Key for getting through is to call the 1-801-468-4000 number within the first our of them opening and mentioned something along the lines of "award travel certificate" and the robot will repeat certificates and connect you quickly. Each call this morning I had less than 1 minute wait and the person I got each time was very knowledgeable. Certs converted and confirmed with no issues. Calling after hours or weekends is a complete gamble on the knowledge of the person and the evenings is usually a long wait.

That was pretty painless. Converted an old Cat 8 certificate to a New Cat 6 and booked 7 nights in the hotel I wanted :)

Just booked my converted cat 6 cert for 7 night stay. Called to attach cert to points advance reservation and was told the cert already auto attached to the reservation. Just a data point in case this hasn't been brought up before. Unused Cert disappeared from my profile about an hour later.

so i just called the US number and told them i wanted to attach my old 7 night Cat 1 - 5 certificate to an existing Cat 4 Hotel reservation. I actually booked 2 rooms on the reservation and have 2 certificates and wanted to attach both. The rep didn't understand that i needed to convert my certificates but he attached it anyways and said it was done. Now when i log in i see 1 reservation in my room total summary equating to 540K pts and the other still at 150K pts. did he do it correctly ? i am confused - how should my reservation look if they certificates are attached correctly?

Confused...
 

I have a 5 Night Travel Package Category 8 Hotels /650T. If I want to change the dates on it, is that allowed without going through the changing to a new certificate code part? The reason is because the certificate is now only good for category 1-4 but the hotel I booked is now a category 5. I think by reading through the thread, it seems like it's not do-able due to the new category. I just want to see if I read it right.

Also, If I cancel my Travel Package altogether, (I did already get 100,000 point for SWA), How many Marriott Points would I get back? 75,000?

Why so strident a message to me? I'm not a frequent denizen of this forum -- last time I was here was many months ago -- and I had not read this entire thread. And I didn't know the category for my hotel was up-graded or changed. Jeeze, you and others might be experts in this area -- I'm not and I'm not trying to game the system, as your comments tend to suggest.

Why not be helpful and stop bashing novices who dare to ask questions that reflect a novice's unawareness.

Any relevant details that may help others? Did you already have an existing reservation, or just knew the Cat 6 you wanted when you called?

There is no need to read the entire thread but just periodically take a quick look, even reading back 5 to 10 pages would have prevented you from making this mistake .

Marriott category change is announced in advance, and is NOT this thread's focus but always has a dedicated thread in this forum.

Are you telling us that you find it a surprise that Marriott would change hotel categories?

For an eyeopener, Marriott has officially changed hotel category 3 times in the past 14 months, incl the annual changes each March and the changes last August when the final merger was put in place, not to mention there are categories change creeping thru out the year without any announcement.

Unfortunately it is our own responsibilities to keep up with the change. Nobody would ring a bell to tell you something is happening.

To add to that if you have spent 10 min reading the last few pages you would know I and a few others have been the most helpful in this thread.

Here is the post 1490 from margaritagirl who is also a super helper who READS and OBSERVES, and often refer people to read the DPs on the thread.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30828568-post1490.html
She replied to a poster who thanked her for the help.

I would like to add my321 is also very helpful in the sense with his historical knowledge on how the TP certs work, we were able to cobble together a conversion table with the codes reported by posters, now in the Wiki when Marriott has NEVER provided such information. Many posters have been able to use the conversion table to achieve what they want to do with their certs. Without the table, we would be totally in the dark.

The take is, you want others to help you but you dont want to spend time to read and learn, just want others to "help" i.e. spoon feed you.

my321 gave you the steps one can do BEFORE the critical truth that the hotel category has gone up is being revealed. With this new truth, yes, Good Luck to get it resolved with Marriott. Who knows? Miracle does happen every now and then. May be you really get lucky and have the last laugh. Strange things do happen.

I believe Happy's advice comes from a place that meant no malice. But any elites here that has been staying with Marriott should be aware of this merger mess, the ultimate rule of thumb is NEVER modify your reservations once they are applied with e-certs on them, especially so when you have very complicated processes of these travel packages conversions (compounded with inferior IT) and constant CAT changes that has taken place in the past few months.

Sometimes, I feel bad for the reps, even if they are the ones on the plat line, not all Plat reps are legacy Marriott Reps that are very knowledgeable with 5/7 night travel packages conversation, let alone a legacy SPG rep providing you accurate information.
It is clear that Marriott rather blow their budget with marketing over glitzy commercials during the Oscar prime time than spend money to adequately train their employees.

Having said all that, your outcome would have been better when you did your homework or even read some blogger's experience before you adjusted your reservations and made flight arrangements before checking for your reservation confirmation. I ALWAYS ask for an email confirmation in writing, and then verify, before any rep hangs up on me and tell me it's all set. I'd rather spend another 10 minutes to check my reservations than have a mistake that would require me another 3 hours to rectify.

Your best bet now would probably send an email to the executive office and pray they entertain you, or you'll probably be better off booking another property in NYC and use your 5 nights cert elsewhere for later.

If you change the dates after the category upgrade, you need to have a certificate that reflects the current point value. Always detach the certificate before making changes.

It is really hard to get most of this thread since this TP thing is very complicated and the thread has been this long.... Now we are at page #103 . Can keep going for another year until most are used....

Yes, but the certificate will need to be converted to a NC6 before it can be attached. Since certificates normally expire one year after the conversion, most of us plan to wait until our old certificates are near expiration before making standard conversions. Unfortunately, even new certificates need to be added by a CSR.

After mid-August when all of the old certificates have been used or converted, there will be less things to discuss.

Although most questions are addressed in the Wiki, I decided to post a quick explanation of the process.

1. Give the rep the code of your current certificate and the code for the desired new certificate. Those codes are in the Wiki.

2. If it's a straight conversion, like an OC7 with a liquidation value of 105K to a NC5 with a 105K value, there should be no points added or removed from your account.

3. Certificates can't be added online and need to be done by a CSR.

4. Once the certificates are added, the points cost shown in the reservation will equal the liquidation value and not 6 times the nightly rate. A 7-night reservation with a NC5 attaced will show 105K and not 210K.

5. ALWAYS have someone detach certificates before making any changes to a reservation.

6. Non-standard conversions are unlikely, but occasionally possible.

So, I called today to attach my newly converted certificate (from an old Cat 7to a new Cat 5). Rep had problems attaching it, so has opened up a 'case'. Sigh. The reservation is for Nov so I have plenty of time to get it sorted out, and the hotel is not changing categories, so no issues there. But, I was hoping it would be a simple process now that my certificate had been reissued. Seemingly not.

Is it possible that because I wanted 3 ppl in the room, this was/is causing the problem?