Quick question from someone who rarely ventures outside the airline forums. I'm currently using MR points to stay at the Kaua'i Marriott Resort on my honeymoon. However, I'm thinking of changing that reservation and using more points to upgrade to a full ocean view room. When I go to do this it says I'm going to need 150k points, plus 3 upgrade certificates per night. I have never heard of upgrade certificates as this is my first year as a platinum or any status. A few questions: what are they and how do I get them? Are they just asking me for them because I technically don't have enough points until I cancel my other reservation? Finally, as a Platinum is it a waste to spend the other 50k points because I have a good chance of being upgraded anyway? It's in July if that makes a difference. Thanks.

Info on the upgrade certs can be found on Marriott's website: Room Upgrade Information

Basically, each 5K cert will give you a one category upgrade for one night. It looks like for your situation, an Ocean Front room is considered 3 upgrade categories from a base standard room.

One nice benefit of Marriott's program is that you can make a hotel reward reservation and not have the needed points at the time of reservation. You will need to have the points in your account before the actual stay, but you can make the reservation now.

As for whether guaranteeing an Ocean Front room is a good use of points or not is somewhat of a personal nature. I have to say that I've been pretty lucky and most of my beach resort stays have been upgraded to Ocean Front rooms, but your Plat upgrade isn't guaranteed. If the hotel gets booked up and doesn't have any left when you check-in, then you would be out of luck. So the question is, how important is that upgrade? If not getting it would be a major impact on the enjoyment of your stay, then I would suggest taking no chances. Reserve the Ocean Front and pay points for it.

If getting the Ocean Front room won't be a big issue, then take your chances.

With that said, what I might suggest, if the upgrade is really important, is to reserve the upgraded room and when you check-in, ask if the hotel would be willing to give you Ocean Front as an upgrade (complementary) and let you return the upgrade awards back to Marriott. It may work, it may not. But you will still have your upgraded room either way.

Thanks for your throrough response. Right now I have a garden view room for 100k for 5 nights and the ocean view is 150k. Does this mean that the five nights will cost me 150K + 75k (3 certs x 5k x 5 nights) or just the 150k total? I'm willing to do it for 150k points but will roll the dice on an upgrade for 225k points.

I'm wondering the same thing and haven't seen an answer yet so I did a search and this thread/post is the one most closely resembling what I'm looking for. So I figured I'd bump it instead of starting a new thread.

I'm in a similar scenario so for simplicity's sake say I'm looking at a room that says it's 150k for 5 nights plus 3 upgrade certs per night. When I go to book it on the very last screen before booking, it looks like it will only charge me 150k pts.

I don't want to get hit with the extra 75k pts charge (especially if I don't have that many points) or some arbitrary dollar amount when I check in. Will this happen?

I never noticed the OP's follow-up question and thus didn't answer it. Sorry about that.

But the answer is the number of points listed is the total number of points required. IOW, it includes the point cost of the upgrade certs. In fact, just to see a breakdown, if you make your "selection", the very next page, will offer you a daily breakdown of the point costs. You should be able to take the standard room award cost (based on the hotel's category) plus 5K/upgrade required and it should match that daily cost.

What can sometimes make the point cost a little more complex is that if your award stay is longer than 5 nights, the 5th night free award will kick in, but you still have to pay any required upgrades even for that 5th night.

Now it all makes sense, thanks! I remember seeing this breakdown now and was wondering why it said 15k pts for the 5th night, even though it's supposed to be "free." Overall this is good news, thanks.

Hi all,

I am finding this quite confusing and hope that this is the right thread to add this post, but my search skills don't seem up to it.

I would like to use my Cat 1-5 cert at the JW Marriott Hangzhou. I would also like lounge access and internet access (I am only a Silver now) so am happy to use points to upgrade that. I can't seem to find that scenario on the website. I can find a way to upgrade from a points reservation only.

I can't find a way to upgrade a cert with points, but is this even possible? If it is, would I still have to pay the 500 CNY (about USD 80)? That won't happen and I might look for a different hotel and save the cert for a while.

Thanks

Dr. PITUK

I can't address the upgrade a cert with points question. However, all Marriott Rewards members in Asia (basic, silver, gold, plat, pp) get free i-net access.

Cheers.

Well that's a good one at least - Thanks!

If the online reservation tool doesn't show an upgrade option for awards, then the hotel didn't load that. You can still call the hotel, ask for the manager and see if they might be willing to upgrade you to a CL room using award upgrades. They may or may not do that for you, but I do believe you best option is to call the hotel

Of course you might try the MR Silver reservation line and see if they will call the hotel on your behalf. As a Plat I will normally call the Plat line and they will call the hotel for me, but I don't know if the Silver elite line agents will do that or not.

That's new to me as well, thanks for the information. I seldom see the upgrade option (never?) available online, didn't know that we could request for it.

You could pay for the upgraded room for the first night on a separate reservation, then book award nights in a standard room rest of the nights. Once in the upgraded room, and since it is your honeymoon, you would likely be allowed to keep it unless they need it for a paid stay.

I will admit that I have very rarely, if ever, seen a hotel load CL room upgrades into the reservation tool. But I was able to help a friend (who wasn't a Gold/Plat elite) get an upgrade to a CL room using some extra awards. It all depends on the hotel management. They can pretty much take and do a lot of things...if they want to.

Back when the Bay Point Resort (Panama City Beach) was a Marriott resort, I worked a deal with the manager to get me 3 rooms, one with a suite by itself, the other two connecting suites and all for awards. I think I worked it by paying the 2 extra upgrade awards per night (an extra 10K per night) to get all three upgraded to the suites. (Note this was just before the summer season was ready to start, in May I think, which meant the manager was probably more willing to wheel and deal some. I did something similar many years ago at the Kauai Marriott resort (and at the time the manager threw in free breakfast for my wife and I as well.) ^

A lot of hotels won't probably budge much, but you never know whether they will or won't work with you until you ask.