I'm planning a trip to Dubai in January 2020. I made a reservation a couple of weeks ago at the Ritz Dubai for 60K points. The reservation is for early January 2020. I was reviewing the reservation details this afternoon and noticed that the cancellation policy states: "You may cancel your reservation for no charge until February 7, 2019." See screenshot below.
February 7th is 11 months before my arrival and I've already passed the cancellation date. I've probably made more than 100 reservations with points over the years, and this is the first time I've ever seen a cancellation policy like this. I'm usually able to cancel up to a couple of days before (or at most a couple of weeks). Has anyone else experienced this or noticed a change in the policy?
Other data points -- I tried booking the W Palm in Dubai for early January 2020 with points, and I received the same cancellation policy of 1 day after booking. I also tried booking a random hotel in NYC in October with points, and it gave me the option to cancel up until the day before. So this must be impacting only select hotels.
This is super frustrating as it dramatically reduces my flexibility with these points. I'm also going to have to argue with Marriott to get the points back for my Ritz reservation if I need to change the date since I didn't notice the cancellation policy when I made the booking.
