TravellingMan

Good work mooper ^ Thanks.

Do not forget the 1-2% cashback you get from credit cards too.

"10% Off (effective ~11.1% deposit bonus) PLUS 1,000 Delta SkyMiles per $1,000 card purchased" - Getting the 1000 delta miles is as painful as a root canal. In my experience, Marriott is good only for straight forward transactions - book me a hotel room and I pay for it; do anything out of the ordinary then you are literally on your own. You get passed on from one department to another in Utah and no one ever takes responsibility to follow up and resolve it.

treefrog

any reason why this isn't a sticky?

stormer

This other thread a couple weeks ago seems to indicate that a Marriott GC could be used a a Ritz-Carlton (from update #14). Has this been definitively settled (or has anyone recently tried)?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...-mi-brand.html

mooper

You're welcome. Indeed you can earn roughly 1-2% back by making purchases via most reward credit cards, but per my main post, I urge anyone who stays at a Marriott more than a couple times per year to get the Chase Marriott Visa Premier card. Aside from the 70K bonus and automatic Silver Elite status + free night each year, it also earns 5 MRPs per dollar spent on anything Marriott. Even if you value your MRPs at 1 cent each, that's like 5% back!

If the mods will make it one, I'd be happy to update and maintain it.

The FAQ I've linked to doesn't mention Ritz specifically, though I think (not sure) it used to exclude it explicitly. Judging by Marriott Concierge's posts, it seems that a change in terms is under way, but hasn't yet been officially confirmed. I suggest waiting for official word before assuming it will work, but of course you could opt to risk it.

Counsellor

Great compliation, mooper. Thanks!

However, I'm not sure that the below is correct:

Although payment with Gift Cards did used to be listed as VISA purchases, in my experience that is no longer true. My recent Gift Card payments were listed as "Givex" same as payments using TravelCards and VacationCards.

I don't know whether paying entirely with a Gift Card would count for the current MegaBonus, though, since I use one of the "workarounds" by paying a portion of the bill with a real VISA card. Those have all qualified.

mooper

Counsellor - You might be right. My latest cards seem to have abandoned the format where you could add a "4" to the front of the card # and it would become a valid Visa, which is why I believe the system always treated them as Visa payments... they really were. Not sure what the newest format entails. If you or someone else is willing to dig a bit to provide something more definitive showing that it no longer counts as a Visa if it is the sole form of payment (word from Marriott, ideally, or several supportive data points without countering ones), I'll update the post. I do what I can to keep on top of changes, but crowd-sourcing some help would make the thread even better. Thanks!

UAL123

Thanks mooper for this thread! I am thinking about using a gift card at a Courtyard in a few weeks. Has anyone had problems using a gift card with a look no further rate? Also, would I be correct to assume incidentals and taxes can also be paid with a gift card?

Edit: Called the hotel and they indicated there would be no problem with the LNF rate. Incidentals and taxes can also be paid with the gift card.

FromPVG

Last year, I purchased the $2500 gift card on the same promotion through Shop At Home because they had a 6% cash rebate vs. 4% on BigCrumbs, but I never received the cash back. I sent in inquiry and it took a long time for them to get back to me, asking for proof of purchase, I then sent in the receipt of the gift card purchase from marriott.com. After another long wait, they came back saying Marriott did not acknowledge the purchase, hence no cash back. I tried to dispute, but never heard from them again. I have had problems with ShopAtHome from other merchants' purchases as well. In the end, I stopped wasting my time on them. Other members have reported similar issues with ShopAtHome as well.

mooper, you might want to add that info in your post so that everyone is aware. Great job, by the way.

UAL123

Another website you could use is Fatwallet.com. They only give 2.5% cashback on gift cards, but I received the cashback within a few hours of ordering the card.

mooper

In my experience, Gift Cards are as "good as cash" at checkout (albeit can present some delays/hassles at times in actually processing) for any Marriott expense - regardless of rate, type of good or service, etc. YMMV.

Every cash back site presents some risk, and users of every site will report success and failure to varying degrees. Sometimes the cash back site fails, but other times is can be caused by issues having nothing to do with them. For example, the consumer can easily make errors made during the transaction process. They might allow a cookie to change or expire or be blocked. Other times, their transaction might not qualify according to the T&Cs of the promotion or transaction involved, but the buyer doesn't realize it. The affiliate program powering the Marriott transaction and the payment to the cash back provider can also have issues. You should *always* save the T&Cs of any involved promotions, then carefully document the cash back site tracking cookie ID, the actual purchase from Marriott, and other related info. Doing so will vastly increase your odds of eventually receiving credit, even if you're forced to appeal.

Once I began documenting my transaction info and terms, I've had great success with Big Crumbs and Shop At Home, and as they have the highest current payouts, I've listed them. I'm aware that many people report the opposite experience, but again, this happens with every cash back provider for a variety of reasons, so I can't simply list options that are "perfect" nor accurately determine success rates. There are a slew of other cash back providers offering rebates in the 1% to 2.5% range (NOTE: manty exclude Gift Cards), so if you believe that they will be more reliable than another option, you may feel it is worthwhile to try them.

I'm going to add a short note in my original post summarizing some of the this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

FromPVG

Thanks for your feedback and advice. But in last year's transaction, I did save my receipt and T&C in pdf file, and sent them back to ShopAtHome. But when their response was simply 'Marriott did not recognize your transaction', I don't know what else you could do.

I agree the cookies play a big role for those sites to recognize the purchase, that is why I always close all browsers and clear all cookies before making such purchases. And I agree it could be hit and miss sometimes. Based on my experience, FatWallt is the most reliable ones, BigCrumbs is good. I have had most problems with ShopAtHome. It could be just my single data point.

mooper

In your case, it could have been the affiliate program having an intermittent problem, which if so, would have resulted in a lack of reporting to any cash back site, including FW. Bottom line is that experiences will vary, and it is impossible for me to say that my success with one site will guarantee the same success for others, just as your success with another site can't guarantee the same. There's risk involved (of the cash back not reporting - nothing beyond that), and as it has been discussed at length in various threads, I'm just trying to consolidate here, present a few options, and leave it for people to decide for themselves.

nacho

I just bought $3000 Gift cards and I didn't realise the max 25K pts per account

So I got absolutely nothing for the last $500 - cash back hasn't shown up either.

Mooper it might be a good idea to warn the others - of course I should have read the T&C.

stormer

On a related note, the Ritz-Carlton site is advertising the same gift card offer (10 points/$, $2,500/25,000 pts max) for RC gift cards for RC Rewards accounts. Assuming plugging an MR account number works for the bonus, this might be worth it if either you stay at RC properties or the thread socrates posted is correct that the gift cards can be used at any brand.

https://ritzcarltongiftcards.com/consumer/main/home.py

mooper

I believe I've already included links to the T&Cs, a summary of terms, and warnings about the issue you raise in the original post. Anything specific you suggest I add? Note that cash back typically takes anywhere from days to weeks to show up, but you should follow up with your documentation if the recommended period has passed.

Interesting, and thanks for the contribution! I'm busy today, can't dig on this, but I'll probably add a preliminary link to this offer in the master list. If you or someone else could confirm more details, I'd appreciate it. Will it work w/ cash back, will the Marriott # work as you assumed, etc,?


Counsellor - Any further information on the topic mentioned in my post #21, above? Your help is greatly appreciated, as is anyone else who can help verify that matter.