Marriott is bucking the trend of making negative changes to best rate guarantees (see: Hyatt & IHG) by making an improvement. Previously they gave you 25% off the matching rate. Now you have the option of that or receiving 5,000 points. The change isn’t listed on their best rate guarantee page yet, but it is listed on the claim form. How useful this change is will really depend on how much you value Marriott points and the room rates you’re booking. If you value Marriott points at 0.5¢ each then this new option is worth a flat $25, meaning a room rate would need to be under $100 for this to be a better option than the $25 off.
SPG has a simlar option, but it awards you 2,000 SPG points. That would normally convert to 6,000 Marriott points so it looks like Marriott has adopted this SPG policy but made it slightly worse.
Hat tip to Loyalty Lobby
