Marriott Rewards hotels geographical list for category 5 to category 6 reassignment April 8, 2014

There are 208 Marriott Rewards category 5 hotels moving up to category 6 on April 8, 2014. This means these hotels will become unavailable for free night certificate redemption using MegaBonus and Marriott Rewards Visa credits. You have until April 7, 2014 to book these hotels at the category 5 reward level.

Marriott Rewards Hotel Category Changes Announcement (Marriott Rewards Insiders March 19, 2014).

It is perplexing to me that a company like Marriott Rewards publishes a list of hotel category changes containing over 1,000 hotels with no geographical location information for city, state and country.

For example, Courtyard Portland Airport is the name of a hotel at two locations in Oregon and Maine. Courtyard Portland Airport in Maine is the category 5 hotel and Portland Oregon is a category 3 hotel.

Here is the list of hotels moving to category 6.

The most interesting aspect of these changes are 171 of 208 hotels rising to category 6 are located in the USA for 82% of the hotels moving up and out of category 5.

Marriott Rewards Category 5 Hotels = 561 hotels worldwide.
Marriott Rewards Category 5 Hotels = 459 hotels USA (82%).
171 of 459 hotels in USA moving up to category 6 is 37% of all USA hotels currently in category 5.
37 of 102 international hotels moving up is 36% of all category 5 hotels outside the USA rising to category 6.

Basically, the Marriott Rewards April 8 changes remove more than 1 out of 3 hotels currently in category 5 to category 6 and out of reach of category 5 hotel reward night certificates earned through MegaBonus and Marriott Rewards credit card bonus.

Check out the list and redeem your category 5 certificates by April 7, 2014 if you want to stay at one of these hotels in the next year.

Marriott Rewards Category 5 hotels reassigned to Category 6 effective April 8, 2014.

Loyalty Traveler: Overview of Marriott Rewards 2014 category changes effective April 8 (March 19, 2014)

Marriott Rewards announced hotel reward category changes to take effect on April 8, 2014.

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Ric Garrido of Monterey, California is writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler.

Loyalty Traveler shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests.

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2 Comments

Paul March 20, 2014

Woould be nice if Chase Marriott Premier Visa would offer getting a 1 to 6 cert for $X spend on the card, 1 to 7 cert for $Y spend, etc. Maybe have that option for card holders instead of and extra stay credit for each $3K spend.
Boraxo March 20, 2014

Rick can we book Cat 5 hotels now and support them later with certs or do we need to have certs in account at time of booking? I currently only have 2 certs but expect to have more before my checkin date. I know you can do this with points but not sure about certs