Originally Posted by ScrewTheAverage

TLDR
Used former Marriott T&C loophole to book five hotel events (prior to SPG/Marriott system integration) with the intent of receiving 50 elite qualifying nights (10 nights per event). We'd effectively be buying Platinum Elite status for another year. Some of the hotels in question took longer than expected to post our events via the reward 'group posting tool' causing us to miss the August 18, 2018 (Marriott/SPG integration) and posting our events after the updated T&Cs. After it was all said and done, nearly five months elapsed (countless emails, calls, etc.) and we were given 300K Marriott points and Platinum Elite for another year!


Story Time
As some of you may know, before August 18, 2018 (migration date between SPG and Marriott) Marriott used to have a loop hole in their terms and conditions that allowed rewards members the ability to be awarded 10 elite qualifying nights per each event they had at a participating hotel (only certain brands were eligible).


(FYI: After August 18, 2018 Marriott changed their terms to only allow one event to receive 10 elite qualifying nights per year, effectively killing this loophole/hack.)


Back to the story...


To clarify, you did not have to book hotel rooms with your event, and your event could be something as simple as booking a conference room for a few hours at a cheap hotel ($75-$100+ per event). Furthermore, you didn't even have to actually show up for your event! The trick was to setup events (preferably at different hotels) for the number of elite qualifying nights your were going to be short for the status you wanted, confirm that the contract they sent you looked good (included your rewards number, contained the wording 'event is eligible for 10 elite qualifying nights', etc.), pay for it, show up/or not, and within about 2 weeks you'd be awarded 10 elite qualifying nights (again, per event).


We're both location independent (IT and project management consultants) and have been traveling full time since 2016, so because of our unique lifestyle we decided it would be worth buying Marriott Platinum Elite for 2019.


Needless to say, things didn't go quite as planned:

• We setup five events (at different hotels) for late July, 2018, (all in we'd effectively pay ~$500 for Marriott Platinum Elite Status...again, we'd run the math and it was worth it to us).
• Two of the five hotels posted their respective 10 elite qualifying nights within 10 days of our event dates.
• One hotel posted its nights about three weeks after the event and after August 18th, 2018 (when Marriott changed their terms and closed the loophole!) so when Marriott's systems saw the event post after August 18th, as far as they were concerned the event took place after the new terms had gone into effect. In other words, Marriott had assigned the third event as our one and only 10 EQN event for the year and we'd not be receiving credit for the two remaining events!
• The remaining two hotels took months to post our events! One posted in early November, the other in early December!

We're sure everyone can use their imagination at how many emails, phone calls, "we'll call you back" promises we endured but in the end the outcome was this:

• Hotel number four realized they'd screwed up and since Marriott's systems would no longer give us 10 nights for our event (Marriott claimed the 'one event per year' was hard coded) the hotel double posted our event and gave us 100K Marriott points per each event (200K total)!
• Hotel number five also realized they'd screwed up and there was nothing Marriott could/would do so they too gave us 100K Marriott points for our event!
• As a last ditch effort (we had called many times before), nearly five months after this fiasco started, we called Marriott directly (yet again). We explained the situation and how the hotels had dragged their feet causing the terms to change mid-way and now we'd miss Platinum Elite for 2019. Thankfully even after being transferred a few times, our Platinum Elite status was graciously extended for another year!

Has anyone had something similar happen to them?

Happy churning and award travel!