We love our Marriott Bonvoy credit cards because most of them come with an annual free-night award each year on your cardmember anniversary. A couple even sometimes come with free-night awards as part of the welcome offer!

• • The card_name comes with a free-night award every year after your account anniversary, valid for a one night hotel stay at a property with a redemption level up to 35,000 points.
  • The card_name comes with a free-night award every year after your account anniversary, valid for a one night hotel stay at a property with a redemption level up to 35,000 points.
  • The card_name comes with a free-night award every year after your account anniversary, valid for a one night hotel stay at a property with a redemption level up to 85,000 points.

Enrollment required. Terms apply.

In the past, you could only top off each free-night award with up to 15,000 of your own Marriott points. However, now you can top off a Marriott free-night award with as many as 25,000 additional points. This makes them much more flexible (and valuable), especially because Marriott has gone to dynamic pricing and many hotels seem to cost more points.

This means free-night awards can now be stretched significantly further. For example:

• A 35,000-point award can now be used for a hotel costing up to 60,000 points
• A 50,000-point award can now cover stays up to 75,000 points
• An 85,000-point award could be applied toward a stay costing 110,000 points if you add the maximum number of points

 

Topping Off a Marriott Free-Night Award

I recently received five free-night awards (valued at up to 50,000 points each) as part of a welcome offer. Before applying, I came up with a plan for these, which was key, because they do expire a year after they’re deposited into your Marriott account.

The Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Theme Park Entrance is my absolute favorite hotel near Disneyland that you can book on points. It’s literally across the street from the Disneyland entrance, every room has a set of bunk beds (which means you can book a standard room with two queens and bunk beds and sleep an entire family of six), and it has an incredible 20,000-square-foot waterpark. 

 

 

We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Theme Park Entrance on points in both 2017 and 2018 and loved it! But in recent years, the points price has gone up so much (and my stash of Marriott points has dwindled) that the Hyatt properties near Disneyland have made more sense.

But when I noticed nights at the Courtyard for less than 75,000 points each, I knew I’d found the perfect use for my 50,000-point free-night awards (that can now be topped off with up to 25,000 of my own Marriott points)!

 

 

Once I was logged into my Marriott account and selected our dates, Marriott’s site applied my free-night awards automatically and included the top-off amount. You can see in the screenshot below that one night was 58,000 points, one night was 66,000 points, and one night was 50,000 points or less.

By redeeming three 50,000-point free-night awards plus topping them off with a total of 24,000 Marriott points, I now get the chance to take my family back to our favorite Disneyland hotel!

 

 

Bottom Line

I love the ability to top off Marriott free-night awards with up to 25,000 of my own Marriott points! And Marriott makes the process seamless—simply find dates that work with the level of free-night award you have, select the dates, and Marriott applies the awards and top-off amount automatically. Where will you use your Marriott free-night awards?

 

Related Posts

• Great Ways to Use a Marriott 35K Certificate
• Great Ways to Use a Marriott 50K Certificate
• Great Ways to Use a Marriott 85K Certificate