Advice please!
 

I have 2 reservations at the Gritti Palace for late Sept which were made pre-merger. (Figured this would be the only time I would be able to afford this property!) I made 2 separate one night reservations as standard rooms were not available for the 2nd night.

1st reservation: 35K SPG pts = 105K Marriott pts
2nd reservation: 37.75K SPG pts = 113.25K Marriott pts

The property is now sold out for my dates (and has been for a while as I have been monitoring it).

The redemption levels until the end of the year are now 60K pts/night. I believe I should be able to get a 45K pt refund for the first night, but I'm worried about the fact that the hotel is sold out. What about the second night?

I made one call to the Plat line today but the agent was insistent that because there is no availability, I can't change my reservation. This goes against what William told us in the big wiki a few months ago.



I decided to HUCA, but wanted to see if anyone else has had any experience here.

Lurkers, any ideas on how to go about this? Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck with my Ambassador on previous requests (maybe it's my English), so I'm worried about putting my reservations in her hands.

A lot is going to depend upon what it is you are trying to do. I can't really get a grip on that from what you've posted, but there may still be some issues preventing an award swap for legacy SPG properties. Suffice to say there are also some changes that cannot be made without a new availability check, which is obviously not possible under sold out conditions, but your Ambassador should be aware of what those are and be able to guide you accordingly.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

Must be my English then! I'm trying to get a refund on the points difference without cancelling my reservations!

Then my best suggestion is to reach out to your Ambassador and explore the possibilities. :)

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

And what would non-ambassador folk do? MGs request seems right out of what was stated shou,d be doable by calling in ?

I have a similar issue. I spoke to an agent last week who assured me that the difference in points would be returned by early this week. It hasn't happened. I just got off a 1 1/2 hour call because there seemed to be no documentation in the booking (though I had been assured it was done). I was adamantly told by 2 agents today that I had to stick with the points taken at the time of booking. Ultimately, a supervisor went to the senior person who liases with IT. He was very knowledgeable about the issue. He assured her (and thus me) that I am due the points back. Rather than call again and get unfamiliar agents, I was told to write to [email protected]. Ask when they will be able to cancel/rebook to return points. She said they don't know today and I will likely get boilerplate to my first request. Send again in a couple days and continue to send until they have a solution. I was assured they are actively working on this and that they view it as a significant unresolved issue.

So you've been told to make the request via that email address? Let me know how that works. I put the request through to my ambassador, and I don't want to sabotage her efforts, so I'll give her a few days to see if she gets anywhere. How far out is your reservation? I have a month, which normally would be plenty of time, but given how things are going at Marriott IT, I'd bet that this won't be a priority for them. Also are any of your reservations for non-standard rooms? I'm curious to see how they will handle those. Thx

I have 7 different pre-8/18 SPG reservations and I can't modify any of them...this is beyond frustrating

Supervisor gifted me the 40,000 point difference on one of the reservations so I wouldn't have to risk cancellation. May try again with another tomorrow since I have one other.

Next went over to ultimate rewards to transfer in the difference I needed for a new reservation. Removed my old marriott number from the chase portal and added the new one in. Went to transfer the points and got a weird error that said to call, which I did - evidently you're only allowed one membership number per year per travel partner (stupid?)... the rep agreed this clearly wasn't my fault due to the merger-induced number change and put an escalation in the system - we'll see how long that takes...

fun fun fun!

When you converted to points was there points availability showing?

No - no points availability was showing. However, I don't think there has been any points availability showing for this property ever - neither pre nor post Aug 18th. I think due to the "Limited Participation" you always had to book with an agent, and I suspect that this is still the case.

I had luck booking the Maldives this same way, so just used the same approach...

However, were I to try to book now, I think I'd just phone and ask. Have you tried that, and been told there was no availability on points?

I had a points reservation that I cancelled around the 18 but I do not believe I received the points back. Certainly the statement says I didn't. Who should I contact? My statement still has several missing stays for July/August.