Background: I'm a long time Flyertalk reader, infrequent poster, and also a long time Marriott stockholder. For the past eight years, I've had plenty of travel with my job, averaging over 25-30 weeks per year of at least a few days a week away from home. In that time, I've accumulated over a million Marriott rewards points, and have used only a small fraction of them, mostly for 1-2 night stays for myself or family. (Although Marriott has been my first choice, I've also accumulated a lesser bunch of points with Hilton and Starwood due to hotel choices acceptable to my employer.)

In truth, part of the reason I've not used many points is that with so much travel for so long a period of time, I really didn't want to spend more time away. My plan (or lack of one) was to eventually utilize the points after retirement.

With the very unwelcome program changes , I've decided to cash in a bunch of Marriott points and use them now before they are further devalued. I've ordered 1 Europe Hopper, 2 Hawaii Hoppers, and 1 category 7/120k mile package. Total points used = 720,000.

Are there others out there in similar situations (either in terms of accumulating and not using or in terms of cashing in big-time before the change)?

[I addition to nights in the hotel rooms, I also have a Marriott Rewards Premier VISA, Starwood Amex, and Hilton Amex. Given the seemingly never ending devaluations of all the programs, I am starting to re-think this ...maybe one is just better off using a PenFed VISA and getting cash back to use wherever and whenever you want?]