Marriott Platinum Elite Status: How Much Is It Worth?

Among Marriott Bonvoy’s elite status tiers, Platinum Elite status is the first level where you start to receive meaningful benefits during your hotel stays.

The traditional route to Platinum Elite requires earning 50 nights in a calendar year, which can be accomplished in tandem with the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card or Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card, as these cards give you a head start of 15 elite nights.

By dabbling in US credit cards, you can even obtain Platinum Elite status simply by getting the American Express US Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card, albeit at a cost of $650 (USD) for the annual fee.

In this article, let’s think about the value of each of the major perks you get from Marriott Platinum Elite status to help you make a clear-cut decision on whether or not it’s worth pursuing.

Valuation Methodology

To begin, let’s acknowledge that the value of Platinum Elite status varies considerably based on your travel habits. There isn’t an exact number that’s going to work for everyone. 

Furthermore, you stand to gain more from having status if you travel often, and also if you visit destinations where you tend to get better elite treatment. Someone who travels frequently to Asia is going to squeeze more value out of having Platinum Elite status than someone who stays at airport hotels in small North American cities.

Similarly, someone who often stays at higher-end properties, where things such as food and drink are more expensive, will wind up “saving” more with their status than someone who stays at Courtyards and Alofts – bearing in mind that higher-end properties are more expensive in cash and points to begin with.

With all of the above in mind, let’s value Platinum Elite status from the lens of a traveller who stays 35 nights in Marriott hotels each year, assuming that they obtain the other 15 nights by holding on to a co-branded credit card, such as the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card or the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card. 

For most benefits, we’ll arrive at a value per night in Canadian dollars and then multiply it by 35, thus arriving at a rough estimate of how much each perk is worth. At the end, we’ll add up the products from each benefit to arrive at our valuation of Platinum Elite status as a whole.

Let’s also assume that our…