Red Room Chronicles

If you get in to the upper regions of points in the Marriott Rewards program there are some very nice rewards that you can take advantage of. To date I’ve only taken advantage of a few free night stays. Those are nice, but I feel like you get more bang for your reward miles with some of these rewards that I covet.

Travel
* 7 nights split between any three Hawaiian properties - 130,000 points
* 7 nights split between any three UK/Ireland properties - 150,000 points
* 10 day Caribbean cruise for two on Holland America cruise line - 265,000 points

Sports & Leisure
* Four day adult park hopper pass at Disney World in Orlando - 55,000 points

Merchandise
* Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera w/lens - 165,000 points
* Philips 23 inch flat screen television - 145,000 points

The shopping rewards are via Sky Mall. There are many more products available for purchase with rewards points. Many people don’t know about this because Marriott doesn’t prominently display information about merchandise rewards on their site, preferring to highlight the gift certificates instead. Check out the merchandise rewards by going to http://www.skymall.com/marriottrewards/.

Marriott has added a number of online retailers to their point earning partners as detailed in the press release linked below.

Press Release

Marriott Rewards elite members can get a second dinner entree for free at Marriott, JW Marriott and Renaissance Hotels from now thru September 15, 2005. According to the Marriott Rewards website:
“Through September 15, 2005, when you order one dinner entrée from the hotel restaurant or room service menus, the second entrée of equal or lesser value is free.”

In order to redeem the offer, guests musts print the page and present (or mention for room service) at the time of order.

Marriott Offer
Renaissance Offer

Marriott Rewards members can now earn Air France/KLM miles for stays at Marriott Hotels.

Marriott Rewards(R) and Air France/KLM to Offer Airline Miles for Hotel Stays

Last year I fell short of the 75 stay nights required to regain my platinum status, but since I was over 50 nights I was degraded to the shadow world of gold elite status. I didn’t even know such a level existed, but it does. Heck, there’s even a silver elite status. The discernable differences are small. Platinum guest have the 48-hour reservation guarantee and also the platinum arrival gift. The gift was usually water and cookies at everywhere but full service Marriott locations. You still get concierge level access with gold status and that is far more valuable than the other two perks as far as I’m concerned. I guess I’ve found that it’s not so bad living in the shadow of platinum status after all.