Effective March 7, 2017 about one-fourth of Marriott hotels will undergo reward category changes. Marriott International currently operates 5700 hotels worldwide and about 1300 of these properties will be changing categories soon. 60% of the hotels will move up and 40% will move down.

Marriott currently categorizes all its hotels under 9 categories, apart from the Ritz Carlton Hotels :

Hotel Category	Reward Points Required per night
Category 1	7500 Points
Category 2	10,000 Points
Category 3	15,000 Points
Category 4	20,000 Points
Category 5	25,000 Points
Category 6	30,000 Points
Category 7	35,000 Points
Category 8	40,000 Points
Category 9	45,000 Points
* Redeem 4 nights and get the 5th night free

The changes are mostly coming in the US of A, and other countries are following with a few changes here and there.  Make sure you that you go through the entire list before you consider redeeming points between now and March 7, 2016.

The India Impact

As a result of this, a total of 7 hotels will change categories in India. 4 will become more expensive while 3 are going to become cheaper to redeem nights. Sadly, our favorite hotel, the JW Marriott Mussoorie is going up by one category. Essentially, it jumps from a Category 4 hotel to a Category 6 hotel in 2 years.

Hotels moving up by one category

1. Courtyard Hyderabad                    Cat 1 (2016)      Cat 2 (2017)
2. JW Marriott Hotel Bangalore      Cat 3 (2016)      Cat 4 (2017)
3. JW Marriott Mussoorie                 Cat 5 (2016)      Cat 6 (2017)
4. Kochi Marriott Hotel                      Cat 2 (2016)     Cat 3 (2017)

Hotels moving down by one category

1. JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar          Cat 5 (2016)      Cat 4 (2017)
2. Renaissance Lucknow                     Cat 3 (2016)      Cat 2 (2017)
3. Renaissance Mumbai, Powai         Cat 3 (2016)      Cat 2 (2017)

Here are a few other hotels outside the Indian sub-continent that you should consider redeeming points before March 7, 2016.

• JW Marriott Cancun (moving up from category 8 to 9)
• JW Marriott Hotel Cusco (moving up from category 7 to 8)
• Rayong Marriott Resort, Thailand (moving up from category 4 to 5)
• The New York EDITION (moving up from category 3 to 4)
• JW Marriott Macau (moving up from category 7 to 8)

Looking at the entire list I see that most hotels are going up a category rather then coming down though fortunately there isn’t any hotel that jumps 2 categories. If you want to stay at a hotel where the prices go up, maybe now is a good time to make a redemption already. However, if you want to stay at a hotel where the award prices go down, wait up for a few days and you get it cheaper!

Are any of your favourite hotels changing categories this year ?