I have a Free Night Certificate from a Marriott Rewards or Ritz-Carlton Rewards credit card. Can I use it at an SPG hotel (or vice versa) after August?
Members may book a redemption reservation with an existing Free Night Certificate under the current terms up until August 2018, even if the arrival date is after August 2018. Starting in August, any outstanding Certificates will be updated from Category-based to points-based values in the new combined redemption chart and may be used for stays at Rewards or SPG hotels up to the points value displayed on your updated Certificate. For example, you will be able to apply a Marriott Rewards Free Night Certificate to an SPG stay, or an SPG Free Night Award to a Marriott Rewards stay. Ritz-Carlton Rewards Free Night Certificates can also be applied to Marriott Rewards and SPG hotels.
If the same logic is applied to Travel Packages, this could present some quite interesting opportunities to redeem a 7-night certificate for a non-7 night stay. E.g. suppose you have a Cat 1-5 Voucher sitting in your account at 1 August. This would presumably be converted into a 150,000 Point certificate (6 nts x 25,000, taking into account the 5th night free). This could then be used (for example) for a 3 night stay at a new Category 6.
I suspect that this will only be possible for pre-August certificates that are not redeemed by 1 August. I fully expect Travel Packages sold after 1 August to be based on the new Category bands.