jedicat666

My wife has a chunk of marriott bonvoy points that expired even though a redemption was made last month.
2 Marriott representatives i've talked to on the phone and 1 on social media claims that it is not a qualifying activity because the stay was not made yet.

However, in their loyalty T&Cs in point 1.6.d, it says :
However they claim this, and refuse to point out where in the T&C it claims that the redemption has to be backed by a completed stay to be deemed qualifying :


I would like to know if i am truly entitled to my points back as from my understanding i have redeemed my points by exchanging it for a reservation. Nowhere does it indicate on the T&Cs that the redeemed stay has to be completed to be deemed qualifying.

Paging marriott bonvoy lurker on this.

applesauce

What they say basically makes sense but you're right the terms are clear as mud (as all terms are). The redemption does not really occur until the stay happens. Otherwise everyone would just book ghost stays and cancel.

I think there is a fair argument to be made that as long as the stay does in fact occur that the points activity should look back to the reservation date, but I wouldn't in reality expect them to ever do that for you

sdsearch

Section 1.6.d says: "Members can remain active in the Loyalty Program and retain accumulated Points by earning Points or Miles, redeeming Points, or purchasing Points (as described in 2.9) in the Loyalty Program at least once every twenty-four (24) months, all subject to the exceptions described below."

And one of these exceptions right below that is:

"ii. Awards redeemed by a Member prior to Point forfeiture are still valid even though the Award may not yet have been fulfilled at the time of Point forfeiture. However, if those Awards are cancelled after the Points expiration date, those Points are still subject to forfeiture. For example, if a Member redeems Points for an Award Redemption Stay that occurs after the Points expiration date, and then cancels the reservation prior to arrival without having completed any qualifying activity to extend the expiration date, those Points will expire."

To me those two things in combination certainly seem to imply that one actually has to fulfill the stay, not just book it, to have it count as "activity" to reset expiration.

rambling man

jedicat666 were your points deducted for that stay already? if so, that is pretty clearly a "qualifying activity," a deduction, as far as I can see.

nexusCFX

This is correct. Otherwise you could extend points infinitely by booking and immediately cancelling an award. While it does read somewhat vague, I don't think there's really as much ambiguity as some may try to argue. The paragraph is stating quite clearly that points that are not used to fulfill an existing award reservation are forfeited as of 24 months of inactivity. The scenario is presented only as example and so it is not limited to that scenario, and there is no way to argue any distinction between points forfeited in the example which are forfeited upon being disassociated from an existing booking, and points never associated to any existing booking at all.

jedicat666

I have in fact read part ii of the list of exceptions. From my understanding on this (and with your explanation) I actually can conclude 2 things :

1. This portion of exception only applies to the portion of points that have been "locked" to a redemption stay. They are basically saying ok, since we cant expire your points as it is locked, we'll keep an eye on it, and if you cancel it the points wont go back to you. It does not address the other portion of unused points wherein my issue lies.
However i can understand how itimplies that since my stay is still in the future, the points that have been "redeemed" are still not extended, therefore the unused points are also not extended.

2. Since the point above only refers to the portion of used "redeemed" points and not the unused points, there is nothing to apply this exception to in the original statement "by earning Points or Miles, redeeming Points, or purchasing Points".

jedicat666

The points that have been used to book or redeem the stay has already been deducted, as in i dont see them in my account anymore.

jedicat666

I agree that making ghost bookings to extend points validity is definitely not what any program would allow, this was not my intention. however I hope you get my point that when the terms are worded like that it does certainly imply that redeeming a stay would constitute a qualifying activity, at least to a number of unsuspecting people.

nexusCFX

I completely agree and I hope it didn't seem like I was accusing you of trying to game the system. I would have been caught off guard by this as well as although I can reason it out seeing it in this thread, I would not think of it at all in managing my own account. It's a pretty sucky situation.

If I were a Marriott agent I would give you your points back. As for the actual Marriott agents...

jedicat666

How I wish you were, although I'm not sure if they have the authority. I'm actually betting that they are specifically told to deny it using the "to be fair to all members" phrase at all costs. Usually in cases like this, its not unreasonable to be given a one-time exception or goodwill. (at most other companies)
However, I'm dealing with Marriott. So....already ready to get #bonvoyed.

Happy

Dont try to play yourself as a victim. You are NOT bonvoyed.

It has been a very long standing policy that award stay must be CONSUMED, i.e. actually stay the award redeemed, BEFORE the point expiration in order for that counted as an eligible activity for the purpose to extend the point balance.

I honestly dont understand WHY people could easily pay $12.50 to buy 1000 pts, or donate pts to a charity, or in the US, transfer pts from either Chase or AMEX, or use eRewards Survey for such purpose - the easiest obviously is to shell out $12.50 to buy 1000 pts, done in 2 min online and your balance is saved for another 24 months. I did the buy point thing a couple year BEFORE Covid - at that time the policy was already very specific that ONLY CONSUMED award booking could be eligible activity.

Why trying to twist and tweak the languages on the T&Cs just in order you can get away from that reward reservation?

FWIW, Marriott is not the only hotel program treats award booking this way. So as Hilton, so as Hyatt - all award nights MUST BE CONSUMED before they count as eligible activities. IHG is the ONLY main program that let you just redeem and cancel to still count as an activiti, and the now worthless Radisson program as well. Then again, as long as one owns an IHG CC, the IHG points never expire, and just how many on FT still care for the Radisson (America) program?!

Oxon Flyer

Not sure it’s valid to beat the OP up for twisting the language in the T&Cs when T&Cs do not include the word CONSUMED, or a clear explanation of the alleged ‘long standing policy’.

As noted above, the combination of two separate clauses could imply that the term used in the T&Cs - REDEEMED - means ‘booked and stayed’.

jedicat666

The terms of a contract (or in this case, T&Cs) should be clear and unambiguous so that both parties understand their rights and obligations. If a term is open to interpretation or could be understood in different ways, it may lead to disputes or disagreements between the parties.
This is what happens if terms simply "imply" something versus being clear and exact.
The fact that a reserved redemption stay in the future does not have a in app signifying it is not a qualifying activity or even data points in this forum suggesting or even confirming that only a completed stay will yield qualifying activity does not matter, because there is a written T&C that exists and you cannot go beyond the 4 corners of that document.

There have been events in multiple loyalty programs of which I have had a part to play by raising issues that actually got T&Cs changed (e.g EMEA element hotel free breakfast offerings). So believe it that these staff can be wrong.
So, no I'm not playing the victim, nor do I want to be a victim. I just want these loyalty programs to either follow their own T&Cs or hire a better legal team.

mtimoney

Has anybody been able to get expired points reinstated? I just lost all of mine, haven’t been traveling, and didn’t get any warning emails like I got from Hilton and SWA, wich caused me to take action. I have tried honesty and that didn’t work, so looking for some other skill of trying to get them back before my European vacation this summer.

notquiteaff

Another recent thread on this topic: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...nt-advice.html