Peter
The Marriott SPG was announced more than a year ago, but they’ve recently integrated the two platforms. This means that you can now combine Marriott and Starwood accounts to form a single account. Starwood points will be added to your Marriott account at a rate of 1:3. Meaning that if you had 10,000 points in your account before the merger, you’ve now got 30,000. Whether or not you actually earned anything with the additional points is a matter of opinion, and we’ll save that for another article. For now I want to focus on showing you how to combine your Marriott and Starwood accounts.
As for why you’d want to combine your Marriott and SPG accounts, it comes down to; simplicity, status, and access. One account is better than two, your combined status is more valuable, and you’ll have access to all properties. Note that even if you’ve already linked your accounts, you still need to combine them. Linking just offered a status match, combining the accounts means your earnings will be added together. Lastly, Marriott recommends you do this at least three days ahead of your next reservation. My advice is to do it ASAP.
The first thing you’ll want to do is head over to Marriott.com and sign-in. Sign-in with the same Marriott credentials you’ve always signed in with, those haven’t changed. This is a two step process but its rather self explanatory.
Once you’re logged in you should see a button in the middle of the page that says “Let’s do this”. Click on that to start the process of merging your Marriott and SPG accounts.
That will bring you to an intermediary page which explains things about the process and what happens when you’re finished. When you feel comfortable, click on “Get Started”
After clicking on “Get Started” you’ll be taken to another sign-in page. On this page you’re going to sign-in using your Starwood.com credentials. These will most likely be (and should be) different credentials than what you used with Marriot.com at step 2. Once you’ve entered your information click on “Next”.
Next, you’re going to see your current Marriott & Starwood points side by side. In addition to the points, you’ll also see lifetime nights, upcoming reservations, suite night awards, and free night certificates listed on the page. The sum of these columns is what you’ll end up with in your combined Marriott.com account.
As i’ve said many times on the podcast, I don’t stay at hotels often. However, I did acquire the Marriott Premier card not too long ago which awarded 10 points per $1 spent on the first $12k spent. Thus my point balance at Marriott is just over 100k. For Starwood I had ~11k before the merger, and those points are now equal to ~33k. The 11k is what I had leftover after my SPG Moments redemption at MSG.
Next you’re going to see a confirmation of your combined account information. This will include things like your member number, email address, & phone number. I’ve blocked my out of this picture, but you get the idea.
Next you’ll see details about what to expect once this process completes. Your points, lifetime nights, elite status, and upcoming reservations will be merged instantly. Within 72 hours your suite night awards, free night certificates, past activity, and mobile key & guest services will be merged. All you have to do here is confirm the merge.
Next you’ll see a congratulatory message showing you your combined lifetime night + point balance. Whats interesting here is that I had 0 lifetime nights at Starwood but ended up with 34 in the merge. Happy accident or bug?
You did it! Now your balances are combined and you’re ready to begin redeeming. Comment below or message us on social media to let us know where you’re going to redeem these points.
