A few weeks ago we brought you the emerging details of a new ski resort hotel joining up with Marriott. That hotel is The Josie Hotel in Rossland, B.C.. Right at the foot of Red Mountain Resort this award winning ski in ski out boutique hotel is set to become an Autograph Collection hotel. The Marriott website states the property is joining in December however the earliest bookable night through Marriott right now is February 3, 2022. What the website does tell us now which it didn't just over two weeks ago is what category the hotel falls into in the Marriott Bonvoy program.
The Josie Hotel, Autograph Collection will be a Category 7 hotel, the second highest category in the program and in fact the highest in Canada as there are no Category 8 hotels here. The Josie Hotel is only the sixth Category 7 hotel in Canada joining the ranks of two other ski hotels the Westin Resort & Spa, Whistler and the Le Westin Resort & Spa, Tremblant. The other three are the Ritz-Carlton's in Toronto and Montreal and the St. Regis Toronto. The Josie keeps good company.
I'll be honest before learning about the Josie Hotel joining Marriott I hadn't heard of it and had no idea of it's grandeur. During peak ski season the property commands a pretty penny, it's not a cheap hotel to stay at! The lowest rates during this time are coming in at $499 per night before taxes/fees and that's for a prepaid non-refundable rate! Some nights run over a $1,000 for their standard rooms so I can see why this hotel has been classified as a Category 7 hotel. But there's actually good news in that and that's where the Marriott Bonvoy points come in handy! As a Category 7 hotel the standard redemption rate is 60,000 points per night with Off-Peak coming in at 50,000 points and Peak at 70,000 points. So I figured it was worth taking a look if you could use points for those most expensive nights and more importantly how many points it would take if you could.
We are going to take a look at stays in February 2022. The 20th and 21st are in fact the most expensive nights in February and of the entire ski season (the rates shown below are the non-refundable amounts)
Next I switched the calendar to the points per night view:
And would you look at that! Every single night - even those two most expensive nights are pricing out at the standard 60,000 points required for a Category 7 hotel. Now a room booked with points is equivalent to booking a flexible refundable rate so I checked the cost of a room on February 21:
A whopping $1,249 including taxes and fees. The same room with points:
That's right 60,000 points and no taxes and fees. This means you would be receiving a value of 2.08 cents per point. That's more than double our minimum valuation of 1 cent per point making this a good redemption. This is where getting those bonus points from the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card come in handy! It's currently offering a welcome bonus of 70,000 points so you could easily redeem for that most expensive night if you wanted to and have 10,000 points left over. That's a pretty good welcome bonus to get $1,249 in value and still have 10,000 points kicking around.
✈ Rwrds Reminder: Finding huge value in the 70,000 point welcome bonuses on the Marriott Bonvoy credit cards ✈
I also decided to check the Josie Hotel's own booking engine right now to see if there was any price difference from Marriott and in fact their best price only matched Marriott's non-member rate .
From the first calendar above you can see the cash prices are high that weekend as it is Family Day long weekend in British Columbia so this is an ideal and worthwhile redemption for those looking for a ski getaway at an amazing hotel with a ski resort famous for its powder. If you wanted to go for a 3 night weekend arriving Friday and leaving Monday you could use 180,000 points instead of spending over $3,500.
Once ski season is over the hotel prices drop dramatically, you can stay at this hotel for around $270 a night including fees and taxes. That's when using points doesn't make sense as they want 60,000 points for those nights still! That's where the soon to come dynamic pricing in the Bonvoy program may become advantageous, so we hope at least but of course you most likely won't get a $1249 room for 60,000 points either when the change over happens in March 2022
Wrapping it up
Marriott's newest ski resort property in Canada, The Josie Hotel, Autograph Collection gives the chain yet another amazing high end property to earn and burn at. It is one of only half a dozen Category 7 hotels in Canada and when you look at the cash prices during the prime ski season you can see why it has been placed into that expensive category. I will be curious to see how they treat Marriott Elite Status members and how forthcoming they may be with upgrades. I know we'll start learning those details come February!
If any of our readers are planning of staying here and would like to complete review of the hotel for us please email us at info@rewardscanada.ca
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