Marriott Bonvoy and United MileagePlus have a partnership, offering some reciprocal perks and opportunities. The two programs have just launched a new promotion that incentivizes summer travel, available to select elite members of both programs.
This isn’t the most exciting offer on earth, but if eligible, you might as well take advantage of it. It’s a repeat of an offer that we’ve seen the past three years.
Elites earn bonus rewards with Marriott & United
This new promotion is available to Marriott Bonvoy Titanium and Ambassador members, and to United MileagePlus Premier Gold, Platinum, and 1K members.
After registering for the promotion, members can earn 2,000 Bonvoy bonus points and 1,500 bonus MileagePlus miles after they fly an eligible United itinerary and make an eligible Marriott stay.
They’ve made this significantly more complex than in past years. The idea is that you earn both of those rewards when you complete at least one eligible travel “experience” with both brands, though they don’t have to be part of the same trip, as long as they’re both offer the standard eligibility window. But you can’t earn rewards if you only have activity with one program.
In other words, if you have three eligible United itineraries and five eligible Marriott stays, you’d earn the bonus with both programs three times.
To cover some of the basics:
- Registration is required between July 1 and August 31, 2026, and it’s fine if you booked your travel before registering
- All travel must commence by September 30, 2026, in order to be eligible; this means you need to have started your travel on United or completed at least one night of your Marriott hotel stay by then
- The above rewards are per eligible Marriott stay (not per night), and are per eligible United itinerary (not per flight)
- Only revenue travel qualifies, so hotel stays booked with points, or flights booked with miles, wouldn’t qualify
- Eligible members who are enrolled in the Marriott & United partnership can register at this link on Marriott’s website, or at this link on United’s website
- There’s no limit to how many bonus points and miles can be earned
- It can take up to eight weeks after completing qualifying activity before bonus rewards will post
- Members are eligible to participate in only one dual currency campaign per calendar year; it remains to be seen if another one is offered this year, but I think it’s worth noting
My take on this Marriott & United promotion
It’s nice to see the increased partnership between Marriott and United. This is the fourth time that we’ve seen a dual accrual promotion between the programs, so this gives members access to extra rewards. However, this is the first time that earning of rewards is contingent upon having activity with both programs.
Personally I value Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each, and MileagePlus miles at 1.1 cents each. To crunch the numbers on that (and again, you need to have equal activity with both programs to unlock these rewards):
- The 2,000 Bonvoy points you get per United itinerary are worth ~$14
- The 1,500 MileagePlus miles you get per Marriott stay are worth ~$16.50
I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I can’t help but wonder if this will move the needle in any sort of a meaningful way. It’s of course great to get extra rewards if you’re already loyal to both brands, but is someone going to switch their airline or hotel loyalty over this promotion otherwise?
I should mention that while promotions like this are often done as a way to share data between companies, that’s already happening between Marriott and United. So perhaps this is intended to increase sign-ups of the partnership between the two brands.
Bottom line
Marriott Bonvoy and United MileagePlus have a new dual accrual promotion for select elite members. With this, you can earn bonus Marriott points for United flights, and bonus United miles for Marriott stays. However, you can only be rewarded based on having the same amount of activity with both brands.
In other words, if you had five eligible United itineraries and one eligible Marriott stay, you’d earn a bonus with both programs once.
What do you make of this Marriott & United promotion?