The agent was very friendly but said that they could not see Starwood availability, and suggested that I call back after August 18. The consensus seems to be that having a 'floating' TP with no associated hotel reservation is risky, so probably tomorrow I will call again.

On a peripherally related topic, can anyone explain (in simple terms) the difference between booking a category 9 and category 8? It seemed to me worth a small risk to go ahead and book the highest one, but I must confess to not really understanding what is going on. Thanks in advance!