I'm not sure if the above statement is correct. When we say TP certificate, we refer to the Travel Package (miles and hotel certificate). You'll need to fully pay the points to get the TPs. I think you may refer to upgrading the TP hotel certificates, not the TP itself....

It depends on what agent you talked to. Once I spoke with a Marriott Elite service rep. She said she would give my 5,000 MR points to get my 7-night NC6 cancelled. I said no. It carries point value of 300,000 MRs and original value of 165,000 MRs.….

Right, don't think one can "points advance" the travel pacakge (Air+Hotels). Otherwise, the 8/18 cut off last year would be even crazier.

Your booking has a OC9 attached to a NC6 property, so the package value is 165,000 points. Also each daily rate requires 121,000 points per day!! You'll need to deliver additional 847,000 Marriott points about 14 days prior to your stay. Get your points ready please. :p

Your has the OC7 attached to a NC6 property....

Susan, your booking says very clearly that you need the upgrade certificates and it seems you can't produce the 121,000 points per day. I do not think you get any hope. Can't book something like St. Regis Bora Bora with OC9 certificate alone. Wish all of us best luck though.

Room Total Summary

165,000
Points

• Redemption with Points Upgrade
• 1 room(s) for 7 nights
• Wednesday, XXXXXX, 2019
  • 121000 points + Free Night
• Thursday, XXXXX, 2019
  • 171,000 points

The simple but unfortunate truth with Marriott these days is that you can't rely on anything its agent conveys, or its website displays. Specially when it comes to TPs, make sure you've dotted the i's and crossed the t's, to your own full satisfaction.

Yes, that is right, I am referring to upgrading the hotel cert from a previously purchased package. No one is ordering new TP's at the new rates.

Thank you, Red Sun. I haven't heard of upgrade certificates. How do you purchase those? What's weird is that I needed two rooms (I have six kids), and I booked another of the exact rooms for the same dates on points only for 50,000 points per night. I have no idea why this one is asking for such a crazy number of points. I originally booked it with cash, and it was $400 per night, so not exactly St. Regis Bora Bora rates. I read you needed to do a points advance reservation to attach a certificate, and when I converted it it came up with the 171,000 points per night.

I believe either you or the agent booked you its Presidential Suite or so since you have a large family. So the very high demand for points. It is a mistake. You should just book two rooms for 4 people each.

it is very frustrating not to get authoritative responses (or even helpful ones) from Marriott.

A suggestion: Back when they were separate, Starwood had a "Starwood Lurker" named William Sanders, who was extremely helpful with information and advice. I was never clear whether he was an "official" spokesman or an unofficial one, but his information was the real McCoy so he was obviously coordinating his answers with Starwood.

He "came over" with the merger and is posting on other sites with the handle " Marriott Bonvoy Lurker" and he has posted on FlyerTalk with that handle as recently as yesterday. May I suggest you direct your questions to him and see if he can get this sorted out. He was a wonderful and valuable resource as Starwood Lurker, so he may be here as well.

Just converted a P950 to QP99 this morning. Thanks for the help everyone. Followed the guideline on wiki and guided the process. The agent didn't have experience with it, but asked her supervisor to do it. Got an email confirmation about the cancel and new certificate with new expiration. However, I don't see the points deduction yet.

One thing to keep in mind that, Marriott is a huge hospitality company. It DOES NOT want to get any legal aspects of serving the customer. This is why Marriott will never make any announcement about technical aspects of the reward program, booking and TP etc. It gives some guideline and leave the actual practice to its staff. I think this is a prudent corporate decision.

I have the email confirming QP69 which is 5 night Cat 6.
When I look at the reservation is does not say points advance, but I see that part where 105,000 points looks like points due. But I think 105,000 is the value of the package.
When attaching a free night certificate, the reservation still shows the # of points for the stay, it does not zero out .

11/27/2018
Rewards
Partial Package - 5 Nights Category 6
11/27/2018, Ordered -105,000 Rewards
-105,000 Points

William is the "Messenger" for Marriott long before the final merger took place. Ever since Mar or Apr 2018, he was fielding questions regarding the merger in that capacity. In fact he stressed several times, ANYTHING he posted had to be reviewed and approved, by the "Merger Team".

You can count his posts as official as they can get. The sad part is, even so you still cannot take it as gospel because Marriott would change its mind and rescind the positions previously conveyed to the members, via William the messenger.

SPG also had the SPG Champion one could contact on certain issues regarding stays not posting nights count not correct etc but they cannot help with TP. I doubt this team would even still exist now when SPG site is completely killed.

OT
if you pay close attention, when you book SPG property on Marriott site (the only way really), the URL CHANGES. For that matter, this may PRECLUDE the current 10% portal rebate because it excludes SPG site, and I am sure everyone knows the cash back portals rely on tracking in order to make sure your purchase meets the criteria - so they get paid, and give you some back as the cash back.