One more potential framework when establishing a value for your points is casting a wide net over all hotels, as we attempt to do for Marriott Bonvoy.

Everything has a value

I don’t need to reiterate what I’ve already stated previously, but it’s still worth mentioning. Travel using points isn’t free. Since it’s not free, there must be a value attached to it. You could then calculate the value of a point.

It’s important to also distinguish the value of a point from the cost of a point. The value is what the point can buy while the cost is what you spent to acquire the point. The difference, then, between the value and the cost can be thought of as the spread. Common sense would dictate that you don’t want the cost to exceed the value of the point (i.e., a negative spread) or you would have lost money in the transaction.

For the purposes of the below, I’m just going to define the value of the point and not the cost. Everyone’s cost will vary depending what avenues of acquiring points are available to them. I’ll save that cost calculation for you to do.

Key considerations

It’s important to identify a few key considerations to this valuation so we can look at this in the proper framework.

Each point in the same program is not worth the same amount

This one is an odd one. If you open a loyalty account and only earn one point, what is that point worth? Well, assuming you can’t redeem just one point, that point has zero value to you. In fact, each point you earn before you can redeem any of them is worth zero. The point that enables you to then redeem for an award is the one that’s worth a significant amount.

If you were to theoretically plot this out on a graph, you’d see a chart that jumps all over the place. It’s not very useful to think of points as a function plotted on a graph. Instead, it’s better to think of points as an average value. I’d rather not think about calculus when spending time in this hobby.

How much do you cherry pick your awards?

Now that you’re thinking of points themselves bouncing around in value, you can also start thinking about cherry picking for the better awards. Do you spend 1,000 miles buying $10 off travel or do you wait for 2,000 miles when you can get $25 off? That’s a simplistic example but it does help demonstrate what this dynamic entails.

Your comfort level in cherry picking the best value will depend on your earn rate, your comfort level in the program not devaluing, and the spread you’re looking to get.

The cash price the award replaced isn’t always the proper valuation

Let’s say you find an award for two one-way international flights that together form a roundtrip journey. If you didn’t have access to points, you likely wouldn’t book these flights as one-ways. Generally international roundtrip flights are significantly cheaper than one-ways. Claiming your points have the value of the cash price of two one-ways would then be inflating the value of the points.

The proper valuation should consider opportunity cost. If you didn’t have points at your disposal, what would you have paid in cash? Sometimes the cash rate might be the proper metric (it could be the only hotel in town that works for your needs), but it might not be.

Everyone’s valuation will be different

It’s important to know that my valuation will be different from yours. That’s because the awards that I might be interested in aren’t the same awards you would be interested in. Valuing points is inherently a very personal calculation that considers what I would redeem for and when.

Within this concept is the truth that sometimes elite status affects the value of points. Take Hyatt’s program where Globalist status can offer free parking on award stays but no free parking on cash stays. That then means that Globalists might have a higher valuation of Hyatt points than non-Globalists. Another example might be Hilton’s fifth night free when booked with points but only for elite members.

What do you get out of my valuation? It’s more of the framework that matters, so that you can consider your own valuation.

The method of valuing a Marriott Bonvoy point

We’ve talked about how we built up the value for each of the following:

• Accor points (worth 2.4 cents each)
• Choice Privileges points (worth 1.1 cents each)
• Hilton points (worth 0.4 cents each)
• Hyatt points (worth 2.0 cents each)
• IHG points (worth 0.64 cents each)
• LHW Leaders Club points (worth 8.0 cents each)
• Wyndham Rewards points (worth 1.0 cents each)

Hyatt was based on where I stayed and the corresponding cash price. Hilton had a heavy emphasis on the most expensive hotels.

What about Marriott Bonvoy points? There are ultimately three thoughts here that we have:

• Using Marriott Bonvoy points to offset the full price of the hotel cost.
• Topping off 35K, 40K, 50K, or 85K free night certificates with up to 15,000 points.
• Transferring to airline programs.

Let me address that last item right now: it simply doesn’t hold the same weight it once did. Back in the Starwood days, having 1 Starpoint equal potentially 1.25 airline miles was an awesome deal. There weren’t many credit cards offering multipliers on everyday spend back then. I think people also forgot that Starwood had poor award pricing, particularly for aspirational properties. So transferring to airlines was an effective use of those points.

Fast forward to today and, sure, 3 Marriott points equal potentially the same 1.25 airline miles (1 Starpoint equaled 3 Marriott points via transfers). But the appeal is far less because you can easily find cards that earn you more miles for your credit card spend. So for the purpose of this analysis, I’m going to not consider transfers to airlines.

How I earn my Marriott Bonvoy points

Before I talk about the value of the points, let’s talk a bit about how I earn my Marriott points and how I use them. That sets the rationale on how I would then value them.

Most of my Marriott points come from hotel stays. That’s a bit unoriginal, but it’s incredibly complex trying to get a new credit card with the hope of earning another sign-up bonus. Both American Express and Chase offer Marriott credit cards and they sure don’t make it easy, with rules that prevent earning a bonus if you have the wrong card from the other issuer.

There also were times when I bought points from Marriott during a sale. However, I only did that shortly before booking and when I knew I would get more value from the points than what they cost.

How I use my points

Generally speaking, my first use of Marriott points is to top off free night certificates. I actually find it a pretty decent way to use them. Have a 50k free night certificate and want to use it for a night that costs 55,000 points? Well you can use your certificate and add 5,000 points. I end up with a small number of free night certificates from the credit cards we have, and this feature adds flexibility.

But I’m not averse to using my points to offset the price of the hotel in full too.

The secret award categories that still exist

Marriott used to manage award costs for their hotels by placing them into award categories, but it has since officially moved away from buckets. Only they just wanted us to think that. Instead, they still have a secret award chart but just aren’t telling us about it. Thankfully, Seal the Deal Travels cracked the code on this.

The linked article spells out the derived min and max points price, but since it’s not published, expect it to change without notice. There are also some hotels that don’t fit into the hotel categories and charge a higher rate.

The point of looking at the secret award chart for determining points values is to make sure a broad variety of hotels is included in the calculation and to see if there is any bias in results. But first, a few assumptions:

• I picked three hotels in each category at random, spread across the world.
• I looked at the one-night cost of each hotel on the first of each month from April 2025 to December 2025.
• If the hotel did not have any points availability on any given night, it was omitted from the calculation.
• The cost of taxes and fees is included in the cash price but the resort/destination fee is not. That’s because Marriott assesses the fee on award nights, thus points won’t cover that price.
• The cash price reflects the member-only refundable rate. While that makes the cash price more expensive than the non-refundable rate, points stays are typically refundable.
• Some resorts automatically include breakfast for cash-paying guests but might not provide it on points rates. No adjustment was made in the results (this only impacted the expensive resorts in Asia).

Results and observations

This very simplistic analysis seems to suggest that the best value comes with the categories that are considered “secret” category 9. Those hotels seem to have a disproportionately high cash cost but with a more modest points increase over category 8. In fact, all three of the hotels selected seem to be telling the same story.

There is also some skew towards marginally better value at the low end, but it’s unclear if that is real or just a function of the low sample size. If there happens to be a special event near these cheaper hotels that causes the cash price to massively inflate, the points category seems to prevent the points price from similarly going astronomically upwards. That could mean lower category hotels might provide better value for those special events.

The relationship between price and “secret” hotel category isn’t perfect, but it’s directionally correct. Of note, it looks like the cash prices for categories 1, 2, and 3 overlap a bit for the hotels selected in Europe. That could be more of a sample size issue, but it’s also unclear how often hotels change category at this point.

Caveats

The main problem with the approach presented is simply the lack of data. If one day happens to have abnormally high rates, that could skew the results. Similarly, the number of hotels (27 in total) across the spectrum is on the small side. This is especially true when you consider that Marriott brags about having over 9,100 properties under the umbrella.

I’d like to do more with this methodology, but that would require building out a database and would require quite a bit more time. So we’ll file this in the maybe pile if I can figure out how to make that work. It would be interesting if it could be done at scale where we could then see any potential biases emerge.

And the survey says…!

For simplicity, I’m comfortable just taking the overall average of the results above to assign a value on Marriott points. Why? Because while I would love to only focus on the high end of the Marriott portfolio, the reality is that I frequently top off my free night certificates with extra points. Those properties would be mostly in the middle of the “secret” award chart range, and thus drag down my valuation. But I would prefer to spend the bulk of my free nights at higher-end properties.

Taking the overall average of the above puts me at 0.9 cents per Marriott Bonvoy point. Yes, this is marginally higher than what other blogs would suggest. If I were to kick out the category 9 hotels from this analysis, the valuation would drop to 0.75 cents per Marriott Bonvoy point and be more in line with what others say.

The analysis reviews three hotels at each category but there are fewer hotels in the highest category than there are at the lower categories. Furthermore, there is more skew to the results because the higher categories are more expensive and thus have more weight when taking averages. So there is some inherent bias in the results, but since I admitted already to preferring to use points at the most expensive properties, I’m comfortable with the bias.

Note that this doesn’t consider the fifth night free benefit. While I could gross up the value by 20%, I find that I don’t actually stay five nights most of the time. I might pay for two nights with points and another with a free night certificate to get to three nights. If you always stay five nights to maximize your points, you might do better than the valuations listed.

The thought process is the same as elsewhere

Unless you have an endless supply of points at your disposal, it would behoove you to cherry-pick your rewards. Don’t just use your points for every redemption out there because not every redemption is made equal. Of course, the far opposite isn’t good either: if you are afraid of using your points at any hotel that isn’t the absolute best redemption, you’ll never use them. Pick a price that works for you and have no regrets when you redeem above that threshold.

Marriott does offer sales on its points on occasion, and this suggests that I’d still quite possibly be fine buying them if they are less than 0.9 cents each. But it’s certainly not a slam dunk since many properties would result in a loss if all my points came at that higher rate. So, again, be selective when you do buy points but know that it’s still possible to come out ahead. Even considering the recent devaluation.

How much do you value Marriott Bonvoy points?