Fun update! /s
Looks like it finally went through, I was charged the correct 40K points, and got an email confirmation showing the reservation.
But now I can't see any reservations in my Marriott account (including un-related ones), I just get an error. The iphone app shows the reservations cached but refuses to update showing the same error one gets when one is not connected to the internet.
I was told to wait 48 hours, so will see if it all fixes itself tomorrow...
They really should just give people 40K bonus points vs. a certificate that requires over an hour of conversation time with agents.