Marriott-Nectar Reset: 1,500 Free Nectar = 937 Avios

Your Marriott year quietly reset on 17 July, and most UK guests will never notice. That's the point worth catching. The Nectar–Marriott Bonvoy partnership hands you 500 Nectar points for each of your first three paid Marriott stays in a programme year, and the clock just rolled over. Book three cash nights between now and next 16 July and you bank up to 1,500 Nectar points on top of your normal Bonvoy points and Elite Night Credits. Route those Nectar points into Avios and you're looking at 937 Avios for stays you were paying for anyway. Here's exactly how to claim it, and where the value actually sits.

What reset on 17 July

When Marriott Bonvoy and Nectar launched their two-way transfer link a year ago, Nectar became Marriott's first "everyday earn" partner in the UK. The headline perk was never the point-to-point transfer rate. It was a stackable earning bonus: 500 Nectar points on each of your first three Marriott Bonvoy cash stays per programme year.

That programme year runs from 17 July to 16 July, and it refreshes on the same date every summer. It has just reset. Whatever you earned in the previous cycle is banked and gone; the counter is back to zero, and three fresh 500-point bonuses are on the table again.

The mechanics are simple once your accounts are linked. Complete a qualifying cash stay, and within about seven days of check-out, 500 Nectar points land in your Nectar account. Do it three times and you hit the 1,500-point annual cap. You still earn your standard Bonvoy points and Elite Night Credits as normal — the Nectar points sit entirely on top.

The catch worth naming up front: only cash stays qualify. A stay booked with Bonvoy points earns you nothing from this promotion, so plan your paid nights and your award nights accordingly.

The numbers that actually matter

A Nectar point is worth half a penny when you spend it at Sainsbury's, so 1,500 Nectar points is £7.50 of groceries. That's the floor, and it's fine — but it's not where the value lives.

The interesting exits are the transfers, and there are two:

Nectar to Marriott Bonvoy runs at 2:1. Every two Nectar points buys one Bonvoy point, and it works the same way in reverse. Your 1,500 bonus Nectar points would become 750 Bonvoy points.

Nectar to Avios runs at 400 Nectar to 250 Avios — a far friendlier rate of 0.625 Avios per Nectar point. Your 1,500 Nectar points convert to 937 Avios. A single stay's 500-point bonus becomes 312 Avios.

Line those three exits up and the ranking is obvious. As cash, 1,500 Nectar is worth £7.50. As Bonvoy points, it's a thin 750 points. As Avios, it's 937 — and even at a conservative 1p per Avios, that's around £9.37 of redemption value, comfortably ahead of the grocery option and streets ahead of the Bonvoy conversion. For most people topping up an Avios balance is the right call, and it's the route Head for Points itself flags as the strongest use of these points.

There's a reason the Marriott direction looks weak here. Converting Nectar into Bonvoy at 2:1 is a poor rate unless you have a specific Bonvoy redemption you're a few hundred points short of. If you don't, don't do it.

A worked example: three stays into a flight

Say you've got two work trips and a weekend away booked at Marriott properties over the next twelve months, all paid in cash. Nothing changes about how you book — you just make sure your Nectar and Marriott accounts are linked first.

Three qualifying stays earn 3 × 500 = 1,500 Nectar points. Convert at 400:250 and you have 937 Avios in your British Airways Club account, layered on top of the Bonvoy points those same stays already generated. Do the same next programme year and you're at nearly 1,900 Avios from stays that cost you nothing extra.

Nine hundred-odd Avios won't fly you to New York on its own, but it's a genuine top-up. It can close the gap on a short-haul Reward Flight, offset a chunk of a bigger redemption, or simply keep an Avios balance active. Before you pull the trigger on the transfer, it's worth checking what your topped-up balance can actually book — Pointsbot's flight insights let you sanity-check routes and award pricing before you commit points that can't easily be moved back.

That "can't be moved back" point matters, which brings us to the fine print. But first, one timing trick that can quietly boost the whole exercise.

Wait for a transfer bonus to stretch it further

The 400:250 base rate is already the best home for these points, but it isn't the ceiling. Nectar runs periodic transfer bonuses to Avios — most recently a 10% to 20% uplift in spring 2026 — and they can turn a decent conversion into a strong one.

During a 20% promotion, your 1,500 bonus Nectar points would convert to roughly 1,125 Avios instead of 937. A single stay's 500-point bonus would become around 375 Avios rather than 312. That's a meaningful lift for doing nothing more than waiting for the right week to press the transfer button.

These bonuses aren't constant, and there's no guarantee one lands before you want to use the points. But Nectar points don't burn a hole in your account the way an expiring airline balance might, so long as you keep the account active. If you're not in a rush, the disciplined move is to let your stay bonuses accumulate through the year and convert them in a batch when a bonus appears — rather than trickling 312 Avios out after every single stay at the base rate.

The fine print that trips people up

This promotion is easy money, but only if you respect the rules. A few catch people out every year.

Link at least 24 hours before you book. Your Nectar and Marriott accounts must be connected for a full day before you make a booking for that stay to qualify. Link them today and you're covered for everything you book from tomorrow. Leave it until the morning of check-in and you've missed the window.

Your details have to match. The link only succeeds if your name, email and home address are the same across both accounts, and your Marriott account must be registered in the UK. Mismatched details are the most common reason the connection silently fails.

Watch your statements. Missing Nectar points are a recurring complaint — readers regularly report that one or two of their three stays simply didn't credit, and chasing Nectar's customer service to fix it is slow going. Keep your booking confirmations and check that 500 points appears within a week of each check-out, while the stay is fresh enough to dispute.

Mind the round-trip trap. Because both transfer directions run at 2:1, moving points back and forth is a value bonfire. Push 1,000 Nectar into Marriott and you get 500 Bonvoy; push those 500 Bonvoy back to Nectar and you're left with 250 — a 75% loss. Only ever transfer when you're confident you won't want to reverse it.

Minimums and one-time linking. Transfers start at 500 points in either direction, in multiples of 100 after that. And you can only link and unlink your Marriott and Nectar accounts once, so don't connect a test account you don't intend to use.

New to Marriott? There's 500 Nectar just for signing up

If you don't already have a Marriott Bonvoy account — less likely if you're reading a points blog, but worth flagging for family members — there's a separate 500-point sign-up bonus. Join Marriott Bonvoy through the Nectar landing page and you get 500 Nectar points for opening the account, with no stay required and no end date on the offer. Your accounts link automatically in the process.

That's another 312 Avios' worth of points for a five-minute sign-up, and it stacks with the three-stays bonus. Existing Marriott members don't get this one, but everyone is eligible for the 1,500-point stay bonus regardless of how long they've held either account.

Pro tip: Link your Nectar and Marriott accounts today, even if you have no Marriott stay booked yet. The link takes seconds, has no downside, and the 24-hour qualifying rule means every day you delay is a day of potential bonuses you can't claim. Get the plumbing in place now so the points flow automatically the moment you next book a paid night.

The bottom line

The Marriott–Nectar reset is the definition of found money for anyone who stays at Marriott properties in the UK on business or for leisure. Three paid stays a year hand you 1,500 Nectar points, and pointed at Avios rather than Sainsbury's or Bonvoy, that's 937 Avios stacked on top of everything else those stays already earn. The whole thing costs you nothing but a one-time account link and a glance at your statement after each stay.

So do two things this week. Link your Nectar and Marriott accounts from the Nectar website, so your next cash stay qualifies. Then, when the points arrive, convert them to Avios at 400:250 rather than letting them sit — and check what that balance can book before you transfer, because Avios are much harder to move back out than they are to move in.