Family member has a Cat 1-5 7 night certificate. They were planning a trip to a Category 8 (40K points) Marriott timeshare for January/February 2019 and were planning to upgrade the certificate and attach once rooms were released. Not surprisingly, the timeshare stopped opening up nights for points bookings when the new categories were announced and the timeshare is moving to 50K points per night (from 40K). However, in the past, the timeshare has regularly released nights for January/February. My guess is that rooms will be released for Jan/Feb fairly close to August 18, just at the new 50K level.

So, with the new information that the certificates will be mapped to the new certificates, we are left with a dilemma. Should we go ahead and upgrade the certificate now to category 8 (40K points) and then hope that the certificate is matched to a new certificate at the 50K level? Any thoughts?

One additional question pertains to how much the timeshares will charge to upgrade from studios to 1 bedrooms and 2 bedrooms. The current “cost” for an upgrade of one level is only $5K per night. I can’t find any information about new point costs for upgrades at timeshares. The planned timeshare property previously routinely made upgraded rooms available using points. Not sure whether they will now or at what cost. What do do . . . . . .?

Thanks for your thoughts.