How To Use Marriott Bonvoy Suite Night Awards

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Bonvoy members have differing feelings about Marriott Suite Night Awards, which are a Bonvoy elite benefit.

What are Marriott Suite Night Awards?

To confirm a suite upgrade up to five days before arrival, Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador members use Suite Night Awards. For a single night of stay, each SNA is valid.

Platinum members and above receive unlimited suite upgrades subject to availability at check-in, but this allows them to prioritize the stays that matter most to them. While you may care a lot about a suite upgrade on your annual vacation with your spouse, you may not care about a suite upgrade on a single night stay at an airport hotel.

How do you earn SNAs, how do you redeem them, and what is the best strategy for deciding when to redeem them are some of the questions that need to be answered. My experience will be shared below.

Marriott's Suite Night Awards are not as useful as the Suite Upgrade Awards that World of Hyatt Globalist members receive, each of which is valid for a suite upgrade at the time of booking.

How to earn Marriott Suite Night Awards

Marriott elite members are part of the Bonvoy Choice benefits program. There are 50 elite nights and 75 elite nights to choose from.

• When you pass 50 elite nights you can select five SNAs
• When you pass 75 elite nights you can select a further five SNAs

An elite member can earn up to 10 SNAs by earning 75 elite nights in a year. SNAs will be valid through the end of the year when you choose them as your choice benefits.

If you chose them as your Choice Benefit in July 2022, they would be valid through December 31, 2023.

The Choice Benefits are tied to the number of nights you earn in a year, not your status.

How to redeem Marriott Suite Night Awards

When it comes to Marriott Suite Night Awards, there are many nuances that need to be understood. Marriott Bonvoy is a program that can be difficult to redeem.

Each Suite Night Award is valid for one night and can be used for an upgrade to a premium room or suite. The easiest way to understand this is through some of the most common questions.

What rates are eligible for Marriott SNAs?

For the purposes of earning Bonvoy elite credits, any stay that would be considered eligible would be eligible for Suite Night Awards. All Marriott stays can be redeemed for these, including paid stays, points stays, free night certificate stays, cash and points stays, and Marriott STARS rates.

If you book a stay through third parties, it wouldn't be eligible for redemption.

What hotels are eligible for Marriott SNAs?

Marriott Suite Night Awards can't be used for stays at certain brands.

• Ritz-Carlton
• Ritz-Carlton Reserve
• Ritz-Carlton Destination Club
• Ritz-Carlton Residences
• EDITION
• Protea Hotels
• Aloft
• Element
• Design Hotels
• Marriott Executive Apartments
• ExecuStay
• Marriott Vacation Club
• Marriott Grand Residence Club
• Vistana

It is not possible to redeem SNAs at other individual properties not belonging to the groups listed above. If you want to see if a particular hotel is eligible, you can either contact Marriott Bonvoy customer service, or you can just make a booking.

It is frustrating that more and more properties not belonging to the above brands are not eligible for SNAs. I don't know if it's an IT glitch or intentional but I haven't found a way to fix it.

What rooms are eligible for Marriott SNAs?

It is up to individual hotels to decide which types of rooms are eligible. Premium rooms and standard suites are supposed to be included in this, but it is not always the case.

• At some hotels you’ll find that only one or two room types are available with SNAs, while at others you’ll find there are a dozen options
• At some hotels rooms eligible for SNAs don’t even include standard suites, but rather just premium rooms, while at other hotels you’ll find some absolutely incredible suites available with SNAs, like two bedroom suites, and suites that are 10x the price of an entry-level room

There's a lot of variation here.

If there are multiple rooms that are eligible for SNAs, you can choose how many room types you want to request an upgrade to, in order to increase your chances of being eligible for an upgrade.

When can you request upgrades with Marriott SNAs?

You can request an upgrade with Suite Night Awards at any time between when you make your booking and 2PM local hotel time. It's not possible to apply SNAs at a hotel within a day.

Marriott Suite Night Awards can be given as early as five days before arrival and as late as 2PM the day before arrival. If they do clear, it is usually at the five day mark, rather than at the one day mark.

If your upgrade clears, you should get an email and a push notification through the Marriott Bonvoy app.

Can you cancel upgrade requests with Marriott SNAs?

Marriott Suite Night Awards can be canceled at any time, even if they haven't yet cleared. If your SNAs are clear, you can only cancel the request if you cancel the reservation completely.

If you still want to stay in the hotel, you can't cancel your SNAs.

Can you redeem Marriott SNAs for part of a stay?

You can't redeem for part of a stay if you don't use SNAs for your whole stay. If you had at least five SNAs.

• You could book five one night stays
• You could book a two night stay and a three night stay
• You could book a five night stay
• However, you couldn’t book a six night stay, and then apply SNAs to just five of those nights (though you could always make two separate reservations)

If a room is available five days out, should you expect to get an upgrade? Not quite.

• Suite Night Awards are cleared automatically based on an algorithm created by Marriott and the hotel; so while hotels can limit capacity for these upgrades, there’s not much “active” gaming going on, and also not much human intervention
• Suite Night Awards clearing are based on forecasted occupancy; if it looks like a hotel could sell that suite, it’s unlikely it will become available at the five day mark

There are some inconsistencies here. It will usually be available with an SNA five days out if there are several different suite types available. It may not clear if there is not much inventory.

Can a hotel downgrade you if you use a Marriott SNA?

Can the hotel still give you a lower rating at check-in? The answer is that once the upgrade is confirmed, it can't be taken away.

Maybe the suite is out of service, maybe someone extended a stay, maybe there was a tech glitch, or maybe the hotel staff are not very competent. I would expect some compensation from the hotel if you are demoted.

How do you request an upgrade with Marriott SNAs?

You can request an upgrade after you confirm a reservation.

• You can phone up Marriott Bonvoy customer support
• You can request an upgrade directly online

Go to the "My Trips" section of your Bonvoy account after booking to log into your reservations. There is an area at the bottom of the reservation where you can use your suite night awards.

You can request an upgrade to a premium room by clicking that option.

If you have enough upgrades in your account, you can see the option for this function. The SNAs will be pulled from your account immediately if you request an upgrade.

If the upgrade doesn't clear, they would be returned to you, but this is a consideration since members have a limited number of SNAs.

My Marriott Suite Night Award strategy

Bonvoy elite members only earn Suite Night Awards to cover a small percentage of their stays, so what is the best way to use them? General considerations are what I have in mind.

• How much does the stay matter to me? I care a lot more about an upgrade if I’m traveling with Ford, if I’m at a resort where I plan on spending more time in the room, etc.
• What are the odds of getting a complimentary upgrade at check-in? As any Bonvoy elite member can attest to, some hotels are great about suite upgrades at check-in, while others aren’t. When deciding whether or not to apply an SNA, I ask myself what the odds are of getting an upgrade without using an SNA. This is based on my past experience at a property, how many suites the property has, and reading what others have said about the hotel online.
• How good of a premium room is available with an SNA? At some hotels you’ll only have larger guest rooms available with SNAs, while at other hotels you’ll have premium suites that you’d likely never get a complimentary upgrade to. If I’m going to use an SNA, I’d ideally like it to be for a really great room.

It is important to approach this in a realistic way. If you are traveling to a place that is also frequented by other Bonvoy elite members, you will probably not have your SNA clear. Do you mean Maui over Christmas? Even if you apply an SNA, you won't get a suite upgrade.

A real-life example of my approach to Marriott SNAs

We traveled to Venice in the spring and split our time between two Marriott properties.

In the summer, hotels are usually sold out, so I wouldn't expect much in the way of upgrades. Traveling off-peak definitely aided, as the hotels were not full.

The options that were available with SNAs were listed below.

Below is a comparison of how much the room I booked was selling for and how much the upgraded rooms were selling for.

What decisions did I make?

• The Giglio Prestige Larger Guest Room isn’t even 20% more expensive than the base room, so in my opinion wasn’t worth applying an SNA for, since my assumption is always that they will probably upgrade you to the lowest premium room type you request
• Either of the “actual” suite upgrades would have been incredible, as they were ~3-5x the price of an entry level room
• A week out I looked how many of each room type was still for sale, and saw that several Sestiere suites were still for sale, while no Serenissima suites were for sale
• I ended up requesting an SNA for both of the suites, and ended up getting a confirmed upgrade to the Sestiere suite, which worked great for us

Below are my options for SNAs.

Below are the prices for each room type.

What decisions did I make?

• I think it goes without saying our eyes immediately go to the very bottom of the list, which are the best suites; it sure would be nice to get a suite with a full view of the canal
• Unfortunately none of the Grand Canal View Suites were still for sale, though several St. Regis Suites showed as being for sale
• I requested an upgrade for both suite types, and an upgrade to the St. Regis Suite ended up clearing five days out

Marriott elite nights members can earn up to 10 Suite Night Awards each year, each of which can be used to confirm a room upgrade. It's possible to request upgrade priority on stays that matter the most to you.

I think it all comes down to managing expectations because people have different experiences with this. This perk isn't nearly as useful as Hyatt's program for suite upgrades, but I still get outsized value from it.

What have you experienced with Marriott? I don't know if you have any questions I haven't addressed.