Marriott elite status offers some impressive benefits to frequent travelers. But the perks get particularly compelling once you accrue at least 50 elite nights in a calendar year and reach Marriott Platinum Elite status.
One of the benefits you’ll get is the ability to choose a Marriott Annual Choice Benefit. You can select one when you reach 50 elite nights in a calendar year and another when you get to 75 elite nights (when you earn Marriott Titanium Elite status).
If you accrued at least 50 elite nights with Marriott Bonvoy during 2024, the deadline for selecting your Choice Benefit is Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. This is more time than in previous years since the deadline is typically the first week of January.
Here, I’ll discuss the Marriott Annual Choice Benefit options available at each tier to help you make the best choice for your upcoming travel.
Marriott Annual Choice Benefit overview
You earn a Marriott Annual Choice Benefit when you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar year. Then, you’ll earn a second Annual Choice Benefit after reaching 75 elite nights in a calendar year. However, the Choice Benefits options aren’t identical in both tiers.
How to select your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit
To select your Annual Choice Benefit(s), visit this page on Marriott’s website. You must sign in to your Marriott Bonvoy account to choose your benefit.
You can’t change your selection once you make it, so choose wisely. If you’re eligible for a 50-night and a 75-night benefit, you must select both during the same session.
Related: 29 best Marriott hotels in the world
When to select your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit
If you accrued 50 or 75 elite nights in 2024, you must select your Annual Choice Benefit(s) by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1, 2025. If you don’t make your selection(s) by the deadline, Marriott will automatically choose Nightly Upgrade Awards for you.
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How to earn Marriott Bonvoy elite nights
Earning 50 or 75 elite nights in a calendar year may sound daunting. However, Marriott provides multiple ways to earn elite nights. You’ll earn elite nights at participating Marriott brands when you book directly with Marriott, even when redeeming Marriott points or using a free night award certificate.
You can also earn elite night credits with select Marriott Bonvoy credit cards. You can earn up to 25 elite night credits each year with a Marriott consumer card and an additional 15 with a Marriott business card. Some Marriott cards even offer additional elite night credits when you hit specific spending thresholds.
Finally, it’s worth noting that you must reach the applicable elite night thresholds to unlock a Choice Benefit. While the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card comes with automatic Platinum Elite status as long as your account remains open, that doesn’t qualify for a benefit selection.
However, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card does offer a similar benefit — the Brilliant Earned Choice Award — that cardholders earn after spending $60,000 on eligible purchases with their Bonvoy Brilliant card in a calendar year. Brilliant Earned Choice Awards — which you must select by Feb. 1 of the year following the spend — include a choice of five Nightly Upgrade Awards, a free night award worth up to 85,000 points or $1,000 off a bed from any Marriott Bonvoy retail brand.
Related: Here’s why you need both a personal and business Marriott Bonvoy credit card
50-night Annual Choice Benefit options
You’ll unlock your first Marriott Annual Choice Benefit when you accrue 50 elite nights in a calendar year. Your options for the 50-night benefit earned via nights in 2024 are as follows:
- Five elite night credits
- Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
- $1,000 off a mattress
- $100 charity donation
- Gift Marriott Silver Elite status to another member
Most of these benefits are difficult to value, so let’s examine each option more closely. I’ll start with the options that are unlikely to make sense for most elite members.
Gift Marriott Silver Elite status
Giving status to someone else might initially sound like a good option. However, Marriott Silver Elite status isn’t worth much, as the primary perks are a 10% points bonus on paid stays and priority late checkout.
Instead of using your Marriott Choice Benefit to gift status, you could encourage your friend or family member to earn Marriott status via a credit card. For example, primary cardholders of the no-annual-fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card get automatic Silver Elite status and five elite night credits each calendar year as a cardholder perk.
Give a $100 charity donation
You can select a $100 donation to several charities — including UNICEF, the World Wildlife Fund and the Arne M. Sorenson Hospitality Fund — as your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit.
The $100 charity donation is a nice touch and could be the right decision if you can’t use any other Annual Choice Benefit options. However, I’d prefer to earn points and miles on a donation to a charity of my choice and maintain my ability to select one of the other benefits.
Related: How you can donate your points and miles to charity
Get $1,000 off a mattress
If you love the mattress at a particular Marriott brand, you can buy a new one for your home. If you’re in the market for a Marriott mattress, you can select a promo code worth $1,000 off the full retail value for mattresses and box springs from select Marriott brands as your Annual Choice Benefit.
However, you can’t combine the one-time $1,000 discount with other offers. So, check whether the promo code will provide enough value over other discounts to justify selecting it.
Receive 5 elite night credits
Choosing five elite night credits for your Marriott Annual Choice Benefit is smart for some travelers.
Marriott will post the elite night credits to the year you earned them. Choosing elite night credits may be useful if you fell five or fewer nights short of earning Titanium Elite status or a new Marriott Bonvoy lifetime status during the 2024 calendar year. If you select five elite night credits to clear the 75-night threshold for Titanium Elite status, be sure also to select your 75-night annual choice benefit before the deadline.
Receive 5 Nightly Upgrade Awards
Each Nightly Upgrade Award is valid for a one-night confirmable upgrade to select premium rooms and suites designated by each property. For example, you’d need six Nightly Upgrade Award certificates to request an upgrade for a six-night reservation.
Many members save their Nightly Upgrade Award for stays at high-end Marriott Bonvoy properties, while others collect them for nights they’d like more space. However, some members find it challenging to use these awards, and upgrades won’t start clearing until five days before your arrival (three days before arrival for Edition, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis stays).
If you opt for five Nightly Upgrade Awards as a Choice Benefit, your awards will expire Dec. 31 of the year following the one in which you earned them. So, if you reached 50 nights in 2024 and chose five Nightly Upgrade Awards as your Choice Benefit by Feb. 1, 2025, your Nightly Upgrade Awards expire Dec. 31, 2025.
75-night Annual Choice Benefit options
You’ll earn Marriott Titanium Elite status and a second Annual Choice Benefit after earning 75 elite nights within a calendar year. If you reached this threshold in 2024, here are your choices:
- Five elite night credits
- Five Nightly Upgrade Awards
- $1,000 off a mattress
- $100 charity donation
- Gift Marriott Gold Elite status to another member
- Free night award worth up to 40,000 points
The choices here are mostly the same as those available after hitting the 50-night threshold. I’ll skip over the charitable donation, Nightly Upgrade Awards and mattress discount since I’ve already discussed these options in the previous section. Likewise, I won’t discuss gifting Gold Elite status since earning Marriott status via credit cards is relatively easy.
However, let’s take a closer look at the other two options.
Receive 5 elite night credits
Earlier in this article, I considered how some travelers might select five elite night credits as the 50-night Annual Choice Benefit to reach Titanium Elite or lifetime elite status. However, it could also make sense for Titanium Elite members to choose five elite night credits to earn Ambassador Elite status. This status tier typically requires 100 elite nights and $23,000 in annual Marriott spending.
This option will likely only make sense if you ended 2024 within five elite nights of a higher lifetime elite status tier or with 95 to 99 elite nights and at least $23,000 in annual qualifying spending with Marriott.
Get a free night award worth up to 40,000 points
The final option, unique to the 75-night Annual Choice Benefit, is a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. This free night award is slightly more valuable than the 35,000-point free night award certificates associated with many of the Marriott Bonvoy cards.
TPG’s January 2025 valuations say 40,000 Marriott points are worth $340, making this a valuable option. However, if you already have lots of Marriott Bonvoy points and outstanding free night awards to cover your future travels, you may want to choose another benefit.
Which Marriott Annual Choice Benefit should you choose?
The best Marriott Annual Choice Benefit for most loyalists at the 50-night tier is five Nightly Upgrade Awards. At the 75-night tier, the best Annual Choice Benefit is usually five more Nightly Upgrade Awards or a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. However, the five elite night credits may be a great choice at either tier if they’d let you qualify for a higher status tier.
You may wonder what I typically select for my Annual Choice Benefits. When I earned Titanium Elite status in 2021, 2022 and 2023, I picked five Suite Night Awards (now Nightly Upgrade Awards) for my 50-night choice and a free night award worth up to 40,000 points for my 75-night choice.
However, I only accrued 71 elite nights in 2024. So, I selected five elite night credits as my 50-night benefit to reach 76 elite nights for 2024, requalify for Titanium Elite status through February 2026 and obtain a 75-night choice. For my 75-night choice, I chose five Nightly Upgrade Awards. The free night award worth up to 40,000 points was likely a more valuable choice, but I wanted access to some Nightly Upgrade Awards since I didn’t choose any as my 50-night benefit.
Bottom line
Marriott’s Annual Choice Benefits are valuable, with ample options at each threshold. The options aren’t valued equally, so carefully consider which benefit will be most valuable for you before deciding.
If you aren’t sure what to choose, the most valuable option at the 50-night tier is usually Nightly Upgrade Awards and the best option at the 75-night tier is usually more Nightly Upgrade Awards or a free night award worth up to 40,000 points. Whatever you decide, select your benefit by 11:59 p.m. EST on Feb. 1, 2025.
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