Originally Posted by
SkiAdcock
If you don't have $2,600+ to spend on a hotel for a week or you want to use the $2,600 for food/drink/theatre/excursions instead, then it's a good use of points. If you do have the $$, then pay & you can accumulate more points.
Cheers.
That's a groundbreaking, deeply philosophical statement you just made
$400 AI per room night is the bottom end for using 35-40K points. There are resorts during high season where you can get better points/$$. Obviously it would be nice if OP could use 5 nights on points (get one free) and 2 nights on revenue. If the rates quoted are higher because of no seven day min. stay, maybe the hotel will adjust the rate in combination with the voucher.
About the travel packages, I used to take those (and last november was told they weren't available by one Platinum rep only to be told later by another one that they were!), but with the devaluations of FFP all over, it's doubtful I would want to use valuable Marriott points for YQ co-pay awards.
Sometimes Gift checks aren't a bad way to go to cover some of the room and incidentals, as one still gets the Elite night credit and points on those stays. (260,000 points is 2000 USD gift check, but 2000 USD also pays for rooms/services worth 30,000 points, so net cost is about 230,000 points).
Anyway, I never like to stick around 7 days (it's too long) in one place, and those 5 day awards were a really welcome change to the program.