Thanks for clarification. I recall dealing with smth like this a couple years back and it got resolved and i have another reservation i was going to support by so's cert. Time to call to change name on reservation...

i booked a Marriott hotel with my TP certificate (prior to Aug 18). And then, today, I called up wanting to change the dates of stay

the agent can create a reservation at the same hotel for me (with the new desired stay dates), but was not able to re-attach the TP certificate to the hotel. he retried by canceling and recreating new reservation, but encounter the same issue of not being able to attach the TP certificate to reservation. he claimed that this issue has existed since Aug 18 for everyone, with no ETA for fixing.

is that true?

i really want to stay at this hotel, but only want to stay if i can use my TP certificate. not willing to do so if it is using my Marriott Rewards points

I see. And is Marriott supervisor the only person who can do the OC->NC conversion?

Edit: Thank you for your tip - i got it done. Just called the Marriott Platinum Elite line, and the regular CSR took care of the OC->NC conversion for me!

Judged by the timestamp of your post and your editing, 30 minutes sound like a pleasantly quick call with Marriott ;)

Marriott and Starwood began their back end integration. You can currently book points advance reservations and travel packages for select Four Points hotels now. I have only found 2 examples. Four Points LAX and Four Points Toronto. Clicking to the booking screen takes you to the blue Marriott check out screen instead of the purple SPG check out screen.

The tentative integration schedule looks like this:

FIRST ROUND – SEPTEMBER 18

• Some Four Points by Sheraton

SECOND ROUND – EARLY OCTOBER

• Remaining Four Points by Sheraton properties
• Tribute Portfolio properties

THIRD ROUND – END OF OCTOBER

• Sheraton Properties

FOURTH ROUND – END OF NOVEMBER

• Westin Properties
• Le Meriden Properties
• W Hotels

FIFTH ROUND – DECEMBER 11

• Luxury Collections Properties
• St. Regis Properties
• Aloft Properties
• Element Properties

Marriott has not confirmed this information with me, it came from elsewhere. They have not denied the information either. They knew this was posting today. The last time I had false information, due to their mistake, they were very quick to tell me.

Full details: https://samchui.com/2018/09/22/spg-i...kage-timeline/

Full Disclosure: I am a writer for SamChui.com

Well, after merging my SPG and Marriott accounts I have now just confirmed with an agent that my 7 night package 1-5 that was attached to a reservation has just disappeared.

What makes it worse is that I had 2 packages both 1-5, one was and still is unused and sitting in my account, so they keep thinking that it is the one I lost.

This will be fun...

Edit:After hanging up and trying again 2 times and about an hour wasted I was able to talk to someone useful who stayed on the line and got a supervisor of some sort to figure it out. The package is there still and attached, but the lower level agent couldn't see it. I got the certificate number now in full incase I need it again. She also converted my old 1-5 into a 1-4. This took another 1H 30M.

2 Hours and 30 minutes to fix a stupid issue that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Of all the changes to travel packages, not telling customers what the conversion rates would be and not allowing upgrades is the most foolish. Not allowing refunds, as stated in the current Terms and Conditions but not enforced, and not allowing extensions makes the certificates worth less to customers and reduces the liability of MPG. Not allowing a customer to pay more for what he or she believes is a better product is almost senseless because it annoys customers but provides no real benefit to the company. Although I may not like the choices some companies make, I understand taking actions that hurt customers and benefit the merchant, but I am generally surprised when a company does something that alienates its more loyal customers for no significant benefit.

Although I am happy with the certificates I hold, many others are not. My guess is that a large percentage of those who don't get the award they want will still make 7-night reservations, even if they plan to stay less than that amount. Since the room is taken out of inventory and can't be rented, nobody benefits. If a customer was able to upgrade to a category of hotel that he or she would like to spend 7 nights in, I don't see why that would be a worse option for MPG. Although I believe not allowing category changes with or without extending their expiration is a bad policy, I am not commenting on whether or not certain actions are legally permissible.

It's just a guess, but I believe at some time in the future, category changes will be allowed again.

the old cert was cat 1-5 and new cert equivalent is cat 1-4.
the hotel was cat 5 before Aug 18 and now cat 4.

so all worked out well :)

To be honest I am quite done with Marriott after this. This whole thing has been a mess. I feel better communications would have helped. My friend is not on FT and he is sick of calling up Marriott trying to find out where his 300k is which was sent across from Amex on the 27th of July. Amex are saying it was sent to Marriott who in turn are saying give us a few more days as the systems are still settling.

My Amex points are still pending from the last 2 months.

Why can't Marriott just email their members instead of us finding out stuff from bloggers.

Well you are lucky to get your accounts merged, I continue to get an error, and of course, I have sent an email... I just hate to lose over a million points.

Travel Package Upgrade Old Category 6 to New Category 6 90,000 point charge
 

I called today to try-again on upgrading my travel package. I was able to successfully upgrade my old category 6 certificate to a new category 6 certificate and attach it to a reservation today. The process was pretty seamless and took only five minutes after getting a representative on the phone. I was told that all travel packages will be allowed to be upgraded one time. Good luck.

My post was based directly from the information posted by Marriott on Flyertalk: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...es-update.html as well as my own personal experience doing just what this describes. I downgraded 4 'old' Category 6 accommodation certificates from travel packages redeemed before 8/18/18. I now have 4 'new' Category 5 accommodation certificates in my MR account and 60k MRPs have also been deposited. (Note - my travel packages were 5 night, hence the 15k MRP refund. If they had been 7 night the refund would have been the full 30k MRPs per package announced by Marriott).

Speaking only for myself, I received exactly what Marriott announced (but only after exhaustive effort involving multiple hours and several phone calls). YMMV.

When I downgraded my pre-8/18/18 packages, I was given a new expiration date of 12/31/19 (amounting to about an extra 6 months from the previous expiration date of the original package - July of 2019).