Planning ahead for your Marriott Bonvoy points
Lifetime transfer options and steps to take now for Marriott International points
Marriott Bonvoy Customer Service
While Marriott International does allow post-death transfer of points, lifetime planning gives the account holder more control over how points are shared and used.
Marriott Bonvoy supports member-to-member transfer of points during the account holder's lifetime. Fees may be charged, but the transfer is immediate and does not depend on any post-death process.
How to protect your Marriott Bonvoy points
6 lifetime planning steps for your Marriott Bonvoy points:
- •Book free nights at 8,000+ Marriott properties worldwide
- •Transfer points to airline partner frequent flyer programs (3:1 ratio, with bonus on most partners)
- •Use points for room upgrades and Marriott Bonvoy Moments experiences
Family sharing
Marriott Bonvoy allows living members to transfer points to any other Bonvoy member (not limited to family or household). Transfers are free and processed online. Minimum transfer: 1,000 points, in 1,000-point increments. Sending cap: 100,000 points per calendar year. Receiving cap: 500,000 points per calendar year. Members are limited to 2 transfers per calendar month and 6 per calendar year (updated in April 2024). Both accounts must have been active for at least 30 days with qualifying activity or 90 days without qualifying activity. Points can also be purchased as gifts for other members. Points transfer to airline partners at a 3:1 ratio (3 Bonvoy points = 1 airline mile). A 5,000-mile bonus is awarded for every 60,000 points transferred to most partners; United MileagePlus offers a 10,000-mile bonus instead. The transfer bonus does not apply to American AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, Avianca LifeMiles, or Air New Zealand Airpoints. Airline transfers are irreversible.
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).
Frequently asked questions
Yes. You can transfer up to 100,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per calendar year to any other Bonvoy member for free. The minimum transfer is 1,000 points, in 1,000-point increments. As of April 2024, members are limited to 2 transfers per calendar month and 6 per calendar year, and a recipient account can receive up to 500,000 points per calendar year. Both accounts must have been active for at least 30 days with qualifying activity (or 90 days without). Transfers can take up to 24 hours to process.
Yes. Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to airline partners at a 3:1 ratio (3 Bonvoy points = 1 airline mile). A 5,000-mile bonus is awarded for every 60,000 points transferred to most partners; United MileagePlus offers a 10,000-mile bonus instead. The transfer bonus does not apply to American AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, Avianca LifeMiles, or Air New Zealand Airpoints. Minimum transfer is 3,000 points in 1,000-point increments. Airline transfers are irreversible.
Marriott Bonvoy points expire after 24 consecutive months of account inactivity. Qualifying activity includes earning, redeeming, or purchasing points; member-to-member transfers do NOT count as qualifying activity and do not reset the clock. Hotel stays, Marriott Bonvoy credit card spend, and partner transactions all qualify. Lifetime Elite members are exempt from the 24-month expiration.
Listing the Marriott Bonvoy account in an estate inventory identifies it for a fiduciary, who works through the operator's official channels to manage or close it.
Marriott Bonvoy does not support beneficiary designations. Unlike financial accounts, there is no way to name a beneficiary on this type of account.
Sources
Data sourced from Marriott International primary sources (7 pages reviewed). How we research.
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