Deal has ended, view more Marriott deals by clicking here.
Update 5/14/20: These code as travel/Marriott. This means they will earn category bonuses and also trigger things like the $300 Marriott credit on the Bonvoy Brilliant card.
The Offer
- Marriott is selling their e-gift cards at a 20% discount. These gift cards can be used at almost all Marriott hotels worldwide (see exclusions, below).
Available denominations: $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000.
The Fine Print
- The following Marriott Hotel Brands DO NOT accept Marriott GiftCards: Bulgari®, Design Hotels™, Homes & Villas by Marriott International™, The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club® .
- Enjoy a special sale on Marriott eGiftCards from May 11th through May 17th. Discount available only on the promotional egift cards indicated below. Offer is valid while supplies last.
- Marriott GiftCards and eGiftCards may be purchased up to US$5,000 per person per credit card per day.
- eGiftCard orders are delivered within 1-7 business days due to order verification.
- eGiftCard Delivery Date should not exceed 3 months from date of order.
- Gift cards can not be used for room reservation (e.g. Advance Purchase Rates)
Our Verdict
20% off Marriott gift cards is a good deal in a more normal world. Given the current circumstances, you probably won’t use this for some time; maybe it’s like buying junk bonds? I don’t know, I suppose it’s a small risk, but Marriott is quite a large company.
This deal could make sense depending on the nature of your Marriott use. For most people it won’t make sense since gift cards can not be used for prepaid bookings which gets you the best price.
Use your Marriott card to earn 6x Bonvoy points, or any credit card should code as Travel for the travel category bonus. Reports indicate that this will work to trigger the $300 Brilliant credit too (though that credit now works at Restaurants, anyway, so easy to use up), despite official reports saying it won’t.
still need to think about how to use the $300 credit for CSR. Can anyone point me where I can find the latest information for what kind of purchases qualifies for CSR $300 credit? Assuming I don’t have travel plan at all within the next 12 months.
Thanks.
Just bought a second GC. Contrary to the first one purchased a few days ago, no confirmation email after ~30 mins. But I can see the charge on my CC. Going by order number, Marriott managed to fill ~50K orders. Wow.
Thanks for the info Chuck, you just saved me $200. My sincerest thanks. I had a reservation for next week and my reservation total was $997.00 on a AAA rate. I purchased a $1000 GC and received the eGift Card in minutes. Confirmed on my Bonvoy CC that it coded at 6x and confirmed with the Hotel that I can pay with the GC when I get there.
Even if it works for the Brilliant credit, tread carefully, as it’s against the T&Cs. Amex RAT team has a history of clawing back offers that were against the terms so I’d expect that to happen. With the credit so easy to use this year at restaurants I would suggest doing that instead. However it might be the only option to get 6x if that’s your only marriott card. I will get a small amount ($100 or $250?) to cover incidentals/resort fees as we usually stay on points.
I believe Marriott has already talked to both AMEX and Chase to make sure this would be treated as Travel – because essentially the gift card can ONLY use to pay for hotel stays incl any incidentals billed to the room – essentially it is bona fide TRAVEL transaction, Only difference is, it is “prepaid” for future travels. That is why AMEX should not have any issue for it because unlike the airline credit triggered by loopholes, that are outside the defined usages, this is very straight forward – No loophole for you to play because at the end, the money can only be used on the Legitimate Travel Expenses.
BTW, have been taking AMEX offers on statement credit of $40/$200 at various Marriott brands, thru buying physical gift cards at the particular brands. Works every time – because the GC could only be used for stays at the hotels.
You forget the most important thing – Marriott specifically tell people the purchase will earn 6x on BonVoy cards. If Marriott has not talked to AMEX / Chase, it would not make such claim.
This is unusual time and a way for Marriott to generate much needed revenues before actual travel could come back at any reasonable level.
The reselling tactic of GC is only practiced by very minority of people. Frankly I dont know how people still engage to this after several “merchants” went under.
At least two reputable GC re-vendors are alive and kicking, I cannot believe I even managed to sell my remaining AA GCs a week or two after the flight cancelations started. But I digress. You are way too optimistic about Amex giving a rat’s arse about how Marriott decided to code their GCs. The only way to be safe from the rats is to play by Amex T&C.
These code as travel on Bofa Cash Rewards Visa. So if you have Platinum Preferred Rewards and set your 3% category to travel – it’s 5.25% back.
Any word if eligible for Barclay Arrival Plus redemption? Thanks
Purchased Marriott Gift Card on 5/17/20, and on 5/19/20 was able to redeem Barclay Arrival+ travel statement credits to cover the charge.
Thoughts on using the altitude reserve $300 travel credit? Was going to use it and close the card so not as concerned about my card getting cancelled but didn’t know if they clawback gift cards with the dire warnings I see about gift card purchases of any kind with US Bank.
I expect the breakage on these cards will be higher than the normal since they will sit around awhile and people may forget. Perhaps they are counting on this higher unused % of cards to compensate for the discount.
Marriott must really be hurting for cash right now. As Wimpy said “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”.
I have a separate email folder for gift card emails, free night cert emails, etc, so that they’re all together without unrelated junk to confuse them. So since these are eGiftCards, I won’t forget for long (I check that folder periodically to see what there is that does need to be used up in a certain time).
I also keep the unredeemed ones “unread” and “flagged”, and the redeemed ones “marked read”, in that email folder.
I recommend everyone keep them in some organized place so that it’s harder to forget.
Same here. Airlines gift cards and hotel gift cards – they all have own folders in the email inbox, as well as print out of details either png or pdf files in cloud storage filed under Travel category with sub categories of GCs.
There is no way to have breakage unless the issuer goes bankrupt – with Marriott being the biggest chains in the world, the chance for it to disappear is very small.
All GCs these days have no expiration dates. Up till 2018 I have a $990 Marriott physical gift card bought on a one time Christmas promotion for 10% bonus (never see that happens again) in 2013… I finally used the bulk of it when doing a Plat challenge in Summer of 2018 – almost 5 years later. The card required manual entry in the system because Marriott had changed physical gift card setting at least 2 times by then.
Also recommend buyers to create an account on gifts.Marriott.com and register the Marriott gift card in your account. You can then not only be able to track usage but also can report it being lost or being hacked.
Junk bonds? That’s a little dramatic.
They have been downgraded to 1 level above junk by the credit rating agencies and gift cards are last on the list of credit holders, so yeah, you should treat them at best as a junk bond.
Purchased $1000, they took the money then they canceled the order. CS not helpful. Just kept reading from a script instead of addressing the problem. Refused a transfer to a manager.
Update: I received a refund.
Took a chance and repurchased with exactly the same information and the same Bonvoy Brilliant card. No cancellation email this time.