If my certificate were valid that long I would have kept it to use during New Years 2019 myself. It expired in September 2019 and your certificate expiry date must be after the date of your stay. It's not as though I burned this thing for 165k points without thinking about it. I've already planned all my travel through until the end of 2019 and it just ended up that 165k points would actually lower my total spend more than the certificate would, and would put me in a much nicer hotel than the certificate would.

I guess you could ask why I converted it so early rather than waiting. It's an upgraded OC8 and it was getting harder and harder to find reps to do it, so I went for it thinking I would use it for a stay in February.

I have an old OC8/NC5 and I am in a bit of a dilemma as I do not know whether to upgrade it or take the rebate. If possible could anyone clarify if the following is correct:

1) Upgrading to NC6 from OC8 will cost 60k points
2) If I upgrade the date will be extended
3) If I accept the NC5 from OC8 I will recieve a 30k rebate but no extension.

Many thanks in advance for any help.

NC5 to NC6 should be a difference of 30k if I'm understanding the wiki correctly.

And converting from OC to NC should automatically extend the cert by one year. I think there was only one instance where the cert wasn't extended.

Finally got mine applied to Westin Melbourne, although in a crappy single/twin internal room - really hope to get something more decent allocated by the time I arrive. Website still says eCertificate required but Marriott Corporate have assured me they have attached it correctly and to ignore the message. Still waiting (two months on) for a reply to my other complaints re this saga - pretty dreadful CS and has put me off using Marriott much going forward, despite having used SPG quite a bit in the past.

Hi! Wanted to post a data point since this thread has been so helpful to me! In September, I was able to upgrade my Old Category 6 to a New Category 5 seven night certificate for no extra points, even though I thought I was going to have to pay 30k. You can find my post on that experience on this thread. That upgrade gave me a new certificate with an expiration of September 19. However, I wanted to travel to Kauai for my 5 year wedding anniversary at the end of October. I called Marriott earlier this week to apply my certificate to the Sheraton Kauai for 10/19 - 10/26 and the rep said everything was good and complete. But based on this thread, I could tell that I had a points reservation, but that my certificate was not attached. I just called back tonight and explained the situation and the rep said we can cancel your current certificate and re-order the same certificate, so it will have an expiration of 1 year from today. I was VERY nervous about doing that but he assured me everything would be fine. A few minutes later he came back and said I have a new category 5 certificate with an expiration of 12/22 and I confirmed it in my account! Then I asked him to attach it to my current reservation and he did that within like 1 minute! I checked my reservation and it now says "This reservation has e-certificate(s). Your Reward certificates will be sent to your hotel." Plus the points balance is 105k, instead of the 210k like it was before!

So I think I am all set! Now I will just call the Sheraton in a few months and try to upgrade my room to something better then a garden view :) And hopefully SW starts flying to Hawaii soon so I can use my soon to be earned Companion Pass to get there! Thanks again for all of your help and guidance through this process!

So they charged you 105 points in the end to upgrade to cat new 6?

Any changes to a reservation will normally cause it to reprice, so my best guess is no. Also, modifying your reservation will probably cause your OC9 to be cancelled and refunded. If I was in your situation and I was certain the dates wouldn't work, I would call the hotel and see if a manager could make the adjustment.

Hi, I'm just hoping to get lucky, but I'll probably try and see how much it would cost to upgrade with cash/points. And I don't think your certificate is attached correctly. Mine previously said something about needing/using points before last night, but now the details page has changed.

Technically I was only charged 75,000 points, but I can see in my account that it actually cost 105,000 points. When I was on the phone with the UK trying to upgrade the agent just gave me a bonus 30,000 points to make up the difference. I think I got really lucky!

I just tried searching those dates and see most properties have availability for points (looking for a room with 2 adults). A couple that do not are mostly Cat 5 properties. Which 6 properties were you wanting to stay in that did not have availability?