Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards: TPG’s ultimate guide

In early 2024, Marriott replaced Suite Night Awards with Nightly Upgrade Awards. Now, you can use Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards at select properties to confirm a suite or other upgraded room type. Here’s what you need to know about Nightly Upgrade Awards, including how to earn and use them.

Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards let you confirm an upgrade to a standard suite or premium room at most Marriott Bonvoy hotels and resorts before your stay. Each participating hotel or resort designates the room types you upgrade to using Nightly Upgrade Awards. Still, these room types usually include suites or premium rooms with better views, balconies, patios, extra space or other special amenities.

You must apply one Nightly Upgrade Award per night of your stay. So, if you have a five-night stay, you must use five Nightly Upgrade Awards. However, you can only apply Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards to existing reservations for which you’ve paid an eligible Marriott Bonvoy rate or redeemed Marriott points (including Marriott points and cash rates).

You can request to use Nightly Upgrade Awards until 2 p.m. the day before check-in for your stay. But, even if you submit your Nightly Upgrade Award request months before your stay, your request won’t be considered until five days before check-in at most brands (three days before check-in for stays at Edition, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis properties). What’s more, there’s no guarantee that your request will be approved.

Additionally, the Marriott Bonvoy terms and conditions note that you can’t use Nightly Upgrade Awards at the following brands and properties:

• Ritz-Carlton Reserve, The Ritz-Carlton Club, The Ritz-Carlton Residences and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection
• Participating Design Hotels
• Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy
• Marriott Executive Apartments
• All-inclusive resorts
• Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club and Westin Vacation Club
• Phoenician Residences, a Luxury Collection Residence Club, Scottsdale
• MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy
• Grand New Century Hotel, Hangzhou Boao, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel
• Wonderland Resort, Hangzhou Jiande, a Tribute Portfolio Resort
• Hotels that do not participate in Marriott Bonvoy

Related: How to redeem Marriott points for upgraded rooms

You can earn Nightly Upgrade Awards as a Marriott Annual Choice Benefit once you reach 50 and 75 elite night credits within a calendar year. You can also earn Nightly Upgrade Awards as an Earned Choice Award when you spend at least $60,000 on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card in a calendar year.

Nightly Upgrade Awards are the default option at these three milestones, but you can choose a different option at each milestone until Feb. 1 of the year following the calendar year in which you earned the benefit if you prefer.

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Related: Is the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Amex worth the $650 annual fee?

How to view your Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards

You can see how many Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards you have and when they expire by logging in to your online account, clicking on your name in the upper right-hand corner and selecting “Overview” from the drop-down menu. Doing so will take you to your default account homepage. Scroll to the “Earned rewards” section, and you’ll see Nightly Upgrade Awards listed in a box if you have any in your account.

Click “View Awards” under your Nightly Upgrade Awards to check the expiration dates.

Nightly Upgrade Awards expire Dec. 31 of the year following the one in which you earned them. So, if you chose five Nightly Upgrade Awards as a Choice Benefit for earning 50 or 75 elite night credits in 2024, your Nightly Upgrade Awards will expire Dec. 31, 2025.

Related: An overview of the 35 Marriott hotel brands

How to use Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards

You can apply Nightly Upgrade Awards to existing reservations within your Marriott Bonvoy account. Once you’ve logged into your Marriott Bonvoy account, click on “My Trips” along the top menu bar, expand your reservation (if needed) by clicking the arrow on the right-hand side of the tile and then click the “Start upgrade request” button.

As noted previously, the room types available for Nightly Upgrade Awards vary by property. For an upcoming one-night stay at a Moxy property, I could use a Nightly Upgrade Award to request a 366-square-foot room with a queen bed and a sofa bed instead of the 183-square-foot room with two twin beds I booked.

Likewise, I can request two room types with Nightly Upgrade Awards for an upcoming two-night stay at a Fairfield by Marriott property. Each of these rooms would be an improvement over the one I booked because of the sofa bed.

To request an upgrade to a particular room type, select the check box next to the room type and click “Submit Request.” You should then receive a confirmation message and an email titled “We Received Your Nightly Upgrade Awards Request.”

You can also accomplish this via the Marriott Bonvoy app. Pull up an existing reservation and tap the bell icon at the top right. From there, tap “Request Nightly Upgrade Award(s),” review the room options and click “Submit Request” to confirm your upgrade request.

Once requested, the hotel’s system will automatically start checking for upgrade availability five days before your arrival (three days before check-in for stays at Edition, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis properties) and continue checking each day until around 2 p.m. one day before check-in. If your upgrade isn’t confirmed by around 2 p.m. on the day before check-in, Marriott Bonvoy will cancel your request and return the Nightly Upgrade Awards to your account.

Related: 5 ways to maximize Marriott Bonvoy award night redemptions

If you change your mind or find a better use for your Nightly Upgrade Awards, you can cancel your upgrade request and return unconfirmed Nightly Upgrade Awards to your account until 2 p.m. on the day before check-in. However, you can only cancel confirmed Nightly Upgrade Awards by canceling your entire stay. And you won’t get your Nightly Upgrade Awards back if you cancel your stay later than 2 p.m. on the day before check-in.

To cancel an unconfirmed Nightly Upgrade Award, head to “My Trips” in your Marriott Bonvoy account and click “Modify Request” under the note stating “Your Nightly Upgrade Award request is pending.”

You can select different room types for your upgrade (if others are available) or cancel your request on the page that loads.

If you cancel your request, you’ll see a confirmation of the cancellation on your reservation and get a confirmation email. Marriott should immediately redeposit the Nightly Upgrade Awards into your account.

Related: How much value does Marriott Bonvoy status provide when you book directly?

I’ve historically had good luck using Marriott Suite Night Awards. In 2021 and 2022, my husband and I used 15 Marriott Suite Night Awards in 10 months and all were confirmed.

Perhaps one of my favorite uses of a Suite Night Award was for a two-story suite at The Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa in Phuket, Thailand. That property offered so many different types of rooms through Suite Upgrade Awards that it seemed impossible not to have my upgrade clear.

However, the JW Marriott Hotel Bogota in Colombia assigned me a worse room type after my Suite Night Award cleared in August 2021. A discussion with the manager at check-in — during which I showed my Suite Night Award confirmation email — eventually secured me the suite I’d initially confirmed. I’ve also had Marriott Bonvoy confirm my Suite Night Award by email five days out for several stays, only to follow up about an hour later and rescind the upgrade.

In 2024, my husband and I only used one Nightly Upgrade Award despite having 10 across our accounts. This poor usage was mostly due to the properties we booked only having a few notable upgrade options that we could request with Nightly Upgrade Awards. We’d rather maintain the opportunity to use a Nightly Upgrade Award later on than use it for an upgrade we don’t want. But in the end, this decision led to us not using many of our Nightly Upgrade Awards in 2024.

Related: 29 best Marriott hotels in the world

Especially since I only successfully used one Marriott Nightly Upgrade Award in 2024, I asked some of my fellow TPG staffers about their experiences. Senior director of product Gabe Travers told me, “It’s been a toss-up — some of my requests have been denied, but others come through. My biggest win was an Executive Suite at The Westin Palace, Milan — the first and only time I’ve had a full steam room in my suite!”

Engineering manager Zoe Jablow said she used five Nightly Upgrade Awards “to get upgraded to a slightly larger room with more privacy at the Domes Novos Santorini,” stating it was “absolutely worth it.” However, she also noted that she won’t pick Nightly Upgrade Awards when she qualifies for Titanium Elite status in the future, stating, “I get more value out of the free night award because I can guarantee usage.”

Associate credit cards writer Chris Nelson told me he always saves his Nightly Upgrade Awards for when he’s traveling abroad, noting, “In the U.S., most of the time, they are hit or miss, and the upgrades aren’t that substantial in my experience.” To this point, he used three Nightly Upgrade Awards last month for a massive top-floor corner sky garden suite at the JW Marriott Hotel Beijing. However, he also submitted multiple Nightly Upgrade Requests in 2024 for stays in the U.S. and only got his requests approved for one stay in a junior suite.

Finally, director of content Andrea Rotondo said, “I really wanted to love Marriott’s nightly upgrade awards, and I know many people have success with them, but I gave up on them last year. When they were previously called Suite Upgrade Awards, I tried for several years to use them but never got confirmed into a suite (or even a better room). The one time I got the email saying I was upgraded, when I got to the hotel, the front desk was like, ‘Psych. You’re actually not upgraded’.”

Her negative experience with Marriott upgrade awards encouraged her to quit earning Marriott status organically. Instead, she now enjoys Platinum Elite status as a benefit of her Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card and focuses her efforts on earning Hyatt Globalist status each year.

Related: Breakfast, upgrades and more: 9 TPG staffers reveal their favorite elite status perks

• Opt for shorter stays: There’s more likely to be availability for your Nightly Upgrade Award request to clear on shorter stays of just a night or two. And especially since you need to redeem a Nightly Upgrade Award per stay night, there’s no downside to using these awards to secure upgraded rooms or suites on short stays.
• Start early in the year: Don’t save your Nightly Upgrade Awards for a stay (or stays) near the end of the year — you might not have another opportunity to use them before they expire.
• Look for more room types: The more room types you select for your Nightly Upgrade Awards, the higher the chance they’ll get approved. You may want to book a property that offers many appealing room types with Nightly Upgrade Awards to maximize your chance of an upgrade.
• Consider off-peak dates or destinations: Traveling during off-peak dates or to properties with more rooms than guests can be a good way to snag a premium room or suite through Nightly Upgrade Awards. Of course, you could also argue that Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite or Titanium Elite status would likely get you a great upgrade on these stays even without using Nightly Upgrade Awards.
• Check out international destinations: Each of the positive experiences noted by other TPG staffers was for a stay outside the U.S. One way to get your Nightly Upgrade Awards to clear for a more notable upgrade is to apply them to stays abroad.

Before booking, you can’t see what room types you can request with Nightly Upgrade Awards. So, you may be tempted to make several freely cancellable stays in the same destination to determine which offers the best Nightly Upgrade Award options. Even so, just because a hotel or resort offers appealing Nightly Upgrade Award options doesn’t mean your request will get approved. I usually book hotels or resorts based on the rates and quality of the base room type. Then, I look at what is available with Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards and decide whether to put in a request.

Finally, since Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards are only confirmed, at most, five days before check-in for the majority of brands, don’t rely on using these awards to secure a larger room or suite. For stays where you need an upgraded room, consider booking it outright using a program like World of Hyatt that lets you use suite upgrade awards to confirm a standard suite at booking.

Related: Marriott elite status: What it is and how to earn it