Marriott, by far the best hotel chain for Canadian travelers who like free nights and elite benefits, has made 2 major announcements in the past week. First, they opened their 9,000th hotel, an impressive number. Secondly, they will be adding 10,000 rooms to Marriott under yet another new brand thanks to a new partnership with Sonder, one of the biggest alternatives to Airbnb.
Here are the details, including a recap of the 6 new Marriott hotel brands launched recently.
Marriott’s 9,000th hotel
Marriott is the world’s largest hotel chain by number of rooms (almost 2 million rooms), and they’re showing no signs of slowing down. Quite the contrary.
Last week, they opened their 9,000th hotel. That’s a lot of hotels!
Given that Marriott Bonvoy points are by far the easiest hotel points for Canadians to earn, it’s great to see Marriott adding a ton of new properties to give us more and more options in almost any part of the world.
Marriott’s 8,000th hotel had just opened in May 2022, so that’s a rapid growth rate. The chain currently has a whopping 3,000 hotels in the development pipeline; so the 10,000-hotel milestone should be reached pretty soon.
The 9,000th hotel is The St. Regis Longboat Key Resort on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Marriott’s marketing team definitely made sure the milestone was reached with one of the most luxurious of their 30+ brands; of course, that’s not a coincidence.
St. Regis is among the 7 luxury brands, and the one and only St. Regis I stayed at was literally one of the best hotel experiences of my life — it was The St. Regis Istanbul, but unfortunately it’s not one of the St. Regis hotels you can get for free with the Marriott free night certificate.
The 9,000th hotel is a brand-new hotel from one of the most luxurious brands, so it unsurprisingly looks absolutely stunning. The nightly prices reflect that (and its location in the worst country for prices), with many dates at C$2269 per night BEFORE taxes.
Being located in Florida means it’s also one of the worst places in the world to redeem Marriott Bonvoy points if you want to maximize the number of free nights you get, but you can possibly maximize the value of the free nights you get depending on the dates. You can read about the basics of how Marriott points work.
This fall, we’ll have a lot more content to expand on our post about the best Marriott Bonvoy points redemptions which already contains a lot of suggestions among the 9,000 hotels that are way better than this 9,000th hotel.
For all things travel, but with hotel points redemptions particularly, traveling elsewhere other than North America is always better to make your trip more affordable and more enjoyable.
Marriott and Sonder partnership
Marriott doesn’t want to dominate just hotels; they also want to cater to those who prefer private accommodations.
Apart from Airbnb and Vrbo, Montreal-founded Sonder is one of the biggest short-term accommodation rental platforms. The difference is that they actually own and manage their own apartments to guarantee a more consistent experience.
The nearly 10,000 Sonder rooms will now be part of Marriott Bonvoy, the world’s largest hotel rewards program. Yet another new Marriott brand will be created, Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy.
It will join other similar Marriott collection brands for non-hotels, such as Marriott Executive Apartments and Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy. There’s also Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, their own alternative to Airbnb.
We’ll soon share an updated guide to all Marriott’s 30+ brands to help you make sense of it all, because it sure can be confusing.
Sonder mainly offers urban apartments in the high-end market segment, so it’s an interesting addition for travelers who prefer luxury travel. It operates in 40 cities in 10 countries in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
As with the other similar non-hotel brands by Marriott, it’ll almost certainly be pretty terrible to redeem points, and therefore more interesting to earn points by paying in cash.
We can probably expect a 5 pts/US$ earn rate, rather than the 10 pts/US$ of most brands. This is with the Marriott program directly, in addition to your credit card rewards (5 pts/C$ with the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card and Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card) and in addition to the promotions and rewards of the online shopping portal.
Benefits for elite members will probably be minimal, but that remains to be seen.
Around 200 Sonder locations will join Marriott this year, with the rest expected to join in 2025. They currently have 9,000 rooms, with 1,500 more in the development pipeline.
Marriott’s 6 new brands
With over 30 different hotel brands already, you’d think they’d stop adding new ones and just add new individual hotels within each brand. Sadly, Marriott has a very different perspective on this.
Marriott has been adding brands like crazy these past months, including its first 3 brands in the lower end of the midscale market. That idea is actually nice, to give budget travelers more options.
Here’s a short overview of the 6 new brands.
City Express by Marriott
City Express by Marriott is a hotel chain acquired by Marriott, with 150 locations and 17,000 rooms. They’re mainly in Mexico but also across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This is the first “affordable midscale” brand, which slots it below the Courtyard and Four Points by Sheraton hotels of the world.
Some City Express hotels are as little as 6,200 points per night (31,000 total for 5 nights), like the City Express Junior by Marriott Cancun (in the more authentic downtown area, not the touristy part). That’s just 3,100 points per night per person if you have a companion!
Don’t expect luxury from this brand, but if you find yourself visiting these destinations, it’s great to have a lot more options.
It’s worth mentioning that there are actually a few levels of City Express hotels, but Marriott considers them all to be the same brand:
- City Express Suites
- City Express Plus
- City Express
- City Express Centro
- City Express Junior
Four Points Express by Sheraton
Four Points Express by Sheraton is a new brand that is also on the lower end of the spectrum, not to be confused with the well-known Four Points by Sheraton, which is positioned more in the middle of the midscale.
There aren’t many of these hotels yet, but I’m very tempted to visit the Four Points Express by Sheraton Istanbul Taksim Square for as little as 9,000 points per night (45,000 total for 5 nights). İstanbul is one of my favorite cities in the world, and Taksim Square is literally in the middle of the action!
These hotels look clearly better than City Express, too. The idea is to offer more affordable options in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, similar to City Express in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It’s frankly the new brand I’m most excited about for when I don’t want to splurge on fancier hotels because I’ll be out exploring the destination.
StudioRes
StudioRes is a new brand that hasn’t launched yet that will offer more affordable extended-stay rooms.
If you’re not familiar with extended-stay hotels, that means they have a kitchenette and living room, like a few of Marriott’s current brands: Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, and Element.
The first StudioRes will open in 2025 in Fort Myers, Florida.
Like the other 2 new brands, this brand will be at the lower end of the segment to offer more options at lower prices. More than 300 StudioRes locations are currently in development in Canada and the United States.
Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy
Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy sounds really similar to Marriott Executive Apartments and even Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy.
Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy is exactly like Airbnb, so that’s just for individual homes and villas that anyone can list.
Marriott Executive Apartments are really more like hotels but with full apartments instead of traditional hotel rooms.
The new Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy brand is the same thing, but specifically for standalone properties in the North American market and without most hotel amenities like restaurants (whereas Marriott Executive Apartments are usually located inside or next to actual hotels).
The first one opened last December, the Casa Costera, Isla Verde Beach, Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy.
All Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy properties will have 1 to 3 bedrooms and a full kitchen, separate living room, and washer/dryer.
This can be a great alternative if you want more consistent standards than a private rental.
MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy
The MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy is a new brand created as part of the partnership with MGM, the largest casino-resort operator in the United States.
I have written a complete post on the Marriott and MGM partnership.
Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy
That’s the new one announced on Monday. More details will come as soon as they’re available.
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Summary
Marriott, by far the best hotel chain for Canadian travelers who like free nights and elite benefits, has made 2 major announcements in August. First, they opened their 9,000th hotel, and secondly, they will be adding 10,000 rooms to Marriott under a new brand thanks to a new partnership with Sonder, one of the biggest alternatives to Airbnb.
What would you like to know about Marriott’s 9,000th hotel or the Marriott-Sonder partnership? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Longboat Key, Florida (photo credit: Lindsey Buckheit)
