Marriott Bonvoy is a hotel loyalty program a Canadian can join, earn into and fund through a domestic credit card, and until October 2026 it was the only one. That convenience is easy to confuse with value. The program is large, its Elite thresholds are reachable for people who stay in hotels for work, and the Canadian American Express card offers an annual free night certificate, although changes announced for 2027 will introduce a spending requirement. It is also a program whose redemption prices Marriott sets in real time, whose terms let Marriott change nearly anything, and whose most useful redemption rule is easy to misread in ways that cost points.

This is the hotel companion to our guide to Canadian loyalty programs and to the Aeroplan deep dive. Rules come from Marriott’s published program terms and from American Express Canada. Calculations use stated assumptions in Canadian dollars, and where the evidence is thin the text says so. The central question is when a Canadian should choose Marriott over a cheaper comparable room, and what status, the card, the points and the Stay for 5, Pay for 4 rule are worth once the marketing is stripped away.