Marriott’s $50 Amazon Gift Certificate offer may cost you $140 extra

Marriott and Visa have teamed up to provide up to a $50 gift certificate for Amazon.com with Friday or Saturday night stays. 

Earn $25 per night for up to two nights at Marriott, JW Marriott, or Renaissance hotel brands for a $50 Amazon.com maximum gift card value. 

Courtyard Hotel stays earn a $15 credit per night for up to two nights and a $30 Amazon.com maximum gift card value.

Offer Details: Marriott Promotion link for Amazon gift card

·         Book between April 13 and May 3 for weekend stays between April 16 and June 14, 2009.

·         Use promotion code OTP

·         Use Visa card and request Amazon gift card voucher code at check-in

·         Log on to website provided in voucher to register your Amazon gift card code

·         Link to Amazon gift card claim code will be emailed within 5 business days.

·         Offer valid only in US and Canada (and if your stays are in Canada your gift card value is in Canadian dollars and worth 21% less).

·         Some properties may offer this deal seven days a week.

·         Guest has 30 days from checkout to receive voucher.

Loyalty Traveler analysis:

The rules do not appear to restrict a member from earning a gift certificate from both Marriott and Courtyard stays for a total of $80 since they are separate hotel brand offers, but I may be wrong on that term. It is unclear if you could have a $15 certificate for one Courtyard night and a $25 for one Marriott night. The total may be limited to $50 for the entire promotion.

The 30 days after checkout limit for registering a voucher could be a problem if Courtyard and Marriott are exclusionary since a guest staying in a Courtyard hotel for one night April 20 must redeem the voucher by May 20 and that guest could have a qualifying two night stay at Marriott in June.  

Questions, questions. I do not like unclear promotion terms.

Room Rate Analysis

Fremont, California is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the US. I love going to the malls and seeing all the Asian restaurants with Cambodian, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and Indian foods.

Fremont is also notoriously inexpensive for hotel stays on the weekend when the Silicon Valley tech industrial area shuts down.

Fremont Marriott Silicon Valley, Friday, April 24

Concierge Level room = $89 and is eligible for $25 gift certificate. Or you could drop the rate to $79 without Concierge Level. And the rate may be cancelled up to 6pm on April 24. Wow. That is a lenient cancellation policy.

A quick check of AAA rates shows the $79 rate drops to $63 for the same night.  Basically the $25 gift certificate requires paying a total room rate after tax of almost $18 more. That certainly diminishes the value of this offer for this night at this hotel.

San Francisco Marriott, Friday, April 24 Amazon Gift Card OTP rate = $169/night

AAA rate for this night is $152. San Francisco has a 15.5% tax on rooms.  The room rate to earn a $25 per night gift card value requires a room rate that will cost $19.50 more per night after tax. 

Not so great a deal after all.        

And if you are a senior 62 or older the room rate drops to $144 per night.  Guess what?

You are paying more than $25 more per night to book the OTP promotional rate to earn the Amazon $25 gift certificate.

The real blow to your hotel booking savvy is evident when you do not enter any promotional or group code whatsoever for a rate search of the Marriott San Francisco.

A nonrefundable reservation for Friday, April 24, 2009 at the San Francisco Marriott is only $109 per night if booked today.

The sucker who went directly for the Amazon.com promotional rate would have paid about $70 more per night after tax to receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

Marriott San Francisco

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Much of the work I do as Loyalty Traveler is to go beyond presenting hotel promotional offers to readers. The hotel companies promote the offers themselves and sites like Frequentflyerbonuses.com and PointMaven.com list hotel promotions.

The real work of Loyalty Traveler is applying the promotional offer to actual hotel rates and seeing if the deal is really a deal. In this case, I think the Marriott + Visa offer for an Amazon gift card is far less valuable than it looks at face value.