Taste program is a different scenario; it doesn't require gifting of points & paperwork being faxed.

If there are thousands of Marriott elites that have thousands of friends willing to gift them thousands of points (unlikely), then there might be a problem. I just don't see that happening in the multitudes quite frankly. The occasional one to top up; that already happens & is ok w/ Marriott. But I really don't see too many people having multiple friends willing to gift points & going through multiple dummy bookings to get all the points, so yes I consider this something that isn't likely to happen enough to cause Marriott to notice. I don't think it's something I'd ever do (unless hhoope01's willing to gift me some points ), but good to know there's a work-around if needed.

Cheers.