What Is the Marriott Bonvoy Moments Program?

Don't want to spend your precious Marriott Bonvoys on a generic hotel room redemption? The Marriott Bonvoy Moments program allows you to spend your points on experiences — many of which are money can't buy.

With the Marriott Bonvoy Moments program, Marriott Bonvoy members can bid on — or buy outright — experiences ranging from luxury boxes at sporting events to dinners at exclusive restaurants and even cooking lessons with celebrity chefs.

It’s appealing to cardholders who want to use their points to buy something other than airline tickets and hotel stays. Heck, one Marriott Bonvoy loyalist spent more than 2 million points on the opportunity to make his own, custom Bellagio fountain show.

But is it the best use of your Bonvoy points?

The Marriott Bonvoy Moments program offers two different ways to buy experiences, depending on what's up for grabs:

Auctions

Auctions allow any Bonvoy member to use their points to bid on a particular experience, with the highest bidder winning the prize.

Auction tends to be the style of choice for one-of-a-kind or money-can't-buy experiences, such as the custom Bellagio fountain show.

Just note that while auctions might seem super affordable at the outset, but tend to spike in price near the closing hour (and even minute). For example, Scott Krupa (the fountain show winner) said that his prized Bellagio experience was priced at just 1.3 million Bonvoys at five minutes until closing. Within just a few minutes, it spiked to more than 2 million.

Marriott's system has processes in place to help automate your bidding. For example, you can preset the highest amount of points you’re willing to spend. The program automatically places bids for you until either you win or the bidding exceeds your limit.

Fixed-price purchases

A fixed-price experience has a set price that doesn’t change. Once you submit the required number of points, the experience is yours. Often, there is a set number of spots or packages available at the fixed price, so while exclusive, it's rarely only available for one member.

» Learn more: Why I love Marriott Bonvoy

The Marriott Bonvoy Moments program allows members to select experiences from five different categories:

• Culinary: This includes anything from tickets for a food and wine festival to cooking lessons with a celebrity chef.

• Entertainment: This category covers items like backstage passes and luxury seats at concerts or other exclusive shows.

• Lifestyle: This includes cultural and travel experiences. Among the most coveted Bonvoy Moments is the chance to stay in Monaco for the Monaco Grand Prix, an annual Formula One motor racing event.

• Sports: These moments include luxury boxes and VIP experiences at sporting events. For example, there are a few Marriott Bonvoy Moments for Manchester United fans.

• Partners: Experiences at any events that are held by Marriott's corporate partners, including the Chicago Cubs, the NFL and events at Madison Square Garden.

Over the course of the year, there will be new experiences to choose from that will take place in locations around the world. The program runs year-round, so as old experiences sell out, new ones are added.

There’s no way to predict what experiences will be offered in the future; however, by looking at their corporate partners, you may be able to guess. For example, Marriott’s partnership with Staples Center means that it’s highly likely that Moments will offer some kind of VIP package to a Lakers or Clippers game.

Cap

Regardless of how many points you’ve saved up, the Marriott Bonvoy Moments program allows members to purchase up to five Bonvoy Moments experiences in a calendar year. A single experience might have multiple packages within it, but members can only purchase two packages per experience.

» Learn more: The best Marriott credit cards

No refunds

All Marriott Bonvoy Moments purchases are final — there are no refunds. Once you’ve purchased either an auction or fixed price experience, the points are immediately removed from your account and they cannot be returned.

No transfers

Experiences may not be transferred, so if Marriott believes that you have sold, marketed or reassigned your experience without Marriott’s explicit written consent, then you will lose the experience and your points will also be forfeited.

» Learn more: Your guide to the Marriott Bonvoy award chart

Generally speaking, your best use of points will be to use them on hotel rooms with Marriott. But the point of the Moments program is that some of these experiences are unique, once in a lifetime opportunities that would be difficult to have otherwise.

Some of these experiences, such as concert or game tickets, can be purchased on the open market. To determine if it is a redemption worth pursuing, compare the cost of the ticket in cash to what the equivalent value in points would be and determine if it is a good value.

We value Marriott points at 0.9 cent each, so you can do some simple math based on the points cost of any experience you might have your eye on.

» Learn more: How much are Marriott points worth?

The Marriott Bonvoy Moments program offers members many redemption opportunities that can be paid upfront with points or bid on via an auction. Experiences range across five categories — culinary, entertainment, lifestyle, sports and partners. Purchases come with restrictions, including no refunds.

You will get more value from your Bonvoy points by booking qualifying stays at Marriott properties, but if you have a lot of points to burn or see an opportunity that you simply can't pass up, these redemptions can be a fun spend.