Happy

IT IS THE IDENTICAL SCREEN I HAD SEEN as explained several times in multiple threads. It gave you an impression the cert was attached, while it DID NOT. If your account has enough points to cover the booking, the site takes the points. If you dont, it either errored out or made unauthorized point purchase as so many have now found out.

I did not keep the screen shot as it was irrelevant for me because I Xed the booking after realizing the site still took points even though I thought it correctly displayed a cert was attached, and continued with the booking. Points returned to the account promptly. So the screen shot served me no purpose other than telling me IT CANNOT BE TRUSTED. I NEED TO SOMEHOW ACTIVATE THE CERT BUBBLE TO BECOME CLICKABLE! In other words, a Manual intervention is needed to actually ATTACH THE CERT.

When I discovered 35K pts were taken versus using the cert, REGARDLESS what the screen shot showed, I realized that the Grayed Out option was NOT right because points still being taken. On rebooking, I used the previous workaround method when people changing between Cert and Points or Advance Point option, by changing the payment method thru the bubbles. Once I clicked the Point bubble the screen showed 35K pts cost, BUT more importantly, and that was what I wanted - the Grayed out bubble no longer grayed out - it became a clickable bubble! I then clicked the cert bubble and the payment method switched to Cert. When I clicked OPEN the DETAILS of the Point Summary, it showed 35000 with a CROSS over it, then the 2nd line item was Zero, and the Total was Zero. Seeing this, I proceeded to finish the booking - this time the cert was correctly attached, no points deducted from my account.

This discovery was well over a month ago, and I even posted the work around in some Cert booking issues thread(s) when people said their certs were not attached or something errored out.

Since that discovery Every Single Cert Booking I went thru the work around to make sure I CAN CLICK THE CERT BUTTON to ensure the cert is attached. I just wanted to make the booking and had NO interest to contact Marriott on the issues of their funky site nor deal with their incompetent CSRs. Since the workaround work, I stick with it. The day I found this thread, I had made 3 Cert Bookings just the day before from an account had only 8K pts. Of course since I use the workaround to book, all my cert bookings went thru correctly, no drama except the last one took forever and still not showed confirmation. I thought it was errored out with the ever turning circle so I clicked the BonVoy logo - that actually brought up the confirmation message, or it just finally showed up. Cert was correctly attached. No authorization on the AMEX card, and of course no points posted either - the account remains at the previous 8K balance.