What to do with Marriott points you won’t use this year

For Marriott Vacation Club owners holding points they won’t use this year: bank them before your deadline if they can still be banked, book a vacation club stay with them (a stay close to arrival can cost fewer points at the higher owner levels), or rent them out. Leave resort credits and trip insurance for last, because they give back very little for the maintenance fees you paid on those points.

I have used Club Points almost every day for over a decade, making reservations for the owners whose accounts my company, Travelscowt, manages, and renting out owners’ points is how we make our living. The deadlines and figures below come from my own guide to the program, so check them against your owner portal before you count on them.

Do Marriott Vacation Club points expire?

Yes. Most owners can bank unused points one to two years into the future, but sooner or later the oldest points hit a use-by date, and after that they are gone. I understand why Marriott needs the deadlines (if points never expired, owners would stockpile them for retirement and then flood the system all at once), and I also believe the deadlines help Marriott the way unredeemed gift cards help a retailer. I have watched tens of thousands of our owner clients’ points expire over the years, and the story is usually the same: a new owner calls me in the fall, a little desperate, and by then it is very difficult to do anything with them.

Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach ClubOahu, Hawaii8 guests · 2 bedroomsFrom $664 a night

When is the banking deadline?

It depends on your owner level. When I wrote my guide, Chairman and Presidential owners had to bank eligible points 2 months before the end of the use year, and Select and Owner levels 6 months before. Miss it and the points are still yours, but only for the months left in the year. A Presidential owner who misses a September 30 deadline has October to December to find a reservation, the holiday weeks are long gone by then, and what is left is off-season and shoulder-season space (not necessarily a bad thing, unless your vacations are tied to school holidays). Owners with fee weeks have a second date to watch, the deadline to elect points for the year, which typically falls at the end of September or October for Chairman and Presidential owners.

My advice is simple and a little boring: put both deadlines in your phone as a calendar event that repeats every year, and add a reminder in January to decide what you will do with next year’s weeks. I also tell my owners to look at their points account at least once a quarter.

Is Marriott spending the right points?

Not always. Early on, one of my owners called to ask why I hadn’t used their banked points on a reservation, and when I checked, Marriott’s system had taken the standard points for the year and left the banked points, which were due to expire first, sitting in the account. I wondered for a moment whether it was a bug or some sinister plot to boost the program’s profits. Another owner, a software engineer, worked out the much duller reason: the system sorts by end date, and December 31 comes before January 1, so this year’s points get spent ahead of banked points that expire the next morning.

The fix takes a minute. On the “Apply Your Points” screen, type the points into the “Applied” column against the banked points that expire first, or call owner services and tell them you want the allocation checked for that reservation. Let them know you understand how the system picks points, and that its choice is not always the best one for you.

Can you still use them on a stay?

Usually, and I would try that before anything else, because a stay at a vacation club resort is still the highest and best use of your points. Late in the year the good weeks are taken, but short stays and weekday nights are worth checking, and at the higher owner levels a late booking costs fewer points: when I wrote my guide, Presidential and Chairman owners received 30% off the points on a reservation made within 60 days of arrival, and Executive owners 25% within 30 days. If you can take a long weekend in October, your expiring points may go further than you expect.

What about resort credits and trip insurance?

Both are better than letting the points expire, and not by much. The maintenance fee on Club Points is about $0.81 a point in 2026 (the Trust’s proposed budget for 2027 brings it to about $0.80), and Marriott’s new maintenance-fee credits, which start in 2027 at Select level and above, pay back $0.25 to $0.31 a point depending on your level. When I wrote my guide, a resort credit came to $110 for every 325 points and the smallest trip insurance plan took 750 points for cover that generally costs $200 to $300 if you buy it yourself, which works out to roughly 27 to 40 cents for every point. I call that terrible value, and I would only use any of them in the last weeks before the points expire, when nothing else is left.

Can you rent them out?

Yes, and the earlier in the year you decide, the better, because a guest wants a real week at a resort they have heard of, and those weeks disappear first. Toward the end of each year we review the accounts of the owners we work with and ask how many of their remaining points they would like earmarked for rentals, and when we book a rental we use the points that expire first, banked points included. One more point for anyone thinking of selling: points you intend to sell have to stay untouched, so if you plan to sell next year’s points, use this year’s and leave next year’s alone. I explain how a rental works for an owner, from the booking to the day you are paid, in how to rent out your Marriott week or points (shameless plug, I know).

The short version

• Know your banking and election deadlines, and put them in your calendar to repeat every year.
• Check which points each reservation uses, and move the allocation to the points that expire first.
• Use expiring points on a stay if you can, ideally inside the late-booking window at the higher levels.
• Rent what you won’t use, and decide early in the year rather than in December.
• Keep resort credits and trip insurance for the very end.

How the points program works in general, the resorts and the reservation windows, is in our Marriott Vacation Club guide, and you can send us a note with your owner level and your balance if you want us to look at your account. Marriott changes these rules from time to time and I don’t speak for them, so for anything that turns on a deadline, confirm it with owner services before it passes.

Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach ClubOahu, Hawaii8 guests · 2 bedroomsFrom $664 a night