Originally Posted by SightseeMC

1. Call the number on the TP page, or one of the various worldwide recommended numbers for Marriott Rewards (those can be found buried in this thread or online).
2. Given today's announcement, there is little risk to buying a TP and not attaching the certificate if you don't know where/when you are planning to use it.

The only downside risk I am taking seriously is certificates being converted to "new Cat 1-4 certificates plus 30K points/Cat above old Cat 5"; the downside being you couldn't book some higher end property that you would want given the new price structure. This isn't much of a downside: you're getting a refund of points which provides flexibility in exchange for maybe missing out on your preferred hotel. There is also the possibility that Marriott will try to map old categories to new categories and "downgrade" certificates in the middle (e.g. certs currently worth 40K/nt being worth 35K/nt in the new program), but I now very much doubt that will happen. Locking certs for a month and then devaluing them would go over badly, even though the lock is coming after the programs combine anyway.

So what's the upside? Well, now the remaining upside options are: old category = new category (a great win for probably everyone below Ritz 1-5 holders), or mapping old certs to new cats and "upgrading" certs in the middle (so those 40K/nt certs would be worth 50k/nt). Not sure which would be more likely.