I agree with others - don't try to pack in too much into your trip. Two weeks sounds like a lot, but it will go by fast. If you want to see 3 countries, consider Portugal, Spain, and France. They should be warmer than countries in Northern Europe that time of year. And you can't beat the amazing food and wine! I didn't catch how set your dates are, but you might note that Easter is April 8 next year. For some, they might want to avoid, others might not. Worth mentioning, though.

As far as using those Marriott points, I am going to Europe myself for a honeymoon in July. We are staying at the JW Grosvenor House in London, Vienna Marriott and Marriott Grand Flora in Rome. In Paris, there is the Marriott Champs Elysee that I know of. I haven't been but I have heard its a very nice property.

Venice I know has a Marriott but the airport but I don't know much if anything about it. I wouldn't imagine wanting to stay there and 45k Hilton points won't get you very far (probably best off converting those to miles, with HHonors new point structure, thats one night at a decent place).

550k SHOULD take you a long way. Remember booking 4 nights gets you 5 for free.

So say you book a top of the line Category 8 hotel for 40k points/night. 5 nights will run you 160k. You can get almost 17 nights if you ONLY stay at Cat. 8 hotels, which is good length trip. I would considering looking into Ritz Carlton as well if you are planning on having a shorter trip or see what you can find. Good luck

Congrats on the upcoming wedding - trying to plan a honeymoon/wedding trip for next year myself although as we are based in Europe we aren't going there.

I've only stayed in Grosvenor House (which is great with a fabulous lounge) but you should enjoy most of those properties....

I have been led to believe that it is easy to get the GM's email addres for any property as follows

[email protected] is the GM's email address for the hotel referred to as 'hktjw' - each hotel has a code on the marriott site - which can be obtained on the hotel site.... as an example the above hotel 'factsheet' page can be found at marriott.com/hotels/fact-sheet/travel/hktjw-jw-marriott-phuket-resort-and-spa/ - note the property code is the first 5 letters of the last piece of the URL above

I hope you find this makes sense and that it is useful to you.

alternatively If you wish to PM me I will trawl through my old doc's for the welcome letter we received when checking-in to Grosvenor House and see if there is an email address there.

enjoy planning the honeymoon!

there should be a mass honeymoon thread...:D...I just finalized my plans as well, we are SPG Plat and we were in the same boat, we have NEVER requested an upgrade, but in Venice I saw this on the SPG forum http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...-thread-9.html and I HAD to email the hotel directly, so I called the SPG plat. line and asked the rep if they had an email for the GM, she gave me the email for the hotel directly, so I sent this:
Hello,


I am writing on behalf of my soon-to-be-wife. We have recently booked our honeymoon vacation, and we are going to be staying at your beautiful hotel as part of our tour through Italy. We do not usually write to hotels, but we are hoping our time in Venice will be extremely memorable. We have been reading many reviews on the property in Venice, there was a glowing review that stuck out to us on Flyertalk.com and we would like to request if we do get upgraded, we would love to spend our nights in room #453. However, I know it can not be guaranteed. It will still be a trip we won't forget. We are looking forward to staying with you in June.

What's the worst they can say you know? If they say no then i'm still in Venice, oddly enough though we got an email a few hours later that was just a re-send of our confirmation email...so idk what happened :confused:

At a guess the confirmation may be sent whenever there is a change made to your reservation? - I'm not sure, but it sounds plausible - which would sound like good news in your case?

Maybe there SHOULD be a mass honeymoon thread.

For those of you looking at SPG as well as Marriott you may want to look at this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...edemption.html

We looked at the confirmation but it didn't mention anything, I am debating emailing the GM directly, but I don't want to overstep anything

Thanks! ^ Ill give this a shot. Found all the codes you mentioned, hopefully they work. I will probably hold off for a while so as not to email too soon. Maybe about a month or two out.

When I've traveled for special occasions and wanted to increase my chances of an upgrade, I will normally call MR to find out the GM's email. I will email the GM letting them know how excited am I to be visiting their area and especially their hotel. I'll mention my special occasion and note that I understand that upgrades are not guaranteed. But anything they can do to make the occasion more memorable would be greatly appreciated. I've had pretty good luck with this approach.

Note this may not work at all hotels or at all times. If a hotel is full or close to full, they may not have much to upgrade you to. Also, some hotels may have a lot of Plats or others who have their own "speical occasion". (i.e. at some locations you might be one of hundreds of persons coming for their honeymoon.)

Maybe think about the south of France. Start in Paris, then take the high speed train to the south of France. At least three fs Marriott properties in the area, including a property by Monaco/Monte Carlo, a newly flagged property in the resort and celebrity town of Cannes, and a third in Antibes Juan Les Pines. The combo on the Riviera of moutainside villages overlooking beachfront towns on the blue Mediterranean is pretty cool. Adding in the casinos, art, great food, and gorgeous scenery, makes it a special area.

Spain tips
 

You are right that Marriott availability is limited in Spain at the moment (in Barcelona, however, you can use points at the Hotel Arts, a Ritz property, and I have done this in the past). But it will be changing very soon, as Marriott and AC Hotels have launched a joint venture which will add 90+ hotels in Europe to Marriott. This was announced in the fall, with the joint venture officially "launched" in late January. Supposedly, it will happen in the first half of this year. AC is all over Spain, so that would help you.

Thank you, so much, everyone for your advice!

Krischey, The 4 nights + 1 night free would be perfect for us, seeing as we likely will be staying ~ 2 weeks, so that would give us 3 properties at 5 nights each! The only problem is the airfare. For all of our vacations, I have always used a travel package and I guess I was just assuming I would use one for this trip as well... 7 nights at one hotel may not make sense though.

ohmark, the France idea is definitely one I'm going to talk to the future Mrs. SF12345! That sounds like a great idea/honeymoon if we agree to just do 1 country. I know she has been to Paris but that was for work years ago, and she even says she didn't really get to enjoy everything while she was there. She had fun but she wants to do it again. The only wrench that would be thrown in this idea is the 1 country deal. She's all over the place with where she wants to go (unfortunately so am I at the moment) but she says she'll be happy anywhere. On second thought, this would allow me to use 2 travel packages, fly business class, and spend 7 nights at 2 properties which may be nice as opposed to the hopping around.... I think she may have her heart set on Spain though, so I'll find out tonight!

Which is why I thank you so much for your input spainlover! I didn't know anything about this joint venture. If it turns out that soon more properties will be flagged Marriotts that could make a trip to Spain much more pleasing to the wallet! I am going to look into this AC/Marriott venture right now.

k_malm, the Portugal, Span, France idea may be the easiest to sell to the Fiancée. I know she would like to do Spain and France and while we haven't looked into Portugal yet, I know we would both love to go there! For geographical/time purposes this may make a lot of sense (as would the whole Honeymoon in France idea).

Well...I had some help from Starlurker on the SPG forum, but I sent him a PM and then after a series of PMs I drafted two emails and he sent them to the GM's of he two hotels we're staying at in Italy, less than 12 hours went by and we received a confirmed upgrade in Rome, which *wood doesn't do, and the hotel in Venice said they would put us in a room that we requested if not similar too. So all in all I guess emailing the hotel directly isn't a bad thing.

Looking into everything I just noticed British Airways has a stopover in London (which I know Fiancée hasn't been to but wants to) which you can use and continue days later. This may allow us to spend a few days in London on our way elsewhere (France, Spain, Italy, etc) at no additional mileage cost. The downside I see is that BA has exorbitant fees tacked onto award flights!!

macdonaldj2, I will absolutely be emailing the GMs once everything's locked in. I've done this in the past for special occasions with almost 100% success rate on HUGE upgrades! I'm polite and understand if I don't receive an upgrade, but imo it never hurts to ask as I stated in the other Honeymoon thread :D

Edit: I'd kill for a 5 day travel package...

room upgrade for honeymoon
 

Hello,

I will be staying at the Renaissance Arc de Triomphe in Paris & the Riveria Marriott La Porte de Monaco in april for my honeymoon. I have seen posts where people have been able to email the hotel GM's to request upgrades. is this ever successful and if so how do i find out who to contact.

Thanks,

Good question.

In for response :)