 2,000 points. SPG also does not place a cap on their promotion. Overall, both of these promotions leave a little to be desired but you should probably enroll in them anyways to take advantage of the earnings.