Originally Posted by
freed0m
with so much uncertainty, why not just book now?
if off-peak, book new off peak rate and cancel standard booking.
if you don’t have the points, you are subjected to more uncertainty. The category can change, too.
what Marriott did make gaming the system much harder than before. I guess members got angry without means to game the system...
i don't think anyone is looking to game the system with peak or off peak pricing....also, category increases typically take place once a year in march....random cat changes happen at other times of the year as well but are extremely rare....
with spg we knew when the peak dates will be & therefore we knew when the properties would require more points....there was no guess work....a lot of people had hoped that marriott would be as transparent as spg was when it came to peak & non-peak pricing....unfortunately they have decided not to be transparent at all....
not everyone has a huge points balance all the time....a lot of people collect points for a long period of time to redeem once or twice a year....this non-transparency could lead to a situation for example where a member is in the process of collecting 340k points to redeem 5 nights at a cat 8 property, only to find out a month or so before the stay that marriott is expecting high demand so now 400k points will be required for the same stay....with spg, the member knew whether the property was going to charge peak or standard rates for their stay dates....with marriott there might be no way to know that for sure....