HIFlya

That is what is a bit underwhelming when comparing the Marriott CC free nights versus the Hyatt. I mean with the Hyatt CC nights you can still find GHs and HRs to stay at in metro areas, and a couple joining the category 4 group in SD with the drop in category. But for Marriotts, I seriously only find FFI and RIs and SS, which generally is fine, but even those are being priced out in the family areas like Anaheim.

margarita girl

I had 2 Amex certs. I used the first one at Sheraton Tribeca in NY with a value of $452 and the second one at the Marriott LGA with a value of $376. YMMV.

HIFlya

That is pretty impressive for 35K. Good for you!
And in retrospect, I was actually bemoaning now how pretty much the any good 1-4 category places are going extinct, which I realize is a bad comparison since the 1-4 is not based on the CC, but from the TP. So never mind.

margarita girl

Yup. Amex certs are 35K (cat 5) which opens up a lot more options! Easy to recover US$95 (C$120) annual fee.

Happy

It is and it is not - only when one happens to be able to use it at high price markets or airport hotels that one must need that you get that kind of outsize values as cited. By and large, you more or less get a $150 to $200ish hotels in North America for the 35K cert. You still come out ahead of course but the bad part of the cert is it has expiration date while pts dont.

Even for the Hyatt certs, we struggled to use ours 3 years in a row. We forced ourselves to do a little weekend trip to use the cert - but really isn't what we would like or enjoy - just so we could savage the AF value,

We probably would only keep one SPG biz card in the household and all the BonV cards will be Bon Voyage from us.

margarita girl

I think everyone would take 35K points instead of a cert worth up to 35K points. But that's not an option.

RedSun

If you struggle to optimize the value, then it is time to think of cancelling the CC. I do not just look at the cash value alone since the airport and major metro hotels are way over priced. There are other replacement from other brand.

I'll have to think hard to keep the SPG business CC. The fee increases without any additional benefits.

RedSun

I do not see these are the "values", but sticker prices.

margarita girl

I'll happily modify my post. How would you "value" a basic room at a NYC hotel for the nights that I need? (I think I said YMMV.)

rny321

Although it isn't to my knowledge an advertised option, Hyatt has in the past offered 10K in points for an unused Cat 4 or 15K certificate.

tth6133

It's an official policy at Hyatt, but you have to call after the certificate has expired to get your 10K points.

Happy

IIRC you need to be an elite to get that offer, and of course you need to still own the card at the time to request such offer.

RedSun

You do not have to change anything. It is just IMO etc.

When I go to NYC, I almost never stay at any Marriott hotel. The rates are just not attractive. Hilton has more properties in NYC and the rates are much better. Even IHG rates are better than Marriott's.

The other well known property is the "Mystique" hotel in Santorini. Its "sticker" price for August stay is 1,058 EUR per night. So it is about $1,200 per night for two people. So what is the "value" of this property? Look around at other hotels in Santorini. You can find comparable property at $800 or even $600. But it is the only "best" "Marriott" property there. The Vedema is the distant second one.

Although Marriott has more than 6,000 properties globally, but in certain market, it is not even competitive.

patiolanterns

My father wants to use his free 35K credit card certificate for a July stay on a hotel that is going from cat 5 to cat 6. The problem is, his cert is not due to arrive in his account until after the categories change (but before his stay). Can he book a points reservation and get it switched to the cert later? If so, should he use the points advance option and attach the cert later as payment, or should he have the points fully deducted at booking and then refunded when he calls to attach the cert? Just trying to choose the option that will result in the least grief with customer service for him. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

joeags

I've tried multiple times and have concluded that you cannot attach a certificate to a stay that has gone up in value. After the hotel goes up in category, they have to apply points to the reservation equal to the new value. At this point a manual refund is given for the difference.

The first few agents I talked to weren't convincing, but the last supervisor convinced me that this was the process. I tried it with a 75 night choice certificate of 40k, attaching to an old category 8 (40k) that went up to 50k. It has not been able to be done 4 separate times.

You may have better luck, but I don't think it will work for your father and he will have to use the cert for another stay.