Hi there,

If I book a night with one of those free cat 1 -4 nights megabonus cert, will there be any problems for a pre-upgrade? So say I book a standard with the cert, and ask for an upgrade pre-checkin, will that mess up the certificate? Or should i be good to go? That's keeping in mind, that the hotel around checkin will be completely sold out, so I don't want there to have to be a problem with securing an upgraded room, without paying the high cost for it. I'm PLT btw.

Thanks in advance.

It shouldn't affect your chance of an upgrade (precheck-in or during check-in) at all. Though don't forget that a hotel doesn't have to and quite often won't pre-upgrade someone. But if you are heading to a resort hotel that has lots of upgrade options, then maybe you might get lucky.

I stayed at the Cleveland Downtown RI last week on certs and was upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite with no issues. The only bill I received was for the parking.

If the hotel will be completely sold out, then it's not very likely they will be able to upgrade you to a better room. The upgrade is to "best available room", but if everything is already reserved they'll give you the room you booked for your stay. Rooms are only available for an upgrade when they haven't been reserved by someone willing to pay for the upgraded accommodations.

I have been upgraded before check-in, but that is only when the hotel knows they'll have rooms available. Again, it the hotel is full, they won't promise you an upgrade "pre-checkin".

Please excuse my ignorance, but how does one go about using these certs? I have one, but I can't find any instructions on how to use it - the Marriott Gold guest line is closed, so hoping someone could help me here....

wait until they're open and give them a call...

How helpful.

Is that the only way they can be applied? Can they be applied at the property? Do they have to be applied in advance? Can they be used at all properties, or are they capacity-limited?

choose the hotel you want to stay at on the night you want to stay using the MR points option and then choose using the cert vs actual points..... that's all there is to it

Hi,
Not sure whether this is what you are looking for? Below is what I received from MR Customer Care regarding the procedure to MegaBonus Free Cert redemption. Hope it helps.


Once you have signed into your Marriott Rewards account on MarriottRewards.com, you will be able to see the certificates listed in the "Upcoming Reservations" page or the "Marriott Rewards Activity" page.

For your convenience, we have included instructions below that can guide you through the process of redeeming your rewards.

1. Start at the Marriott.com homepage (http://www.marriott.com), and click on "My Account" located in the upper right-hand side of the page to sign in to your Marriott Rewards account.

2. Enter your destination in the "Find: Hotel" section in the center of the page. Do not enter the dates of your stay at this point. Also, be sure to click on the box marked "Use Marriott Rewards points." Click on the red "Find" button to continue.

3. A list of hotels in the area will be presented as well as the Marriott Rewards category of each hotel. Click on the red "Select" button next to the hotel of your choice. To redeem the certificate without using additional Marriott Rewards points, select a hotel that is listed within the category range on your reward.

4. You will now be able to enter the dates of your stay and select a room. A list of available rooms, as well as the points normally required for your stay will be displayed. Click on the button next to one of these options. You can then confirm your room preferences. Click on the "Continue" button.

5. Review your personal information in the fields provided. After the contact information section of this page, you will see options to either "Attach the e-Certificate(s) below to my reservation" or "Order new e-certificate(s) and automatically deduct the points from my account." If you intend to use your promotional certificate, use the first option listed here. Click on the "Continue" button at the bottom of the page.

6. The final page will provide your confirmation number. You may wish to print this page for future reference.

If you need additional assistance, please feel free to reply to this email of contact an Internet Customer Care Associate by phone at 800-721-7033 (toll-free in the United States and Canada). We are available to help you 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.

For our international guests, a listing of informational reservation offices is available at the following site:

http://www.marriott.com/reservation/worldnum.mi

If we can be of further assistance, we invite you to reply to this email.

Thank you for choosing Marriott.

well, i was reading between the lines a little too loosely, I guess. I read that you actually tried to use it online and it wasn't showing up for you. if that was the case, calling to a human would be the way to go. if you didn't actually try it and were just asking, sorry, my bad.

You can just do a normal rewards search and if the hotel you choose is a cat 1-4, the promo cert shows up pre-selected instead of an e-cert. (which you can select to override the promo cert).

Before reading this thread, I attempted to make a reservation using a MegaBonus certificate. Being unsuccessful I called the Gold Line and the agent was very helpful in completing the transaction. However contrary to the prior post, he told me it was NOT possible to book a reservations using these certificates (73J) online. I will have to wait until I get the next one to try the procedure outlined by Customer Care and attempt to use the certificate online.