How to protect your Marriott Bonvoy points while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Marriott Bonvoy account. While the account holder is alive, Marriott International allows transfers to another member, gift purchases and transfers to a partner program.
Marriott International's terms provide a path for Marriott Bonvoy points after a death, and what the account holder sets up in advance decides how smoothly that path runs. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Marriott Bonvoy account. While the account holder is alive, Marriott International allows transfers to another member, gift purchases and transfers to a partner program.
How to protect your Marriott Bonvoy points
- •Book free nights at Marriott properties worldwide.
- •Transfer points to one of the 38 participating airline frequent flyer programs, at 3:1 for most partners, with a bonus on most transfers.
- •Use points for room upgrades and Marriott Bonvoy Moments experiences.
- •Earning points or miles, redeeming points, buying points and converting points to miles count as activity.
- •Gifting or transferring points, and receiving a gift or transfer, do not count as activity.
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
There is no beneficiary designation on a Marriott Bonvoy account; the Terms instead let the member's will name the intended recipient of the points.1
What Marriott International's terms say about sharing and transfers4
- Transfers to another member
Living members can transfer points to any other Bonvoy member, not only family or household, free and online through the Points Transfer Tool, with a 1,000-point minimum in 1,000-point increments.1
A member can send up to 100,000 points and receive up to 500,000 points per calendar year, in at most 2 transfers a month and 6 a year; both accounts must be open at least 30 days with qualifying activity, or 90 days without.1
A recipient can expect to see transferred points within 24 hours; a transfer handled manually by a support agent can take up to seven days.2
- Gifting and purchases for others
Points can be bought as a gift for another member, up to 100,000 points per calendar year.3
- Transfers to a partner program
Points transfer to 38 participating airline programs, 3,000 to 240,000 points per day, at 3:1 for most partners and 200:1 for Air New Zealand Airpoints. Airline transfers are irreversible.4
Most partners add 5,000 bonus miles for every 60,000 points transferred; United MileagePlus adds 10,000 and Air New Zealand 75 on its 200:1 basis, and American Airlines AAdvantage, Avianca LifeMiles and Delta SkyMiles carry no bonus.4
- Expiry and activity requirements
Points are forfeited after 24 consecutive months of account inactivity, and an account inactive for five consecutive years may be deactivated. Lifetime Elite accounts are not currently subject to the expiry policy.1
Earning points or miles, redeeming points, buying points and converting points to miles count as qualifying activity; gifting or transferring points, and receiving a gift or transfer, do not maintain active status.1
Sources4
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from Marriott International primary sources (8 pages reviewed). How we research.
Marriott Bonvoy customer support
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