MGM Joins Forces with Marriott: Exclusive Elite Benefits, Points Transfers and Status Matches Unveiled

Last summer we learned that Marriott would replace Hyatt as MGM’s partner. Now the benefits of the partnership are being detailed, for when MGM properties become bookable as part of Marriott Bonvoy “early this year.”

  • MGM Rewards elite members can status match to Marriott
  • Marriott Bonvoy elite members receive defined benefits with MGM
  • Points transfer between the programs

Benefits For Marriott Elites Staying At MGM Hotels

Here are the benefits for Marriott Bonvoy elites who book MGM Collection hotels through Marriott booking channels. Benefits don’t apply if booking direct through MGM. Always compare room rates.

Note also that with this partnership, Marriott Bonvoy members receive 1 elite night credit towards status for each qualifying night stayed.

  • Silver: 10% Marriott Bonvoy bonus points on Qualifying Charges

  • Gold: 25% Marriott Bonvoy bonus points on Qualifying Charges; Welcome gift of 500 Marriott Bonvoy points per stay

  • Platinum: 50% Marriott Bonvoy bonus points on Qualifying Charges; Enhanced room upgrades, based upon availability; Priority Check-In Line; Complimentary 2:00 p.m. late checkout (subject to availability); Welcome gift of 1,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per stay or $15 F&B credit per night of stay

  • Titanium: 75% Marriott Bonvoy bonus points on Qualifying Charges; Enhanced room upgrades, based upon availability; Priority Check-In Line; Complimentary 2:00 p.m. late checkout (subject to availability); Welcome gift of 1,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per stay or $15 F&B credit per night of stay

  • Ambassador: 75% Marriott Bonvoy bonus points on Qualifying Charges; Waived resort fee; One suite upgrade at a Las Vegas Hotel per year, up to 3-night stay; Enhanced room upgrades, based upon availability; Complimentary 1:00 p.m. early check-in and 4 p.m. late checkout (subject to availability); Welcome gift of 1,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per stay or $15 F&B credit per night of stay; Complimentary self-parking; Priority access on dining and check-in; 15% retail discounts

Late check-out, early check-in, suite upgrade; waived resort fee; complimentary self-parking; and Priority access on dining and check-in are listed as “available during a promotional period ending December 31, 2024.”

Notably, unlike the earlier Hyatt partnership, Marriott members do not receive tier matches to MGM’s status levels which have become more valuable but also much harder to learn outside of gaming.

These are benefits for the 16 properties exclusively in the “MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy.”

  • Las Vegas: Vdara Hotel & Spa, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, The Signature at MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Luxor Hotel & Casino, and Excalibur Hotel & Casino.

  • Other destinations: Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (Atlantic City, New Jersey), Beau Rivage Resort & Casino (Biloxi, Mississippi), MGM Grand Detroit (Detroit, Michigan), MGM National Harbor (Oxon Hill, Maryland), and MGM Springfield (Springfield, Massachusetts).

There are several other hotels that are also affiliated with existing Marriott brands, where benefits will apply based on those brands instead: Bellagio Resort & Casino (The Luxury Collection), ARIA Resort & Casino (Autograph Collection), Park MGM Las Vegas (Tribute Portfolio), and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (Autograph Collection).

Benefits Are For One Year Only?

It seems notable to me that many benefits are only though December 31, 2024. The relationship is new and they’re still figuring it out. Still, this is probably a reflection both of the still-tentative nature of all of this and overeager lawyers, because everything is subject to change anyway. I would expect that benefits might be slightly modified though extended.

No Meaningful Benefits For Marriott Silvers Or Golds

Honestly who cares about a 10% or 25% bonus on points earned from paid stays at MGM, or a bonus of 500 Marriott points (worth around $3)? For all intents and purposes there’s zero benefit to a Marriott Silver or Gold staying at MGM.

This is fair since Silver and Gold are barely elite, and there’s really near-zero benefit for a Marriott Silver staying at Marriott except hopefully avoiding the worst room on property though that’s not a published benefit. Makes sense. (A Marriott Gold gets 2 p.m. late check-out at most Marriotts, which is something.)

Priority Check-in Is The Major Benefit For Most Elites

2 p.m. late check-out is valuable. But the biggest benefit for many will be priority queuing for check-in. At peak times people can stand in line 3 to 4 hours to check in at big Las Vegas hotels.

I’m not sure this is going to be enough to swing Marriott loyalists to MGM Collection properties. There’s no breakfast benefit, for instance. But it’s a start for the MGM-Marriott relationship. Let’s hope they build on it.

Ambassador Benefits Point To Marriott’s Own Inadequacies

It’s interesting that resort fees are waived for Ambassadors at MGM properties – but not at Marriott properties. All members, including Ambassadors, pay resort fees even on “free” award nights (Hilton and Hyatt members do not, and Hyatt top elites don’t even pay resort fees on paid stays).

Marriott’s upgrades only start happening three days in advance but if an Ambassador leaves Marriott and stays at an MGM hotel they can confirm an actual upgrade to a suite in advance once a year. But how can it make sense to limit an Ambassador’s one suite upgrade to three nights? A lot of stays will be four nights, so the Ambassador might as well stay elsewhere for those? And a four or five night stay necessarily means extending into non-peak nights. The three night stays are probably Thursday – Sunday. A fourth night would be a Wednesday or Sunday night! A fifth night would be a Monday or Tuesday night!

The way that these upgrades work (limited to Las Vegas properties in MGM Collection) is that members request the upgrade from a standard room type to a standard suite via their Ambassador, and it’s subject to availability for advance confirmation. Bear in mind that standard “Nightly Upgrade Awards” cannot initially be used at MGM Collection hotels.

Points Transfers Between Programs

The ability members enrolled in both programs will – “coming soon” – be able ot move points back and forth between the two.

Once launched, Marriott points will transfer at a rate of 10 Bonvoy points to 8 MGM points and from 10 MGM points to 8 Bonvoy points. So the transfer ratios are the same in each direction, with members losing 20% of their points each time they transfer. There will be a minimum of 1,000 points per transaction, and a maximum of 30,000 points transferred each year in each direction.

MGM Elites Status Match To Marriott

Marriott members receive defined benefits, rather than status in MGM’s program. MGM Rewards elite members can match their status and receive Marriott status as follows:

  • MGM Gold -> Marriott Silver
  • MGM Platinum -> Marriott Gold
  • MGM Noir -> Marriott Ambassador

It’s interesting that no MGM tier maps to Platinum or Titanium. MGM Noirs get Marriott Ambassador which is huge, but also makes sense. Noir is MGM’s unpublished status for whales. Here’s the secret code for how Bellagio identifies their Noir whales. Think: someone gambling enough to generate a $200,000 theoretical loss.

It’s unfortunate that Marriott members don’t actually get MGM status because MGM doesn’t charge resort fees to their Gold members and higher. That’s a benefit only available to Marriott’s Ambassadors under this program. Status matching from Marriott to MGM would provide better benefits.

Fingers Crossed On The Single Best Benefit To This Partnership

Midweek rates in Las Vegas can be super cheap, especially at places like Excalibur. When MGM and Hyatt were partners, you could book a cheap Excalibur night and check in via MGM’s mobile app without ever setting foot in Las Vegas to earn World of Hyatt elite nights.

I’ll be looking to see whether Marriott-booked nights at Excalibur can be managed via MGM’s app. This will be a cheap way to generate elite nights (mattress runs) if it works. However MGM is aware of the practice and once the Hyatt relationship’s end was announced they locked Hyatt-booked stays out from checking in via mobile app.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. I figured that would be the case but still disappointed in no match Marriott to MGM. I was Gold with MGM by matching from Hyatt and now I’ll be Pearl on my play. Would have been nice to get Gold again to avoid the MGM resort fees but I guess the $15 makes up about 1/3 of that and still get priority line so not all is lost, but most of it is.

  2. Also disappointed no status match to MGM Gold (lifetime Titanium here). Frankly this doesn’t move the needle for me since I’m Diamond Plus w Caesars (from gambling) so get comped rooms, no resort fee, dinner comps, early/late checkin/checkout. Used previous Hyatt status match to Gold (am Explorist) to give MGM some of my action but now have zero incentive to do it. Oh well

  3. As others have mentioned without status match to MGM from Marriott not a whole lot there and likely not going to help me focus on staying at MGM properties.

  4. Anybody know if I book an MGM stay now while currently having Gold status….when I check in in a few months (with no gold status) will the resort fees still be waived?

  5. Nice to get points for corporate travel at least. The Marriott Grand Chateau is superior as far as I’m concerned, but I’ll use someone else’s money to stay at the Vdara or Mandalay Bay anytime

  6. As a Titanium Elite with Bonvoy, the lack of waived resort fees makes all of this a bunch of noise to me.

  7. I have been MGM Gold for 3 years do to the Hyatt matching, and have really enjoyed the free resort fees in Vegas and free valet parking at the Borgata. Using my meager casino comps was a lot more palatable with the zero resort fees and made me actually go to Vegas more (and gamble more!)
    I had convinced myself that Marriott Platinum would match to MGM Gold and was getting ready for to sign up for the Brilliant Card, but obviously all of this hype and delays was for nothing.

    This partnership really makes no sense for either side. I can’t imagine to many gamblers are going to pay 100,000 Bonvoy points to stay the Aria… and then pay $60/night in resort fees, especially cause the MGM comps will still work for gamblers.

  8. As a Hyatt Globalist for years and therefore an MGM Gold for years, this new relationship between MGM and Marriott, with my attention on Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott in that order because I am a global traveler, this new Marriott/MGM relationship tells me that I have zero value as a customer to MGM as a Platinum or Titanium depending on year. To take away MGM Gold match with my close to seve years as a true Marriott Elite is pretty much a slap in the face, means my MGM Gold status will end in about two weeks at the end of January, 2024, and as a Marriott elite, I now get close to nothing of value in this new MGM/Marriott relationship. In the converse, MGM High Quality Elites (Platinum and above) receive significant benefits with Marriott, a very unfair double standard.

    MGM got all it wanted: access to Marriott Elite status for its MGM elites while Marriott elites got zip… nada. Being that I live so close by in California that I often drive to Vegas, I will no longer patronize MGM properties since it means paying exorbitant daily service fees and daily parking fees, values I once received for my Hyatt Globalist status.

    Whoever set up these new systems sure did a great job of screwing Marriott high elites: just one more chink of many that shows Marriott does not care about its most loyal customers. This Marriott leadership is going to kill the Marriott as we knew it, all to save on breakfast fees and cheap out by cutting every corner that it could…. sickening.

  9. I am platinum now I’m normally gold. But now I’m going back to nothing since there’s no match with Hyatt. I’m doubtful how much time I’ll spend at these MGM properties now.
    I am gold Elite with Bonvoy..
    I got rid of my credit card and got Marriott thinking that it would work the same as it did with Hyatt. Now there’s no benefits in me at all to keep either of these clubs. Very disappointed in this.

  10. @Stuart H – I also am disappointed there is no longer a match from Marriott to MGM. I am only Exporist w Hyatt but matched to MGM Gold. I’m lifetime Titanium w Marriott and there is not only no match but the benefits are very weak (BTW don’t count on the space available upgrades or discretionary late checkout). Also, Marriott didn’t “take away” your Gold MGM status – it was never part of the plan. I actually think this works for both companies even though many, myself included, are disappointed. Let me explain:

    First of all I am Caesars Diamond Plus or Diamond Elite (based on the year) from gambling with them. Both Caesars and MGM have moved to make their programs more focused on gambling or casino spend instead of status matches (Caesars cut back Wyndham match for example). Both companies are basically minting money with the LV strip casinos winning over a Billion a month. Frankly neither one needs a status match as they have high occupancy and want to cater to gamblers or others that will spend on their property instead of people looking for a cheap deal with a status match. This give MGM access to Marriott’s reservation system and customer base although they frankly don’t need Marriott as much as Marriott (or any hotel chain) needs them. For Marriott it greatly expands LV options for booking and I’m sure they get some percentage of the hotel stay. These are not Marriott managed properties so under a different reimbursement plan than their typical franchise model but they obviously will benefit from bookings at MGM properties. The value of the status match back to Marriott for MGM Rewards customers doesn’t cost Marriott much and is an incentive for typically higher net worth individuals (to be at the levels of MGM Rewards where there is a match) to stay with Marriott. If MGM gave away status matches it would cost them more from a bottom line perspective so not only don’t they need the guests as much as Marriott the cost would be more.

    Again, disappointed I won’t have my Gold MGM status after this month but I have a similar (or higher status with Caesars so I’ll just stay with them where I get comped rooms, no resort fees, free parking, comped meals, free gambling junkets, etc. I enjoy the MGM properties in LV but will be staying with Caesars during my visits and directing most of my action their way. However, I recognize from a business perspective this makes more sense to both parties than the prior Hyatt relationship.

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