(EXPIRED) Marriott: Save 20% On eGift Cards (Ends 5/17/20, Limit $5k Per Day)

The Deal

• Save 20% on Marriott eGift cards.
• Direct link to offer.

Key Terms

• Expires May 17, 2020 or while supplies last.
• Limit $5,000 per person per credit card per day.
• eGiftCard orders are delivered within 1-7 business days due to order verification.
• eGiftCard Delivery Date should not exceed 3 months from date of order.

Tips & Ideas

This has the potential to be a very good deal. Marriott usually sells a limited number of gift cards for 20% off as part of Daily Getaways every year and they sell out almost instantly.

In normal times, this deal would be profitable for many gift card resellers too because it can be possible to resell Marriott gift cards for more than 80%.

COVID-19 makes this deal a little more questionable though. With most people not traveling right now, there’s a lot of uncertainty as to when you’ll be able to use these. You’d effectively be giving Marriott a loan of your money, although a 20% discount will make that worthwhile for some. For resellers, this sale will flood the market and so push down resale rates while lengthening how long you have to hold the cards before they sell.

It looks like these gift cards are sold directly by Marriott, so you should earn 6x when paying with a Marriott credit card; it should presumably also code as travel on other cards. I’ve seen data points in the past that online gift card purchases from Marriott trigger the $300 Amex Bonvoy Brilliant statement credit for Marriott spend, so that would presumably be the case with this deal too.

When Aeroplan sold miles the other day, that deal was much more popular than they’d been expecting. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Marriott gift card deal was just as popular, so it might end sooner than the scheduled end date of May 17. It might therefore be best to decide sooner rather than later whether or not you want to buy any.

My wife and I live in hotels and Airbnbs and tend to have at least a couple of paid Marriott stays per year. I’ll therefore be buying some of these cards because I’m confident we’ll use them – what I don’t know is how much to buy. I’ve no idea what pricing will be like in the coming months and years; it might be that prices are low because they try to entice people to stay with them to make up for lost revenue. On the other hand, they (and other hotel chains) might see a big demand in people booking staycations which could increase prices which could in turn make points a better option (unless award stays go to peak pricing for lengthy periods).

If prices did become more expensive, I don’t want to be holding many thousands of Marriott gift cards that I won’t be redeeming, nor do I want to be left with nothing in the unlikely event that Marriott went under.

Hmmm….decisions, decisions….

h/t OMAAT