One of Marriott's good points is that they will allow points to be transferred from ANY other account with no charge. The major stipulation though is that only the points needed to order an award will be transferred.

Yes, the T&Cs state this is a benefit for spouses, but Marriott will actually allow any two accounts to be used. I don't know of any other program that generous with transfering points.

I would suspect that given this level of flexibility with transferring points, Marriott has to protect itself AND both of the parties in question. They do that with their fairly long and paper based transfer process.

Personally, I'll take their current paper based process over them not allowing transfers (or even truly limiting it to spouses.)