@Happy...thanks for your helpful post! The reservation was NOT booked as a points advance by me at the time of booking. I had plenty of points on the day I booked! In addition to this booking, I made several others on the same day (some also for 180k points) and evidently they removed points for all but not this one....which I did not notice because I made a ton of reservations when the new categories were announced. AGAIN....I had plenty of points to cover ALL the reservations so not sure why Marriott ended up handling this as a points advance reservation and didn’t do it for any of the others.

if this had been a reservation I purposely made as a points advance I would have understood what happened. I don’t need to explain myself but I have NEVER made a points advance reservation in all the years I’ve been a member because I have more points than I know what to do with right now....so no need to book one.