Marriott offers Taylor Swift concert trips for 500,000 points
IF YOU have 500,000 points sitting around in a Marriott Bonvoy account, that’ll get you four or five nights at a luxury hotel-say, the Ritz-Carlton Nomad in New York City or the St Regis Maldives Vommuli.
Or you can use them to go see Taylor Swift in 11 cities around North America and Europe.
On Feb 27 Marriott International’s loyalty programme, Marriott Bonvoy, announced it’s sponsoring the Eras Tour. Not only will that allow members to buy access to the coveted concerts with points, it’ll also offer up the packages to non-members as part of a global sweepstakes aimed at growing the next generation of Bonvoy loyalists. (Think Gen-Zers from all corners of the world.)
Unlike most of the special events made available on Bonvoy’s Moments platform, which go to the highest bidders-think Superbowl tickets or access to the F1 Grands Prix-the 500,000 point price tag for Swift tickets will be fixed. That’s part of an effort to keep the experience accessible, says Peggy Roe, executive vice-president and chief customer officer for Marriott International.
The price, which translates roughly to US$5,000, includes a pair of tickets to see Swift, a two-night hotel stay, dinner at a Bonvoy-affiliated restaurant, a spa treatment and transportation to and from the concert venue.
But you don’t need a single point to enter the sweepstakes, which goes live on Feb 27. Entries, made via this website, require little more than a Marriott Bonvoy account number, which you can register for on the same day you enter the contest. (There’s no purchase necessary, but there are eligibility rules that limit the contest to residents of 23 countries.)
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The 250 prizes up for grabs total nearly US$300,000, and winners will be chosen lottery-style on a rolling basis.
A grand prize-consisting of three separate four-day trips to see Taylor Swift perform in Vienna, Miami, and Toronto-is worth an estimated US$19,500 and includes round-trip airfare (in coach), hotel accommodations and a pair of tickets to each show. But most winners will receive a pair of tickets and a welcome gift at their Marriott hotel (travel costs not included), for shows that range in location from Stockholm and Madrid to New Orleans and Indianapolis.
The move is core to Marriott’s international growth strategy, Roe explains. “We’ve never done anything this global in scale,” she says, “and with 70 per cent of our hotel growth happening outside of the US, we have a strong desire to grow our member space globally as well.” Roe declined to provide a number for how many signups would make the promotion a success, though she says it will be “significant.” Increased social engagement alone, she says, will make it worthwhile.
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Offers to buy ticket packages with points will go live on the Marriott Bonvoy Moments portal on Mar 13, with new batches released throughout the year. (You’ll be able to sign up for notifications.) In theory you can choose the city, though as with other avenues for buying Swift tickets, you’ll likely have to grab what you can get. Seats are guaranteed to have full-not partial-views, but won’t be in a box or special section, and will be assigned to Bonvoy members in a block to create community among the group.
“Our most frequent travellers often get to access our bigger packages and that’s great,” Roe says.
“We should always have things that reward those people who are spending a lot and staying with us a lot. But we really wanted to keep this accessible so that our middle of the road guests could also join in on the fun.”
How you define “middle of the road” is relative, however. Marriott says the 500,000 point price tag is the highest it’s ever charged for a flat-priced experience. If you wanted to buy 500,000 points, it would theoretically cost you around US$650,000-though you’d have to do that over five years, given you can only buy 100,000 points per calendar year.
That said, the sum still falls far shy of Marriott Bonvoy’s chart-topping points purchase: 5.3 million points for a hospitality package to Superbowl LVIII earlier in 2024. You might call that the Taylor effect, too.
All told, the Taylor Swift pricing is a rather fair deal, considering that tickets can easily run US$600-and much more-on resale markets. (Marriott has plans to prevent resales, including identity verification at the venues.)
Bonvoy already quietly opened up access to Taylor Swift packages in Tokyo earlier this year as a test case for this global promotion. Based on that experience, Roe predicts that these deals will be gone in “seconds.” BLOOMBERG
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