bgriff

You may have already considered, but one thing to check -- does the cash room availability still show up if you search signed out in an incognito window? Marriott.com appears to show rooms available under the elite room availability guarantee when you search online if signed in, so there can be cases where a hotel is genuinely sold out and therefore it makes sense that no points rooms are available, but when signed in they'll still show you a cash rate under the availability guarantee. (And if you booked the cash rate, and nobody cancelled or no-showed between now and the date of the stay, presumably they would end up walking someone from the hotel during your stay.)

Keyser

i tried that too....room shows as available on a cash rate....

Kacee

Marriott allows properties to black-out during "high demand" periods, and I suspect that's the excuse here.

That said, I hope the lurkers are able to open space for you.

boolean64

Even without the blackout, what may be going on is that the hotel has put capacity controls in place for those dates. The days of "if you can book a standard room for cash you can book it for points" are gone. So long as the hotel makes one standard room available for points (no matter how many standard rooms are available for cash) then the hotel has met its obligation in the eyes of Marriott. Doubt you'll have much luck changing this. In my opinion one of the biggest "enhancements" from the merger

Keyser

the lurkers came back with an answer that doesn't give me much hope....they say the same room type is not available for cash booking on my stay dates....that doesn't seem to be true....

before the 23rd of december the classic room city view, guest room, 1 king & the classic room city view, guest room, 2 twin/single bed(s) are both available for 30,000 points a night....

from the 22nd - 27th of december both the classic room city view, guest room, 1 king & the classic room city view, guest room, 2 twin/single bed(s) are available for aed 703 per night but not against points....

have attached a screenshot below....

anteater

No blackouts would be a nice TIT / AMB guaranteed benefit. Sadly, we have a less consumer friendly post merger program.

Keyser

that's pretty much what seems to be happening....the exact standard room type is available for cash but not on points....

Flying for Fun

Have you checked availability for each day separately? If any day in your date range is unavailable then there won't be availability for a multi-night award that spans the day(s) where no award space exists.

It looks like you are trying to book a pay 4, stay 5 award. You know Dec 22-23 is available, but if, say Dec 22-25 & Dec 26-27 is available & Dec 25-26 isn't, you are unfortunately out of luck.

Try checking each night separately. If any one or more days isn't available, you have your answer. If all 4 nights from December 23rd are unavailable, the hotel has likely sold out their allotment of standard rooms available for redemption.

James

Keyser

all days between december 23rd - january 1st are unavailable for redemption bookings....doesn't matter whether you check for a single day or all days together....the same room type is available before a particular date to book with points & that exact same room type is only available for cash bookings after that particular date....its just a convenient way for the property to work around the 'no blackout policy'....in reality the standard rooms are available but the property is choosing not to offer them for points bookings....

Flying for Fun

Unfortunately, they are not obligated to. As was said earlier, as long as one was available each day, sans a "blackout" granted for an special event such as a major sporting game, they have met their obligation.

James

Keyser

of course they are not obligated to at all....its just a major policy shift from spg to marriott....its unfortunate but it is what it is....just makes me miss the old spg days even more....

dcstudent

Perhaps it's time to switch the thread to Marriott's Limited No Blackout Policy With Disclaimers since Marriott indeed does allow blackouts, minimum stay requirements, changing descriptions of base rooms to limit award inventory....

Kacee

I think you're referring to Marriott's Bogus No Blackout Policy.

boolean64

All along i think the focus in language on blackouts (even in this thread that i started and believe it got renamed by moderators to "no blackout") has really not done us any favors. Actual blackouts are much much lower impact than the allowance of capacity controls. The real loss of award inventory (for legacy SPG properties) is the hotels' ability to list just one room and be in compliance. having a true no blackout policy would not alleviate much of the frustration we experience. Only going back to "if a standard room is available for cash, then its available for points" would do that. And that's not going to happen. Marriott tried to make that stick when the merger happened, even using that specific language in FAQs and maybe even in T&Cs. But for whatever reason, either Marriott or the legacy Marriott hotel owners decided this position was untenable and it was dropped. I remember reading out loud from the website to the hotel at the very beginning of this thread and several Marriott folks and all of them were clear that this just couldn't be and the website must be wrong...and a few months later, the website was updated to what we have now.

Kacee

Marriott has used the term "no blackouts" to imply they don't allow either blackout dates or capacity controls. Of course, now they don't impose meaningful restrictions on either.

The flip side of this is that many Marriott properties are still pretty good about offering award rooms, which is why we can still sometimes get outsized value (>1 cpp) on award stays. Even at Hyatt, where the rules are much more member friendly, the properties that don't participate in good faith have found ways to game the system (unreasonable minimum stay requirements being the principal means).