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When do your Marriott Bonvoy points expire? How can you stop it?

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I receive regular emails from readers asking ‘How can I stop my Marriott Bonvoy points from expiring?’ or ‘When do my Marriott Bonvoy points expire?’.  This series, which we are updating this week, looks at the major hotel loyalty programmes and shows you how to keep valuable points intact.

Marriott Bonvoy is the hotel loyalty scheme for AC Hotels, Aloft, Autograph, City Express, Courtyard, Delta Hotels, Design Hotels, Edition, Element, Fairfield Inn, Four Points, Gaylord, Le Meridien, Marriott, Moxy, Protea, Renaissance, Residence Inn, St Regis, Sheraton, The Luxury Collection, The Ritz-Carlton, Springhill Suites, Towneplace Suites, W and Westin.

If you need to refer to this article in the future, there is a link to it on our ‘Hotel Offers’ page in the Marriott section. This also includes details of current Marriott Bonvoy promotions.

When do your Marriott Bonvoy points expire?

Here is the full list of articles in this series:

When do Marriott Bonvoy points expire?

According to clause 1.6.d of the Marriott Bonvoy terms and conditions here:

Points Expiration Policy. Members must remain active in the Loyalty Program to retain Points they accumulate. If a Member Account is inactive for twenty-four (24) consecutive months, that Member Account will forfeit all accumulated Points. Members can remain active in the Loyalty Program and retain accumulated Points by earning Points or Miles, redeeming Points, or purchasing Points (as described in 2.9) in the Loyalty Program at least once every twenty-four (24) months, subject to the exceptions described below. If a Member does not maintain an active status for five (5) consecutive years, the Member’s Account may be deactivated. Once Points are forfeited, the Points cannot be reinstated, but a Member can earn new Points, unless that Member’s Account has been deactivated.

Not all Points activities help maintain active status in the Loyalty Program. Examples of activities that do not count toward maintaining an active status in the Loyalty Program include, but are not limited to:

A.      Gifting or transferring Points; however, converting Points to Miles or Miles to Points does count toward maintaining an active status;

B.      Receiving Points as a gift or transfer

How does Marriott Bonvoy define ‘earning or redeeming points’?

The key point is that you do not need to stay at a hotel to keep your points alive. You simply need to have some activity go through your Marriott Bonvoy account.

Marriott has a very lenient policy (you only need one item of activity every two years) so there is no reason why you should lose your points.

There are various ways of achieving this if you live in the UK:

Earning Marriott Bonvoy points:

Spending Marriott Bonvoy points:

The easiest way to trigger some spend activity would appear to be to book and then cancel a redemption night. This should count as activity.  However, comments from our readers in the past have suggested that this does not work, at least if the cancellation is done immediately after booking.

Here are some other options:

  • Transfer your Marriott Bonvoy points to another person.  You can transfer up to 100,000 points per year to another person, so if your partner has an active account you might as well just transfer your points to them.  There is no charge for transfers and they can now be done online. You need to transfer all of your points because the transfer itself is not ‘activity’ and will not stop any remaining points expiring.

As you can see, there is no excuse at all for letting Marriott Rewards points expire – just spend $12.50 on buying 1,000 points and your problem is solved in five minutes.

How to be notified of upcoming miles and points expiry dates

If you want to track the expiry dates of all of your miles and points, I recommend signing up to AwardWallet for free. It keeps all of your points balances, including non-travel loyalty schemes, in one place and updates them automatically.

If you pay for the premium version ($30 per year) it also tracks your all expiry dates and emails you when points are about to expire.  On the free plan, you can track the expiry date for three loyalty schemes of your choice.


How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status from UK credit cards

How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status from UK credit cards (January 2024)

There are various ways of earning Marriott Bonvoy points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

The official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card comes with 20,000 points for signing up, 2 points for every £1 you spend and 15 elite night credits per year.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points sign-up bonus and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

You can also earn Marriott Bonvoy points by converting American Express Membership Rewards points at the rate of 2:3.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Marriott Bonvoy Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and MeliaRewards Gold status.  We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

You can also earn Marriott Bonvoy points indirectly:

and for small business owners:

The conversion rate from American Express to Marriott Bonvoy points is 2:3.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Marriott Bonvoy points

(Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Comments (9)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Matt says:

    An alternative way to stop your points expiring is to get lifetime status

  • SammyJ says:

    Thanks for this – I almost never use Marriott since IHG Diamond offered breakfast and lounge pass, and closed my MR card last month. so had assumed that my paltry 3,801 Bonvoy points would be lost next month, but I’ve just transferred them to 1267 Avios – hadn’t realised that would be an option for such a small balance. Not the best value I’m sure but better than losing them, or throwing good money after bad.

    • Julia says:

      We’ve used IHG in favour of Marriott this year since they changed to IHG1 rewards, barring the Amex cash back offers. We’re keeping the cards and option open though because we don’t know what direction IHG1 will go in the future. I’d still like to see a ‘get the fifth night free ‘ on reward bookings. Also Marriott does have a very useful points transfer to a broad field of airline partners.

  • JohnTh says:

    OH got left with under 1k so going to have to let them go – not worth buying as no status either.

  • Wendy says:

    Let’s keep our points from expiring just to get “Bonvoyd” when you try to get something you’re entitled to. Sounds wonderfully!

  • Andy says:

    Would an annual elite nights credit from a credit card (creation or Amex) stop points expiring ?

    • Stu_N says:

      Do the nights post with a star for qualifying activity? If so they would.

      Seems like a moot point though as any spend on cards would generate points that would keep the account live?

    • Rob says:

      No (I think) because it doesn’t move your points balance.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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