ronliu1980

Hi all,

New to the forum and hoping to seek some advise. I got a travel package sometimes back in 2018 and never got to use the 7N certificate.

I had it updated to the latest Cat 1-4 cert back in 2019 and it has been lying around in my account with an expiry of 3 Jan 2022.

I was hoping to use it to book a 7N stay in a hotel and contacted a Marriott Representative recently for it.

This is where it gets really weird and everything went south.

Certificate was attached but somehow it says I need to earn points for the reservation. Agent reassures me everything is fine. I called in a second time to make sure things are in order. A non native English speaking agent (he spoke in really broken sentences) was on the line and said he is escalating my case to the Fraud/Audit department as he is unsure why my booking is "Odd". I was stunned as I could not understand why he was escalating this to the Audit department. I called in the third time (this time to a native english speaking agent named Melanie) and this time she explained to me why she and the previous agent was escalating this to the Fraud/Audit Department. She confirmed that she could cancel the reservation and the certificate will be returned to my account. I told her to proceed with the cancellation. After cancelling on my reservation, she fumbled and said "Erm.... The certificate should be showing up the next day as the system needs to do an overnight refresh for the certificate to reflect.". Till date, the certificate is not on the account and apparently my account is under audit. I asked her for the reason as to why the account was escalated for audit.

The reason is as such and I quote verbatim, "No miles were posted to the airlines on record and we did not see any airline miles posted to any account and therefore we cannot use this travel certificate.". I went on to ask what does that mean and they simply said they have escalated to audit and cannot comment on this any further. Strangest thing was miles were posted as part of the package in 2018 and I have flown on those miles as well.

To be honest, I was quite rude on the third call as I was seriously annoyed for being on the phone for close to 1.5 hours. My point was, "So you are sending my account to audit/fraud, because you guys did not post the airline miles to my account? That does not even make any sense at all. If it makes you feel any better, you can just send me another batch of airline miles. Why am I being penalised for your lack of records that miles have and already been issued?"

So in light of this, I was hoping I can get some advise on what is the next step. Separately, I got my spouse to contact his Ambassador (sadly, I am just a normal member with Marriott as I travel mainly with my spouse) to check in on this and his response was "It is really odd and I am not sure why this is being escalated to Audit but all we can do for now is to hear back from the audit/fraud team.".

Sorry for the lengthy post but would appreciate any advise or insights on this.

Ripley62

I’ve had three of these, booked my last one a few weeks ago for a stay coming up next month. I’ve had three certificates but because various problems actually attached 6 different reservations with these. Every single time there’s been significant problem that have required multiple call and escalation to supervisors. Once even to the Marriott office of consumer affairs called me to fix the problem. Actually it goes back to when I acquired them and the agent’sold’ me the wrong ones, that took a month to fix. So maybe I’m jinxed.

Apparently the agent has to make a points reservation first, either from your points balance which after the certificate is attached is refunded or with a points advance. My most recently booking which I hope is now fixed. The certificate wasn’t attached and the points deducted. The one before that, made in ‘19 for a summer trip (so early for airline points booking availability) was I later found out like yours where the agent booked via points advance and months later the hotel outside of the normal category increase increased category I was notified a points advance needed more points. Odd since I had far more than needed. The certificate wasn’t in my account on my side. To fix that one I found the email of Marriott VP of loyalty and his office contact me. As the case me be that reservation and another one using these were canceled because of covid resort temp closures. The cat increase was the big problem.

I would call during the week and insist on a supervisor. The agent really just don’t know how to handle these in my experience. The supervisors once you get in touch with a good one can really fix the problem. But it unfortunately takes a lot of time on the phone. You’re not alone.

JOJOZHAOZHAO

I have a cat5 travel package expiring in Jan 2022. I don't have any travel plan in the next two months due to current Covid condition. Am I able to exchange for points?

myperks

the residual on these packages are really not good. Old school certs were 45k if I remember correctly but I remember reading somewhere the new ones are like 5k or something. Not sure what they are these days.

dkerr

If you have a 7-night Cat 5 that was converted from an old (Cat 7 or 8) certificate then there is some meaningful value. Those should have a conversion value of 105,000 points which is about 50% value. A Cat-1-4 or a Cat-6/7 travel package converted from old program have lower/higher conversion values. However one of the changes when they introduced the new travel packages was to essentially make conversion back to points worthless so any newly issued free night travel package cert really has to be used to have any value. I believe the conversion rate is something like 5,000 points so not good for even one night.
I am sitting on a 7-night Cat 5 converted from old program and am waiting until the last moment to request a conversion. There is always a change, albeit remote, that Marriott extends again. But if not I'll request the 105K points -- it's not automatic, so don't let the certificate expire before contacting Marriott to request conversion back to points.
DAK

yoonny

Refund value if from legacy package:

7-night packages

• OC5 830T/P830 = NC4 QP83 (refund value: 45K)
• OC6 870T/P870 = NC4 QP87 (refund value: 75K)
• OC7 910T/P910 = NC5 QP91 (refund value: 105K)
• OC8 950T/P950 = NC5 QP95 (refund value: 135K)
• OC9 990T/P990 = NC6 QP99 (refund value: 165K)

Other 7-night packages

• OC7 P880 = NC5 QP88 (refund value: 135K)
• OC8 P920 = NC5 QP92 (refund value: 165K)

myperks

found the following chart on some blog (frequentmiler) about the conversion and residual for old cert. 45k was minimum refund and then depends on how old was converted to new.

yoonny

Got an extension to my legacy 7 night certificate that’s been converted, extended several times and had 1/3/22 expiration date!

I called the main #. 1st rep said no way Jose. It’s been extended 2 – 3 times already, blah blah. HUCA.

2nd rep, got a super friendly older lady. She said hold on, let me see what I can do for you. She types away, reads the terms, then informs me it might be possible to grant a 1 time extension for extenuating circumstances. But she needed to use “another” system. She went away for a good 10 minutes, came back and said all good.

Got 2 emails, 1 for cancellation of the old certificate, 1 for an order of the new certificate. My account now reflects an expiration date a year from today.

dkerr

Note that if you had an old Cat 8 that converted to a new Cat 5 then it is possible to have already received a 30,000 point refund to recognize that old Cat 7's were converted to the same value in the new program. I do not recall if it was automatic or not, you may have had to call in. But I know that I did get 30,000 points deposited somewhere along the line for this very reason.

DAK

JOJOZHAOZHAO

Thanks. I would wait until the last minute hoping for the extension. But just want to check if there is still points option...

UsernameChuck

Any word on whether these have been extended along with FNCs? Mine is attached to a reservation, so I can't see if it was extended... Thanks!

joeags

They're not extended physically yet (it mentions before December as the date you will see it), but a lurker did include travel certificates as a category of certs being extended.

pazza2000

Yes they are included in the extension through to the 30th June ‘22, however what happens to their value after March ‘22 has not been clarified! I assume not an issue if they are being redeemed next year thanks to the caps, however beyond that whom knows what they would look like, if even further extendable in the first place.

Ripley62

It will be good if these are extended.

i didn’t want say this before actually checking but after a long string of problems I was actually able to use my third and last certificate. I feel lucky to have gotten some value out of it and risk having it expire in January.

Mine was a current Category 6, there is currently one category 6 property in Paris open. Le Metropolitan it’s a great small hotel. When I booked it was 240k for 7 night. So maybe better to use points if know for certain the cert would be extended. On top if that I was able to use the 75 night 40k cert for an 8th night and 7 SNA where accepted.

sorry there no questions or answers in this post. Let’s hope Marriott chooses follow Hilton and extend once again this year.

pazza2000

They ARE being extended from 3rd Jan through 30th June! Optimistically, I believe they’ll carry their peak value, and possibly we will be able to apply the difference for a higher category, which potentially makes April to June a great time to use them for those unhappy with their category. Of course, maybe I’m being over optimistic again and it looks as if Marriott haven’t figured out how to handle them yet.