Marriott Bonvoy puts on rotating promotions throughout the year, and has finally launched its first global promotion of 2026.
In past years, we saw Spring promos announced in late January with double elite nights on every stay. This time, Marriott not only was delayed but also instead of a blanket double-night offer, we get a more modest structure with 2,500 bonus points per stay and one bonus elite night per brand.
It is not as generous as the old double-elite-night runs, but if you have a multi-city itinerary or can naturally spread your stays across a few different Marriott brands, there is still solid value to pick up.
Marriott’s first global promotion of 2026 is now live for registration and applies to paid stays in late winter and spring.
Once you register, you will earn:
- 2,500 bonus points per eligible paid stay
- 1 bonus elite night credit per brand during the promo period
Key dates are as follows:
- Stay window: Stays must be completed between February 25 and May 10, 2026
- Registration window: You must register by April 26, 2026, and you must register before your first eligible stay posts
Registration can be done via the promo landing page or by logging into your Marriott Bonvoy account and checking the “Promotions” tab.
How Do The Bonus Elite Nights Actually Work?
Let’s tackle the confusing part first, since this is where people will either love or hate the promo.
According to Marriott’s terms and conditions, you earn:
One bonus elite night credit for each different eligible hotel brand at which you stay during the promotion period.
That means:
- The first time you stay at Courtyard during the promo, you earn your regular elite nights from the stay, plus 1 extra elite night attached to the Courtyard brand.
- Your regular elite nights from the stay
- Plus 1 extra night from the promo for the Courtyard brand
- If that first Courtyard stay is five nights, it should post as six elite nights in total (five regular nights plus one brand-bonus), assuming it is your first Courtyard stay in the promo window.
- A second Courtyard stay later in the promo will not trigger another brand bonus, because you have already “used” Courtyard for this promotion.
The extra night is tied to brand diversity, not how many separate stays you do with the same brand.
This is very different from the Spring 2025 promo, where you earned one extra elite night per night, regardless of brand, plus 1,000 points per night.
From 2021 through 2025, Marriott offered double elite nights or an extra elite night per night, which made mattress running very attractive.
This time, Marriott has dialed back the generosity and is nudging you to try more of the portfolio instead of camping out at one property.
This promo is not a universal “book everything with Marriott right now” situation. It helps a specific type of traveller: someone who already has a few paid stays lined up and can naturally mix in different Marriott brands without turning the trip into a logistics project.
If you have a multi-city or multi-stop trip this spring, or you tend to split stays across different neighbourhoods and hotel types, you are in the sweet spot.
For example, a trip like:
- 2 nights at a Courtyard in downtown
- 3 nights at a JW Marriott by the beach
- 1 night at an AC Hotel before flying home
would earn:
- 6 regular elite nights
- 3 bonus elite nights (Courtyard, JW Marriott, AC Hotels)
- 3 x 2,500 = 7,500 bonus points
You are not bending your trip out of shape, but you are still picking up extra points and elite night credits.
Where this promo becomes more divisive is hotel hopping within the same city just to squeeze out more brand-bonus nights.
On paper, you can absolutely do something like a night at Moxy, then Courtyard, then Westin, then Sheraton. Four nights, four brands, four brand-bonus nights, and 10,000 points in bonuses looks great in a spreadsheet.
In real life, that also means packing and unpacking every day, hauling bags around, and spending a lot of mental energy on check-ins and check-outs.
I have done that kind of thing before. In Kuala Lumpur, I put together a deliberate hotel status run by bouncing between two properties in the same city to hit status targets for far less cash than it would have cost in North America.
It worked, but it is not something I would casually recommend for a short holiday where you are supposed to enjoy yourself rather than bond with your suitcase.
A good sanity check for this promo is to ask yourself:
“If this promotion did not exist, would I still be happy doing this many hotel changes on this trip?”
If the honest answer is no, then you are probably forcing it just for one or two extra elite nights, and that trade-off only really makes sense if you are very close to a meaningful status threshold and those last few nights unlock a clear upgrade in benefits.
Conclusion
Marriott took its time to roll out a Q1 global promotion this year, and while some people were worried we might see nothing at all, we did eventually get a 2,500-points-per-stay offer with brand-based bonus elite nights.
It is clearly not as generous as the old double-elite-night Spring promos, and it will not justify wild mattress runs for most people.
Where it shines is for travellers who already have multiple paid stays planned and can naturally touch a few different Marriott brands along the way, picking up extra elite nights without turning the trip into a luggage-shuffling contest.
At a minimum, it is worth registering, taking the easy 2,500 points on any paid stays, and then deciding whether a little bit of smart brand-hopping fits your travel style.
This story originally appeared on princeoftravel
