One additional thought: while the change to room only redemption took place around the time of the Marriott migration, I wonder whether the "real" motive was the announcement that the new category 8 pricing would not go into effect until March 2019, rather than January 2019 as most people assumed would happen (and maybe properties were led to believe)? So in effect there is an another 90 day window for these wildly generous redemptions and property management said "enough".

This does not justify retroactive changes to existing reservations, and we'll have to wait and see how that issue as handled as we get more reports from actual stays. But I have to say, as frustrating as the merger has been from a guest perspective, I'm beginning to think that it may be equally frustrating to individual properties, especially the high-profile, deluxe resorts like Al Maha. If internal communications were as poor, inconsistent, and unreliable as the customer-facing ones...