Marriott Branded Credit Cards Free Night Certificate FNA Discussion Thread
 

Been waiting to use my 2 Chase free nights at Le Meridien Stuttgart. Just tried. Logged into my marriott number, went to book reservation using points (25K/night required), and it said I didn't have enough points to book it and to call in to purchase new points. In the past with Marriott, it would simply say "points advance" and then (I think) on next screen say "do you want to use your chase free night awards" (or something to that effect).

I don't want to call in until chaos subsides. So my questions?

1) Can I use my chase marriott visa free nights on starwood properties now? If so, how?
2) What happened to points advance of award reservations? Does it only apply to Marriott properties or has it gone away altogether.

I did try (as an experiment) booking a single night (where I have enough points in my marriott account to cover) and when I clicked that I wanted to book on points, it went to the legacy SPG site to continue the booking. The entire "marriott" look & feel disappeared and the purple SPG user interface was reincarnated. Looks like more integration is needed.

Regardless, I'm sure I was led to believe that after Aug 18, I could use chase marriott free nights are SPG properties. Am I wrong? What gives?

I also believe I would be able to use my SPG Suite night awards on Marriott properties, but the suite night awards are only visible on my SPG account and of course there is no access from that account to my marriott reservations.

SPG Program never had Points Advance - ie phantom booking a room without the points to back it up. There was some cases if you are Platinum or if you have an ambassador and you're points are in striking distance of the redemption needs, the rep would hold the room for you.

A Marriott Flyertalker replied to one of my posts (and I also read in posts on other threads) that legacy SPG properties do not participate on the former Marriott program of Points Advance. Make sense as there maybe contractual problems between franchisee hotel and Marriott (because original contract was signed with Starwood that doesn't have Points Advance)

Per PointsGuy, Marriott has stated that points advance will expand to legacy SPG post merger. https://thepointsguy.com/news/marriott-points-advance/ I think the issue is that parts of the IT became integrated over the weekend and parts still are separate.... I just wish they would clearly state -- you can do these things now and here are the timelines for other features.

I'm trying to use my Marriott free night certificate to book a SPG hotel. The website does not support this kind of booking yet - just like you said, it would redirect you back to SPG site where you can only book with points, not certificates.

Though, when you are on the Marriott booking site, before you click on any individual hotel, it does say the following below all SPG properties: "To use free night certificates at this hotel, please call Member Support at +1-888-625-4988 in the US, or our worldwide contact numbers."

Hence I'm calling them right now...

Update:

They checked with support and came back saying this functionality (to use Marriott certificate on SPG hotel) is not yet available. No ETA. This is very sad.

My plan/workaround is to use points to book the SPG hotel anyway right now just to secure the availability, and whenever this functionality becomes available, then call them to switch out the points with certificate (so that I get the points back). But if this functionality is not made available before my stay, then I'm screwed.

Does anyone know whether they ever plan on actually integrating the booking systems and implementing the certificate feature for Starwood properties, or are they "satisfied" with the current workaround of redirecting SPG booking to old SPG site that this will last for months or years without change?

As a follow up question to this question (as I had the same question) but when I signed up for the Chase Marriott Rewards Business Visa (https://creditcards.chase.com/small-...emier-business) It said (and still says on the link) that it comes with Category 5 (up to 35,000 points hotels). But when I log into my Marriott account, it says it's only up to 25,000 points. What gives? Why is it only showing up to 25,000 points when the terms and conditions when I signed up show 35,000 points?

Marriott free night certificates at SPG hotels post-merger
 

Has anyone successfully redeemed a Marriott free night certificate at SPG hotels since the merger?

When searching for rooms, the website has a message to book by phone when using free night certs at SPG hotels. I called the SPG hotline as indicated (twice), but the agents were unable to use the cert. Is this a systems issue or is it just that the agent doesn't know what to do? I'm not sure if calling back and trying again will work. If the former, I'm hoping that this problem doesn't last too long as my stay is coming up.

The agent referred me to status.marriott.com, but the website says systems are online and doesn't give any indication that the free certs can't be redeemed. Not helpful at all.

I had the exact same problem, and I shared my experience in another thread.

Their rewards programs are combined, but the booking systems are still separate. When you try to book a SPG property, you are redirected to the old SPG site, which only offers the option of points, not certificates.

When I called them (called many departments actually, none was able to help), they said this functionality is not yet available. Worst part is, no ETA. They cannot even say whether they are working on it or plan to work on it. As far as I know, they could be satisfied with their current workaround of redirecting to SPG site for SPG bookings and won't actually integrate the two booking systems for months or years.

I offered them the idea of booking the hotel using points, and then have them convert the certificate into the same number of points, thus crediting the points back to me and effectively using the certificate. They declined saying converting certificate into points is not possible, which is clearly not true since people have shared experience where they did manage to convert certificates into points in exceptional cases.

I'm going to give them a few more days. If this functionality is still not available, I'll be more forceful in my demands for implementing my method since they openly communicated before that Marriott certificates will be available for SPG properties going forward and they are reneging on their promise.

I can't even book SPg properties using points. My accounts are now merged under my new Marriott number. When I go to book a SPG property using points, it says I have enough points, but when it goes to my name, address, etc, it says my SPG number is wrong and I should change it. The number can't be changed and is my new Marriott number. I'll wait a couple of days and see if this works itself out and then I'll start calling.

Are the Chase certificates subject to that Aug 18 - Sept 18 blackout, too?

I was holding a reservation with a Chase 1-5 for a while. Then I saw that a better hotel was dropping to a 5 so I wanted to switch to that. I cancelled the original reservation, then called Marriott to switch the res, and she said first of all it hasn't been released yet from the other reservation, call in a couple of days (which is today). The Marriott person today first said something like "we can't do certificates", then transferred me someplace where I was on hold so long I hung up.

Not sure what to do now - I just want to have a reservation with my certificate so I'm sure I have it, and the "free" rooms don't run out or something.

After Aug 18th, the chase certificate became a points certificate vaild up to 25k, so most hotels in the Cat 5 are more than that so now you can probably only use it for a Cat 1-4 hotel I believe. Your situation may be different since it was an attached certificate and mine was a "floater" however I can only book Cat 1-4 now since Aug 18th and the new hotel rankings are in effect.

The new hotel I wanted dropped to 25, it was 30 before, and I didn't like the hotel I had booked, so I wanted to switch to the one I did want since it was now an acceptable level. It's not until October so I'll wait until closer to the date to see if everything is ok. Torture trying to call Marriott right now.

Free night point level changed...
 

Not gonna lie I haven't paid much attention to the merger and details, but I have a Marriott card and a free night certificate. We have a possible trip planned to NYC and I wanted to use my free night there around times square. I see there is a cat 5 hotel available at 35,000pts and now my free certificate says only up to 25,000 points. I'm not sure what happened or if with the merger all the categories changed or not but if it was issued as a CAT 1-5 certificate, can I ask them to honor that? Any feedback is appreciated and sorry for not knowing more about the merger details /possible certificate changes.

Best way to think of it is that the new categories have nothing to do with the old categories. What is now a Cat "5" could easily be considered a cat "E." Bottom line is that the old cert was good up to 25k points.