ITC Hotels vs Marriott Bonvoy: Which Loyalty Program Is Worth Chasing From India
News
by
Wisor
For a few years, Indian points enthusiasts treated Club ITC and Marriott Bonvoy as basically the same pool of value with two different taps. Earn Green Points at ITC properties or convert Axis Bank EDGE Rewards into them, then bridge into Bonvoy at a favourable 2:3 ratio and redeem across 9,500-plus Marriott properties worldwide. That bridge has been narrowing for two years and just got a lot smaller. Whether Club ITC or Marriott Bonvoy is worth chasing now depends heavily on which one you're asking about, your own hotel, or someone else's.
The two programs aren't actually competitors
ITC Hotels operates more than 140 hotels across 90 destinations under brands including ITC Hotels (its luxury flagship), Welcomhotel, Mementos, Storii, Fortune Hotels, and WelcomHeritage. It became an independently listed company after demerging from ITC Limited in January 2025.
Separately, ITC's flagship luxury properties, the ITC Grand Collection, sit inside Marriott's Luxury Collection under a franchise agreement. This means the same physical hotel can often be booked and earned on through either program, and it's why the comparison gets confusing. Club ITC is ITC's own guest loyalty program. Marriott Bonvoy is a separate, much larger global program that happens to include some ITC properties as partners, not as owned assets.
What Club ITC actually offers on its own
Club ITC members earn Green Points at a rate generally cited between 2% and 8% of eligible spend on stays and dining, with 1 Green Point valued at ₹1 when redeemed directly at ITC properties. That direct redemption is straightforward and reasonably generous if you're a frequent ITC or Welcomhotel guest.
Beyond direct redemption, Green Points can also convert to Club Vistara points (3 Green Points to 2 Club Vistara points) or to International Travel House vouchers usable against flights and car rentals, giving the program some travel flexibility beyond just hotel stays.
What Marriott Bonvoy offers on its own
Marriott Bonvoy is the far larger network, spanning over 9,500 properties globally across dozens of brands. For Indian cardholders, the two most direct routes into Bonvoy points are American Express India's Membership Rewards, which transfer to Bonvoy at 1:1, and the Marriott Bonvoy HDFC Bank Diners Club Credit Card, a co-branded card that earns points directly at Marriott properties (around 8 points per ₹150 on Marriott stays, up to 4 points per ₹150 elsewhere) and comes with milestone perks like free night awards and Silver Elite status.
The bridge between them has been quietly shrinking since 2023
This is the part worth actually paying attention to if you were treating Club ITC as a feeder into Bonvoy. The Green Points to Bonvoy conversion ratio itself, 2 Green Points for 3 Bonvoy points, has stayed generous and unchanged. What's been cut repeatedly is how many points you're allowed to move through that bridge:
Period | Quarterly Transfer Cap | Approx. Annual Bonvoy Points Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
Original terms | No cap | ~60,000 (uncapped in practice) |
From July 2023 | 15,000 Green Points | ~90,000 |
From mid-2024 | 10,000 Green Points | ~60,000 |
From May 1, 2026 | 5,000 Green Points | ~30,000 |
The ratio looks the same on paper throughout. The actual annual ceiling has dropped by roughly half since 2024, and to a fraction of the original uncapped terms. ITC Hotels has been fairly candid about why: the bridge was originally meant to reward genuine guests, not to serve as an efficient relay for bank reward points heading straight out to a competing global program. Since becoming an independent company, ITC has been steadily recalibrating Club ITC to keep more value inside its own properties.
Why this stings more right now for Axis Bank cardholders specifically
The timing compounds the problem for one specific group. Axis Bank removed Marriott Bonvoy as a direct transfer partner for its credit cards, alongside Accor and Qatar Airways, effective April 2, 2026. Before that, Axis EDGE Rewards holders had two routes into Bonvoy: a direct Axis-to-Bonvoy transfer, and the indirect Axis-to-Club-ITC-to-Bonvoy route, which at the right ratios could actually yield more Bonvoy points per EDGE Reward than the direct path.
With the direct route gone and the indirect route now capped at a fraction of its former size, Axis cardholders chasing Bonvoy points have lost the more efficient path and had the backup path throttled in the same year.
So which one is actually worth chasing
If you're a frequent guest at ITC, Welcomhotel, or Fortune properties specifically, Club ITC is straightforward, valuable on its own terms, and doesn't need Marriott Bonvoy in the picture at all. The 1:1 rupee redemption at ITC properties is simple and the earn rate is competitive for a hotel-direct program.
If your actual goal is a large, flexible pool of Marriott Bonvoy points usable across a global portfolio, going through Club ITC is no longer the efficient path it once was. American Express India's 1:1 Membership Rewards transfer, or a Marriott Bonvoy co-branded card that earns Bonvoy points directly, are now the more reliable routes, since neither depends on a transfer cap that keeps shrinking year over year.
If you're specifically an Axis Bank EDGE Rewards holder who was using the Club ITC bridge, it's worth reassessing whether EDGE points are better redeemed through Axis's remaining transfer partners rather than routed toward a bridge that now caps out around 30,000 Bonvoy points a year.
The broader pattern here is one worth remembering across any loyalty program: a generous conversion ratio only matters as much as the cap sitting on top of it, and caps on indirect bridges tend to shrink faster than direct earning rates do.
