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Marriott Bonvoy’s official terms are explicit that Elite Night Credit cannot be moved from one member’s account to another, under any circumstances – not as a gift, not through a status match, and not even when a family member passes away or a couple divorces.
What Marriott’s Terms Actually Say
The rule comes straight from the Marriott Bonvoy Loyalty Program Terms and Conditions. Section 2.8.f states plainly: “Miles and Elite Night Credit cannot be transferred between Membership Accounts.” That’s the entire rule – there’s no mechanism, form, or customer service exception that moves nights from your account into someone else’s.
The terms go further than most members expect. Section 1.4.b confirms that “All Loyalty Member Accounts are individual Accounts and no joint or shared Accounts are permitted,” which is why couples and travel partners can’t simply pool their nights into one shared Bonvoy profile the way some airline programs allow with household accounts.
Not Even After Death or Divorce
Marriott’s terms address this specific scenario directly, and the answer is still no. Section 1.6.c states that when Points are transferred following a member’s death or divorce, “Awards, hotel stays, Elite Membership Status, Lifetime Membership Status, and related benefits, including, without limitation, Elite Night Credit(s), are not transferrable.” In other words, even in the two situations where Marriott does allow a points balance to move to someone else, the elite status and the nights that earned it stay locked to the original account and simply expire with it.
What About Gifting a Reward Night?
Marriott lets members book an award stay under someone else’s name – a form of “gifting” a reward night, capped at a handful of stays per year. It sounds like a workaround, but it doesn’t touch the Elite Night Credit problem. As Head for Points points out, “neither you nor the recipient will receive elite night credit for the stay” when a reward night is gifted this way – even though a normal reward stay booked on your own account would count toward status. The recipient also gets none of the elite benefits (room upgrades, late check-out) that would normally apply.
What You Can Actually Do Instead
- Transfer points, not nights. Marriott Points themselves can move between accounts. If someone else needs a reward stay, sending them the points to book it directly on their own account means they earn the Elite Night Credit for that stay – something a gifted reservation under your name never gives them. See All the Ways to Transfer Marriott Points for the mechanics and limits.
- Check for a status match instead of trying to move nights. If the goal is getting someone else to a specific tier quickly, a Marriott Bonvoy status match from another hotel or airline program is a legitimate path – it just has nothing to do with the nights sitting in your account.
- Consolidate future stays on one account. Since nights can’t move retroactively, couples or travel partners who want one person to reach a higher tier faster need to book every future stay under that one account going forward, not split them.
- Let the credit card do the work instead. Several Marriott Bonvoy credit cards award bonus Elite Night Credits automatically each cardmember year, which is a legitimate way to add nights to a specific account without needing anyone to “transfer” anything.
How Elite Night Credits Are Normally Earned
Every Elite Night Credit in your account comes from your own activity: paid stays at Marriott properties, qualifying credit card spending, promotions, and status challenges. For the full breakdown of every earning method and how they stack, see Marriott Elite Night Credit: How to Earn & Maximize Elite Nights. Understanding how the credits are earned makes it clearer why Marriott keeps them non-transferable: they’re tied to verified activity on a specific account, not a balance that can simply be handed off like points.
The Bottom Line
Elite Night Credit is one of the few things in the Marriott Bonvoy program that stays permanently locked to the account that earned it – no transfers, no gifting workaround, and no exception for death or divorce. If you’re trying to help someone else reach Platinum or another tier faster, sending them Marriott Points to book their own stays – or pointing them toward a status match – will actually move the needle. Trying to transfer the nights themselves will not.
