Marriott Bonvoy members who achieve 50 or 75 elite qualifying nights during a calendar year are entitled to an Annual Choice Benefit, which allows them to choose one of several different benefits that may enhance their Marriott Bonvoy experience.As a reminder, the 2024 Annual Choice Benefits are available for selection until Feb 1, 2025. Therefore, you’ll want to think about which benefit you’d like to choose if you’ve achieved 50 or 75 elite qualifying nights in 2024.Let’s take a look at what Annual Choice Benefits are available for you to pick from.Select Your Annual Choice Benefit for 2024You can head to the dedicated page on the Marriott website to complete your Annual Choice Benefit selection.You’ll be prompted to log in to your Marriott Bonvoy account, and then you can make either one or two Choice Benefit selections depending on which elite night thresholds you’ve crossed.Once your selections are made, they’re final and cannot be changed. The deadline to make your selection is February 1, 2025; if you haven’t made your choice by then, you’ll receive the set of five Nightly Upgrade Awards as a default benefit for both the 50- and 75-night Choice Benefits.Note that in the case of the 75-night Choice Benefit, it can well be more advantageous for you to wait until early 2025 (i.e., between January 1 and February 1) to finalize your selection, as we’ll discuss below.Annual Choice Benefits at 50 Elite Qualifying NightsUpon earning 50 elite qualifying nights in a calendar year, you’ll get to choose one of the following rewards as a Choice Benefit:
- Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
- Five extra elite qualifying nights
- 40% off a Marriott hotel bed
- A $100 (USD) charity donation
- The ability to gift Silver Elite status to another member
Generally speaking, the best choice here is the set of five Nightly Upgrade Awards, which allow you to request (but not necessarily confirm) an eligible upgrade on up to five nights’ worth of hotel stays over the upcoming year.After confirming a hotel reservation, you have the ability to apply Nightly Upgrade Awards to a select suite that the hotel makes available for Nightly Upgrade Award upgrades.Starting five days prior to your stay, the system will begin checking with the hotel whether your Nightly Upgrade Awards can “clear” into your desired suite upgrade.If so, your suite upgrade will be confirmed prior to your arrival; however, there’s no guarantee that they’ll clear, and the suite upgrade may still be denied in the end, with your Nightly Upgrade Awards being returned to your account.Redeem a Nightly Upgrade Award to stay in the Fantastic Bund View Suite at the W Shanghai The BundEach night of your booking will require one Nightly Upgrade Award, so you could use your set of five Nightly Upgrade Awards towards a single five-night stay, five separate one-night stays, a two-night stay and a three-night stay, etc.Altogether, the value proposition of Nightly Upgrade Award is somewhat lacking, because they can’t be used to guarantee a suite upgrade after all – they’re simply a more official tool for requesting a suite upgrade than the art of “suite-talking”, but the latter could still net you very impressive results when aiming to score some memorable hotel suites.Nevertheless, Nightly Upgrade Awards are still useful in those circumstances when you’d really want to confirm a suite upgrade, such as when you’re travelling with a partner on a special occasion.In these instances, you can apply Nightly Upgrade Awards to give yourself the best shot at confirming an upgrade three days in advance, and then you can fall back on your suite-talking abilities if the Nightly Upgrade Awards don’t clear. And if a Nightly Upgrade Awards request does clear, you can often suite-talk your way to an even bigger suite!Redeem a Nightly Upgrade Award to stay in the Overwater Bure Villa at the Marriott Resort Fiji Momi BayAside from the Nightly Upgrade Awards, the only other potentially useful benefit is the five extra elite qualifying nights.These nights will count towards your elite qualification for 2025, not for 2026. So they’d only be useful if they would retroactively qualify you for a higher tier of elite status, or for the purposes of counting towards lifetime elite status.Meanwhile, a 40% discount on a Marriott hotel bed is a great choice for anyone who was in the market for a Marriott hotel bed (especially considering the prices on some of those things), but pretty worthless for everyone else.Similarly, you’d be better off making your own $100 (USD) charity donation rather than picking it as a Choice Benefit, since you’d at least get a tax receipt.And Silver Elite status would be a rather pitiful gift for another member, given the very limited benefits you enjoy as a Silver Elite, not to mention the fact that anyone can earn this status simply by applying for the American Express Marriott Bonvoy Card or American Express Marriott Bonvoy Business Card.Annual Choice Benefits at 75 Elite Qualifying NightsUpon earning 75 elite qualifying nights in a calendar year, you’ll get to choose one of the following rewards as a Choice Benefit:
- A Free Night Award worth up to 40,000 Bonvoy points
- Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
- Five extra elite qualifying nights
- 40% off a Marriott hotel bed
- A $100 (USD) charity donation
- The ability to gift Gold Elite status to another member
Out of these options, the Free Night Award worth up to 40,000 Bonvoy points is the clear winner.Whereas Nightly Upgrade Awards offer potential value that’s not guaranteed, the Free Night Award can be cashed in for a one-night stay that would’ve otherwise cost you either your hard-earned cash or your hard-earned points.There’s also the ability to top up a Free Night Award with up to 15,000 extra Bonvoy points, so this certificate could potentially be used to book a stay that otherwise costs up to 55,000 Bonvoy points.Redeem a Free Night Award worth 40,000 points at the W TorontoHistorically, the Free Night Award granted through the 75-night Choice Benefit has been known to come with an expiration date of December 31 in the year following the year of selection. This pattern suggests that timing your selection strategically could extend its usability.For instance, by waiting until early January to make your selection—assuming you’re not in immediate need of the 40,000-point Free Night Award—you might receive an expiry date of December 31, 2026, instead of December 31, 2025. This effectively provides an extra year to redeem the award at your convenience, optimizing its value.Similar to the 50-night level, the other 75-night Choice Benefits are rather uninspiring.Five extra elite qualifying nights may be useful if you’re gunning for Ambassador Elite status at 100 elite nights. Of course, Ambassador Elite also requires spending $20,000 (USD) with Marriott to qualify for, which is a fairly high threshold.The only other distinct benefit at the 75-night level is the ability to gift Gold Elite status to another member.But again, Gold Elite isn’t the most useful elite status level in the first place, and it can easily be earned as a perk of signing up for the American Express Platinum Card or American Express Business Platinum Card. American Express Platinum Card
- Earn 100,000 MR points upon spending $10,000 in the first three months
- Plus, earn 40,000 MR points upon making a purchase in months 14–17 as a cardholder
- Earn 2x MR points on all dining and travel purchases
- Receive an annual $200 travel credit
- Receive an annual $200 dining credit
- Transfer MR points to Aeroplan and other frequent flyer programs for premium flights
- Unlimited airport lounge access for you and one guest at Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, Centurion, and other lounges
- Credits and rebates for daily expenses throughout the year with Amex Offers
- Bonus MR points for referring family and friends
- Annual fee: $799
ConclusionThe selection period for Marriott Bonvoy‘s 2024 Annual Choice Benefits is coming to an end. If you’ve reached 50 or 75 elite qualifying nights in 2024, go ahead and make your selection before the deadline of February 1, 2025.Among the pool of Choice Benefits, the best selections are likely the five Nightly Upgrade Awards at the 50-night level and the Free Night Award at the 75-night level. For the Free Night Award, it may be optimal to make your selection early each year in order to extend the validity period through to December 2026.
Appeared first on: princeoftravel.com
