diff --git a/mm/mempolicy.c b/mm/mempolicy.c
index cfd26d7e61a1..58fb833fce0c 100644
--- a/mm/mempolicy.c
+++ b/mm/mempolicy.c
@@ -2060,8 +2060,36 @@ alloc_pages_vma(gfp_t gfp, int order, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 		nmask = policy_nodemask(gfp, pol);
 		if (!nmask || node_isset(hpage_node, *nmask)) {
 			mpol_cond_put(pol);
-			page = __alloc_pages_node(hpage_node,
-						gfp | __GFP_THISNODE, order);
+			/*
+			 * We cannot invoke reclaim if __GFP_THISNODE
+			 * is set. Invoking reclaim with
+			 * __GFP_THISNODE set, would cause THP
+			 * allocations to trigger heavy swapping
+			 * despite there may be tons of free memory
+			 * (including potentially plenty of THP
+			 * already available in the buddy) on all the
+			 * other NUMA nodes.
+			 *
+			 * At most we could invoke compaction when
+			 * __GFP_THISNODE is set (but we would need to
+			 * refrain from invoking reclaim even if
+			 * compaction returned COMPACT_SKIPPED because
+			 * there wasn't not enough memory to succeed
+			 * compaction). For now just avoid
+			 * __GFP_THISNODE instead of limiting the
+			 * allocation path to a strict and single
+			 * compaction invocation.
+			 *
+			 * Supposedly if direct reclaim was enabled by
+			 * the caller, the app prefers THP regardless
+			 * of the node it comes from so this would be
+			 * more desiderable behavior than only
+			 * providing THP originated from the local
+			 * node in such case.
+			 */
+			if (!(gfp & __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM))
+				gfp |= __GFP_THISNODE;
+			page = __alloc_pages_node(hpage_node, gfp, order);
 			goto out;
 		}
 	}