Originally Posted by
Willbur
Just book a hotel with the certificate and then cancel the stay - it will return as points rather than a 7-night certificate. That's probably easier than finding an agent that will easily do the cert to points conversion. You'll receive back 45,000 points for the Cat 1-5 7-Night Certificate and you'll receive back any additional points spent to upgrade. For example, I had a Cat 9 cert that I cancelled and I was returned 165,000 points (the 120,000 I spent to upgrade plus the 45,000 for the original 1-5 cert).
My experience is that this only work if you cert is listed as "45,000" points instead of the standard "270,000" points. As others had commented already if you cancel a booking that use the cert, it will go back to the list of unused certs, just like the credit card free night. But for certs that got converted somehow as 45,0000 points (either via cert extension or upgrade/downgrade cat) those one will not return as a unused cert, it will just put 45,000 points in your account.