Yesterday, I ranted about Marriott’s lack of clarity on the ’29 Ways to Stay’ online sweepstakes as part of this year’s Marriott Megabonus promotion. And as luck would have it, the game went live a few hours later. There are new updates to the promotion as well.

Before I dive into the details of the game, Marriott announced two more ways to earn bonus points as part of their promotion:

• Earn an additional 10,000 bonus points when you stay at 10 brands.
• Get 29,000 bonus points when you stay at all 29 brands.

This is a do-able promotion in the first case. If you end up staying with 10 brands, which most road-warriors could be doing, they get another 10,000 bonus points. However, the entire 29,000 bonus points are not worth chasing.

Now for the sweepstakes. Unlike last year, where you had to just answer a question on Twitter, things get a bit interactive this time around. Start by going to the contest’s webpage and once you are logged in, you’ll see six cards faced down. The game asks you to match the hotels under the cards.

Yesterday’s brand was The W, so everything revolved around this brand.

You play a game of concentration (or match) with these cards and when you successfully match two, you get a question. Answer the question correctly and you move on. There are six cards per game, which translates into three rounds.

Once you have answered all the questions correctly, you instantly know how many bonus points did you win. There is no time limit when you are playing the game and you can play it at any time of the day. Phew! I don’t have to set my body clock to US time. You can participate in this contest even if you don’t plan on staying with Marriott during the promotion period.

Bottomline

It is great that Marriott was able to go live with the sweepstakes after all. Though a week late, the prizes remain the same. Earn free stays, points and more! Make sure to log in every day and see what is in store for you.

How many Marriott Rewards points did you win last night?