I have tried to use these twice and both times thought the reservations were made to use certs and ended up taking away my certs and ALSO taking points! Both times I made the reservations on the phone. Has anybody else had similar problems or am I just un-lucky?

Happened to me also. You need to double check your points total after calling, which I did, and noticed that 20,000 points were deducted and then had to call back and get the situation corrected.

What about using those certs for reserving a room online? How do I pick certs instead of the usual points? I have 4 certs and this is the first time for me to use them.

Thanks.

The person at the plat line walked me through this one time. You basically go through the whole reservation like you are going to use points but at the end you can apply certs. However, she even admitted the system doesn't work perfectly.

I used certs this weekend and last online - just log on to your account to make sure that the certs are there - book a reward staying using miles, when you get to the end just before checking out you'll have the option to use the certs that are there

This week I used up a certificate and I had no problems. No points were deducted from my account. Only the certificate.
The booking was done online.

I booked a cat 4 cert stay with the plat desk -confirmed it was a cert stay at check in, and still got dinged for 20k points after checking out, and the cert was unused.

A quick call to the plat desk fixed it, but still ANNOYING!

Anyone have any advice or experience trying to use these certs last minute?

I am going to be making a long drive over the summer across a large piece of the country. I want to drive as far as I can before I get too tired but don't know where that will be so I can't make a reservation in advance. Also because it will be around midnight, the strategy of making multiple reservations won't work. Would it be possible for me to show up and ask to use my cert?

You need to make sure that there is award availability. I would suggest not waiting until the last minute, unless you find out that there is no room for sale (even with cash).

40 minutes on the plat line and they finally figured it out and gave me my points back. That after I sent a fax and an email last week and got no reply for over 7 days. Horrible Marriott service!

Wow, unbelievable! I would file a complaint.

hmm that's weird. I had similar issue where they gouged my 20k points instead of cert, and when i called the gold hotline, it took about less than 5 minutes to let them know there was a mistake, and they refunded the point.

they were nice enough to leave the cert unused as well hello another free night?

You make this sound much harder than it is. It is not difficult at all.

Things to remember:

1). If you intend to make a reward booking and a hotel is at a Category level (1-4) as in the above example, and if there is a Certificate that covers that level in your account, the default choice of the online system is to use the certificate in lieu of points -- no special choice is needed.

2). If you intend to make an award booking for a low Category hotel and you have a multi-category Certificate (as is the subject above) in your account, it will pull that Cert automatically. So, if you intend to "save" that Cert for a higher Category, you will have to designate by clicking on the button near the end of the reservation process that you want points to be used for the award reservation. Otherwise you Category 1-4 Cert could be used for a Cat 1 property, instead of the Cat 4 that you are intending to use at a later time.

3). A Cert will be pulled automatically for a Category level it can cover, even though it expires before the reservation date. This is a problem with the Marriott system, and when the check-in day comes, your now expired Cert will be rejected by the system and a new cert derived from your points will be deducted from your account. Consider the computer system dumb when it comes to taking Certs from your account -- you must see whether or not they still will be good as of the date of the anticpated check-in.

4). I believe that if you have different level Multi Category certs (1-4 via a Megabonus promo and 1-5 via annual credit card renewal) and both are in your account, and you wish to use it at a Cat 4 or lower, and if the Cat 1-5 cert has an earlier expiration date, the system will preferentially extract that cert from that account -- even though you wanted to "save" that cert for a Cat 5 property.

The way to avoid the above, is make a dummy booking with the Cat 5 cert, then make the Cat 1-4 booking where they system will preferentially extract that cert from your account, and once the latter is made, you can cancel the dummy booking of the Cat 5 property, and it will be returned to your account as you see fit.

HTH

NJ

You make this sound much harder than it is. It is not difficult at all.

Ha! Based on my experiences of the past I would say it can be very difficult. I think I mentioned originally I am fairly computer literate.

Also, when I called at first and had the person explain how you use the cert on-line she said to me something to the effect of, "if the number of certs you have does not match the number of nights the system can have problems."

Also, when I called before my trip because I was worried that it said "points" on the reservation they told me, "I see that... the certs are out of your account but they are NOT attached to the reservation." She assured me she fixed it.

Lastly, it didn't work out so no matter how hard or easy it is it did NOT work and I lost both the points and the certs and had to call to fix it. I guess my only point to people is to watch closely when you use the certs so you don't lose both. Not a big deal.

If you are fairly computer literate, you would not have needed to contact them at all. I am by no means tech savy and it is quite easy for me to accomplish making such reservations, provided the exceptions that I have noticed when making such reservations.

Whenever you involve another person, it can be complicated by so doing -- you apparently experienced this twice. Again, had you made the reservation online for any sort of reward reservation, you would not have experienced this in a standard reward booking as the points are automatically deducted from your account and the e-cert is automatically attached to your reservation and sent to the hotel. In those instances where you have earned a Multi Category Cert, the cert will be pulled preferentially from your account for the reward reservation, instead of points. Should you wish to use points for whatever the reason, you simply have to click the radio dial which states that you want points to be used for the reservation and the multi category cert will stay in your account. It is not complicated.

Hopefully, as a fairly computer literate fellow, you will no longer need to rely on another for making these types of reservations now that you have the above.