First of all welcome to FT!
Originally Posted by mcclurd
When I called to book my room, I was told (and very rudely) that the hotel (Bloomington, Indiana) Courtyard was booked up and that I could not use my points.
Two separate issues here: 1) There is never an excuse for rudeness. 2) If they have no rooms there is no way they can provide you or anybody else a room for $ or an award stay. The only ones getting rooms are those that already have reservations.
Originally Posted by mcclurd
Sounds like the use of reward points are solely at the discretion of Marriott.
In your particular case, "NO", as they have no rooms available for anybody. However in most case, "YES", you are absolutely correct the use of reward points is solely at the discretion of Marriott. Now for more details.
There are two types of awards a Standard Award and a Stay Anytime Award. The ways these work:
Standard Award: These are capacity controlled. For popular hotels or popular times and/or events at not necessarily popular hotels these awards will be difficult to find and must be booked way in advance. Popular hotel examples include Category 7 hotels in Europe (London and Paris predominantly). Popular events would include Kentucky Derby, Fourth of July in many places (especially with views of fireworks), etc. Vail, CO during ski season. In all these cases there are a limited number of standard awards, or in some cases no standard awards (Vail, CO during peak ski season mid-Feb through March). It is, as you surmised, solely at the discretion of Marriott and the particular property.
Standard Hotel Category Chart found here.
Stay Anytime Awards: These awards require a 50% point premium over the Standard award.
Stay Anytime Award Chart found here. The only stipulation for using this award is that the hotel has a standard quality room available for sale, then you can book it using a Stay Anytime award. An added benefit is that Stay Anytime awards generally include breakfast for two.
For Standard Awards you will need to book them well in advance, or stay at a property with a surplus of available rooms.
Unfortunately it does not appear that any of the above cases are applicable to the hotel at which you wish to stay as they are all booked up. Take it as a lesson learned and book well in advance next time. BTW, quite often "well in advance" means up to 11 months in advance for very popular properties or periods/events. If you know that the whole team will be staying at a particular property, you will always want to book your award stay before the hotel finds out because once they book a good percentage of rooms, then standard award availability will probably disappear. This is a whole supply and demand thing.