Marriott Rewards guts its social media points-earning scheme

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Back in May I wrote about ‘Plus Points’. This was an easy way to earn 2,000 Marriott Rewards points per month by simply following eight Marriott hotels on Twitter or Facebook.

It seems that, for Marriott, it was far too easy – and too expensive.

They have effectively gutted the promotion, with immediate effect. You will now only receive 25 Marriott Rewards points for following a hotel on Twitter. The Facebook option has been removed entirely.

Given that Marriott Rewards points are worth 0.5p at best, this is absolutely not worth your time and effort any more. It is a shame, although I can imagine that Marriott baulked when they saw that they were handing out well over a million points per month – which they undoubtedly were.

Details of the new earning structure can be found at the Plus Points website.

How to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and status from UK credit cards (December 2021)

There are various ways of earning Marriott Bonvoy points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

The official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card usually comes with 20,000 points for signing up, 2 points for every £1 you spend and 15 elite night credits per year.

You can apply here.

American Express Marriott Bonvoy credit card

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points sign-up bonus and 15 elite night credits Read our full review

You can also earn Marriott Bonvoy points by converting American Express Membership Rewards points at the rate of 2:3.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Marriott Bonvoy Gold status for as long as they hold the card? It also comes with Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Gold and MeliaRewards Gold status. We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

You can also earn American Express Membership Rewards points with American Express Gold (20,000 bonus points), the American Express Rewards Credit Card (5,000 bonus points) and – for small business owners – American Express Business Gold (20,000 bonus points) and Business Platinum (40,000 bonus points).

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Marriott Bonvoy points.

(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Category

Marriott Bonvoy

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

SingingDwarf says:

25 Jul25 July 07:08

Interesting, thanks for the heads-up.

Lots of companies still trying to get to grips with social media.

You would have thought that someone would have done the maths before this launched though…
Simon says:

25 Jul25 July 07:42

Although it takes longer I’m still doing it using the Twitter hash tags. I signed up not using my main Twitter account and I’ve got 4 tweets saved in notepad that earn 25 points, every day I delete my old tweets from Twitter and copy and paste the ones from notepad in, takes less than a minute and I’m getting 100 points a day at the moment.

I’m sure there are tools you can get that could automatically send the tweets as well.
Matthew says:

25 Jul25 July 08:38

I’m happy I managed to bag 8000pts from this so only had to buy 2000pts towards my 10000pt redemption that I booked before the category change! All this I knew about from here….so thank you! Don’t forget you can combine your wife/partner points with yours for free only when you are doing it to make a reservation.
Czechoslovakia says:

25 Jul25 July 09:39

You win some, you loose some. Good while it lasted, and thanks Rob for the original post or I never would have known. OT again, twice now Marriott Budapest has credited my account with someone elses stays (I did stay there a year ago). Anyone any experience of incorrectly credited points being snatched back? Dare I use them and claim ignorance?
Trickster says:

25 Jul25 July 10:17

What has annoyed me is they’ve not honoured the 250 points for my last few follows prior to the change, despite me receiving emails that say 250 points.
signol says:

25 Jul25 July 10:32

I made calendar reminders to follow 8 on Twitter each month. Only last month only 4 paid out the points. I’m now sitting at 3k points which are pretty much worthless as most of my hotel stays are Hilton or IHG.
- Fenny says:
  
  25 Jul25 July 19:40
  
  I did the same. Only managed 2K points in total, despite doing all the necessary links to FB and twitter and a whole bunch of FB likes.
MDM says:

25 Jul25 July 14:41

Jeez, after I went to all the effort of opening a bogus Facebook account too!

I have never been a Marriott fan and they are most certainly “unliked” and no longer followed by me 🙂
ankomonkey says:

25 Jul25 July 22:07

I got an e-mail a week or two ago with a vastly expanded list of hotels to “like” in this promotion. I needed to earn 10k from this promotion for my redemption plan. Now sitting with 4k points and a real beef with Marriott…