Question: Can I Do A Marriott Search By Category For Cheap Hotels?

There are some good suggestions for the cheaper brands in Marriott’s portfoloio. But what if we have no idea where to find those brands?

I’m a visual learner. Here’s how to see WHERE those properties are.

Marriott Search By Brand

You can do either option: search by brands (select the cheaper ones) and can also search award category. Both are done basically the same way.

Starting With A Destination

Maybe you have an idea where you want to go. In this example, we search for Switzerland with specific dates in mind.

We have 23 results. Look at the top right corner, and you can filter by brand.

You can choose all of these brands under ‘Select’ and ‘Extended Stays’ for some of the cheaper options.

  Now, we see only 6 options in our results.

Open To Anywhere

If you’re open to going anywhere (or at least multiple places are being considered), let’s start with “see my options on a map”.

From the Marriott home page, click on “Find & Reserve” and then choose “Browse by Destination” in the menu that pops out.

This will take you to a map of all Marriott properties. The default is to show you U.S. properties.

Let’s say you want to go to anywhere in Europe and want to know your options. Choose “Europe” from the menu.

We have a ton of hotels. Let’s filter those by the cheaper brands. Under the map, you see “Filter”.

We’ll choose to filter by brand and choose the inexpensive brands.

Now I see a lot fewer dots on the map. You can then zoom in to see where these are, hotel information, etc.

You can also click on dots to see something like “Switzerland 6, Sweden 4” for how many hotels match your filters per country.

Marriott Search By Rewards Category

If you really want to find the “cheapest points options possible”, also look at filtering by rewards category.

In fact, as you click on the desired rewards categories, you will even see how many hotels it applies to with your other settings/filters applied. Since this is a search in “Europe”, there will be 276 Category 1 hotels in Europe.

Final Thoughts

Remember that you can always check the Marriott redemption price chart here. Filtering by price point and then going to one of the available options is a great way to save points on your next hotel redemption. Flexibility is always a key factor in saving points, so now you know how to do a Marriott search by award category or brand type.

If you need more information on understanding their standard, peak, and off-peak pricing, our analysis on that is here. Obviously, visiting during “off peak” periods leads to the greatest points saving.