Originally Posted by
SacTownGuy
The person at the plat line walked me through this one time. You basically go through the whole reservation like you are going to use points but at the end you can apply certs. However, she even admitted the system doesn't work perfectly.
You make this sound much harder than it is. It is not difficult at all.
Things to remember:
1). If you intend to make a reward booking and a hotel is at a Category level (1-4) as in the above example, and if there is a Certificate that covers that level in your account, the default choice of the online system is to use the certificate in lieu of points -- no special choice is needed.
2). If you intend to make an award booking for a low Category hotel and you have a multi-category Certificate (as is the subject above) in your account, it will pull that Cert automatically. So, if you intend to "save" that Cert for a higher Category, you will have to designate by clicking on the button near the end of the reservation process that you want points to be used for the award reservation. Otherwise you Category 1-4 Cert could be used for a Cat 1 property, instead of the Cat 4 that you are intending to use at a later time.
3). A Cert will be pulled automatically for a Category level it can cover, even though it expires before the reservation date. This is a problem with the Marriott system, and when the check-in day comes, your now expired Cert will be rejected by the system and a new cert derived from your points will be deducted from your account. Consider the computer system dumb when it comes to taking Certs from your account -- you must see whether or not they still will be good as of the date of the anticpated check-in.
4). I believe that if you have different level Multi Category certs (1-4 via a Megabonus promo and 1-5 via annual credit card renewal) and both are in your account, and you wish to use it at a Cat 4 or lower, and if the Cat 1-5 cert has an earlier expiration date, the system will preferentially extract that cert from that account -- even though you wanted to "save" that cert for a Cat 5 property.
The way to avoid the above, is make a dummy booking with the Cat 5 cert, then make the Cat 1-4 booking where they system will preferentially extract that cert from your account, and once the latter is made, you can cancel the dummy booking of the Cat 5 property, and it will be returned to your account as you see fit.
HTH
NJ