I hope the Lurkers chime in here to clarify. Can they really just throw everyone out the window who has a reservation after October? Starwood books further ahead than anyone (18 months), and many, many people have used their points to book reservations for the future. They can't be saying that any award booking you have now just doesn't exist.
I made MY reservation two days ago - two days! I had to transfer some points over from my husband's account - the transfer is not even complete yet (and won't be for several days). How can they not have known this would be happening?