I'm offended by Marie's inference that the Delta SkyMiles program has any value or viability to Marriott Rewards members. A non-Medallion's INability to redeem standard award level SkyMile rewards is well documented in the Delta Forum. Marie, you may want to direct your leadership to the Delta Forum to read this. Could Marriott be so naive to think that the Delta SkyMiles program is viable?

What if I don't know the category of hotel I need right now. Could I claim a cat 5 and later change it say a cat 8 if need be?

Yes.
I have done it and they give you a new ecert with a new date.

So your saying that it would have been better for Marriott to make the deal with and then say pass along the charge to you??

So for the time/share if Host wants an extra $$ you are ok with them adding to you maintenance fees?

If AA is charging more than the other airlines for miles, I assume you wouldn't mind paying and extra exchange fee every time you wanted AA miles.


Marriott is a business and so is AA. Delta is the largest airline company now and appears to have made a financially attractive deal with Marriott. AA was given the option to join and did not want. Seems that AA is the bad guy here.

I have to agree with Beantown on this one

How stupid does MR think we are... DL miles.. *shaking my head*.. what next a Zimbabwe Dollar promo

Not sure what you know about the budgets for Marriott Desert Springs Villas I, but the owners of Villas I have provided the JW Marriott Desert Springs Hotel with a consistent source of income for the past 20 years, so that the Villas I owners and guests could use the hotel spa and recreational facilities. I don't remember the exact details, but the math went something to the effect of 250 villas x 51 weeks x $45.00 per villa/week; a very solid source of income to the hotel (exclusive of all of the additional incidental charges that the Villas I owners and guests generated at the hotel while they were on the hotel's grounds). Instead, for reasons that I do not believe can be attributed to the funding source, the hotel owners (acting on behalf of Marriott (the franchise whose name hangs over the front door)) did not reportedly negotiate in good faith with the Desert Springs Villas I Board and presented ludicrous excuses for ending the relationship. In fact, the Board on behalf of the villa owners was prepared to increase their payment to the hotel, as the spa/recreation agreement was attributed to creating a "value add" for the Villas I owners and guests, may have lead to increased trading power of Villas I weeks with Interval International (as demand for Villas I exceeded Villas II, due in part to the recreation agreement), and is similarly assumed to have lead to higher rental income and resale value for Villas I owners. So yes, I am saying that we and many others would have been delighted to pay Host, the owners of the hotel, an increased and reasonable fee to sustain the spa/recreation agreement.

With regard to any (entirely speculative (one does not know what cash moved from one company to another, or what may have been bartered between the two companies (e.g. crew rooms)) increased charge by AA to Marriott, again, if the basis for the increase is (perceived by us) to be fair and reasonable, we would have paid an increased fee. Starwood's SPG program is much more attractive when it comes to hotel points to airline mile transfers then Marriott Rewards.

Delta's SkyMiles program is widely perceived by non-Medallion members to be pathetic (conjecture, not scientifically supported). Delta is quick to sell miles to numerous sources for short money, create numerous incentive programs (perceived by the User as generous until they attempt to redeem their miles), and to create a supply of standard redemption seats that dramatically dwarfs their aggressive sale of SkyMiles.

It's sad to watch the downfall of Marriott. I really believe that JW Jr. is less engaged today in the business then he was several years ago, and as a result of his more limited engagement/participation that the core Marriott family values have been lost in Marriott's day to day operations. As to the JW Marriott Desert Springs Hotel, that hotel has reportedly been adversely impacted by the economy, with dramatically reduced occupancy, massive layoffs, a dramatic reduction in spa business, a dramatic reduction in conference and catering business, and a dramatic reduction in the number of restaurants that it operates. In my opinion, Host has made numerous flawed decisions in the operation of that hotel, and is paying the price for their poor decisions and lousy attitude.

If one has a fair number of Marriott points now, and if one uses AA as their primary carrier, it would be attractive to take a travel package in June 2010 (before the drop dead date of June 30, 2010) because this would allow you to sock away some AA miles now.

If I understand this, you are saying that if I take a category 5 travel package during June 2010, but later decide that I want to use the hotel portion at a category 6 or higher hotel, I'd be able to upgrade the hotel portion of the package. Is that right? Would I just "pay' the difference in points between the cat 5 package and the higher category hotel's package?

What about the other direction? What if one takes a cat 6 (or higher) travel package now but realizes later that you'd like to use it at a cat 5 hotel?

I am exactly the type of traveler that this poster has described. AA is my primary carrier and I have a boatload of MR points as I accumulate way more than I spend. I am trying to build up my AA account for 3 J (or F if the slim chance that they exist) awards to AU for 2011; Part of my plan is/was to burn two travel packages to get 240K miles although I wasn't planning on redeeming until I actually wanted to book the miles in order to keep the travel certs alive as long as possible.

I echo this posters questions about the "what if I want to upgrade/downgrade a cert"?

I see these listed on CC as well.. how easy are these certs to trade in another persons name if it came down to that?

By AU do you mean Australia (OZ)? If so, good luck. Below is my experience:

I just cashed in AAdvantage miles for 1 r/t J award ticket from IAD to SYD for a friend as that was all that was available. No F award inventory at all. These awards need to be booked as one way awards, because the single seat inventory that does come available disappears rather quickly. Getting the return ticket is the toughest part. Now you can route through LHR using 2 awards or 1 award plus cash and the inventory is much more readily available on that route. I watched F and J award inventory everyday on QF for 6 weeks prior to booking so have a good idea of what inventory was available (Mid-Nov-end of Dec outbound, and beginning of Dec to mid Jan for return). For the outbound 1 QF J award seat on select days of the week, and during the 6 weeks I think I saw 1 QF F award seat show up maybe 2 or 3 times. For the return 1 or 2 days per week a QF J seat was available and NO F seats.

I did the same 6 week monitoring for UA award inventory. I used UA miles to book 2 r/t tickets for my boss and his wife for the same time period. UA regularly has 2-4 J Saver seats available for booking on select days of the week and 1 F Saver seat. Inventory for these also disappears within a couple days, so again one needs to book oneway awards.

I have EF alerts in for QF and UA F and J on the current flight dates + or - 1 day and have not received any alerts since making the reservations at the end of February.

This is an excellent example of why one should have miles in more than one FF account. BTW there are a total of 6 of us going to SYD for New Years and then a 14 day cruise of NZ. 2 using J Saver awards on UA, 2 using 1 Saver/1 Standard awards on UA and 1 using AAdvantage miles for an All Partner AAdvantage J award on AA/QF. FWIW, I am ending my RTW (AONE3) ticket and starting a CirPac (ACIR22) ticket for this trip.

Once again, good luck. I would definitely consider the UA route for your trip to OZ as you may have better luck getting 3 tickets. But with CO merging, the affect on award inventory management is a gray area IMO. People complain about the inability to use DL miles, but my attempts to use CO miles for something meaningful were fruitless. After 5 years I was finally able to burn my CO miles for a trip I wanted. While UA mileage redemption is not as good as AA, it is nowhere near as bad as CO. Now beware of CO top tier elites telling you how great it is; they have access to "special" inventory. If UA goes down the CO NonePass route then anyone who uses UA (myself included) may be singing the blues.

Disclosure: I fly AA or partners 95% of the time so my AA miles come from flying AA. I fly UA once per year, sometimes twice. I potentially see that increasing in the coming years. Up until now the lion's share of my UA miles come from use of UA MP Visa for charges other than dining, airfare, or Marriott purchases. I am restocking my depleted UA account with a MR TP.

With how aggressive the other hotels have been in matching status as well as giving out free nights, it is difficult to stay at Marriotts during the second quarter. This additional change will really make one have to reconsider what to do going forward after that. Earning Delta miles is a totally useless proposition. I have close to a 100k miles with Delta and never can book a ticket without paying extreme premium to book a simple route. Using Delta requires double over AA.

Since I really like Marriott points for conversion, I think I will not convert them to AA. Instead switch to Hilton on future stays where I can still earn some AA miles. With Marriott not allowing conversion to AA, the Hilton AXON travel packages is more attractive to me than the Marriott packages.

I was trying to avoid this but now I have to get into the nightmare of selling my Marriott timeshares. The only reason that kept me in after last years point devaluation (while I still get the same 110,000 per week since 1993) was the travel packages with AA, my main carrier. Now the program and the MVCI dream are dead to me. To make things worse, I referred friends and relatives who bought timeshares just before the "program enhancements" and I can not look at them in the eyes... What a fiasco!

I imagine most of us would be upset if we had to pay an increased fee; we always are when points are "devalued."

No matter how you look at it, this is a lose-lose situation for Marriott.

We'll miss y'all who are leaving.

I mean that sincerely and selfishly - hopefully the drop in elite Marriott members won't reduce concierge lounge hours.

Personally, I've now given up on the dream of lifetime AA Plat. But I'll stick with Marriott over AA. There still isn't any other hotel chain that matches the value of points to the client that plays all of the angles. Hyatt beats the pants off of Marriott on upgrades, but Marriott beats the pants off of Hyatt on points, as at least some of us understand.

Let's just hope that Marriott and MR doesn't head down the same "impossible to redeem" road Delta has with worthless points.

I am upset that I have been saving points to go to Hawaii next fall for our anniversary. I guess I am going to have to redeem the travel package for the miles now and let my 7 night certificate exprire.
Anyone think Marriott might extend out certificate past the 12 months? I keep hearing people say they will, but I wish I knew for sure.