Originally Posted by
jonu
Looking at award availability for various NYC properties over a spring weekend, I'd say that Starwood and Hilton have much more honest understandings of "no blackout dates" than Marriott does. For Starwood and Hilton, if there is an available room for cash, there is also one for points. Not so for Marriott.
As long as you did your search on a property by property basis, then your results and complaint are valid.
However, if you did a city-wide search for award availability on marriott.com there is a known issue of award availability not showing up when in fact there is actually availability. This has been a known bug since the October 2007 IT downgrade. For some reason Marriott IT just can't seem to comprehend much less correct this problem.