I am looking at booking a 5 night stay in San Fran and it seems that on the week we want to go it would be about the same amount of points to redeem a $1000 gift check or use points.
I have never used a gift check so my questions are..

Will I earn points with the stay? Will I have any problems using it?

You will earn points AND nights. I have done this several times when the vaule was comparable to redeeming with points. Love this option. Allow a little extra time at checkout as they have to enter the number for each 50 dollar cert into the system individually, or go down the night before checkout and let them enter them all in. Make sure that you only give them enough 50 dollar certs to cover up to the nearest 50 then pay the rest with cash or credit, as you don't get cash back. Save any leftovers, they are good for a year.

I am using them for the first time next month. I am booked on a Friends and Family rate in one hotel (In Europe) and a LNF rate in a different hotel. I have called Marriott 4 times on whether I can use the certificates on the F&F rate and have gotten 3 yes's and 1 no. I guess we will see. I have also called the hotel in Boston and spoke with the manager and she said yes! Hope this works!

I have never had any problem using "Marriott Cheques" (Marriott calls them "cheques" not checks), even with special rates (BOGO, EEO, deeply discounted rates, etc.), because the hotels either do not care about the rules against using cheques with certain rates, or the FDC doesn't have a clue about anything (including what the cheques actually are, or how to apply them properly to the folio). I am not sure what payback the hotels get for each $50 cheque used, but they seem to act as if the payback is face value from Marriott HQ.

I have ordered cheques (always the package of $1,000 option, never the $100 option) on five different occasions (including this past week), and by using them, I have always received both points and room night credits (although two or three times I have had to call MR to receive proper credit, because the FDC did not apply them properly to my folio).

The two biggest reasons for me to use cheques are that there is "a return" for their use, and there is no need to make sure that a hotel has award availability for the nights I wish to stay.

What I mean by "a return" is that I get both points and room night credits for all nights.

So, if I use $450 in cheques (example: category 5 hotel @$150/night, 3 nights, pay for taxes with credit card), as a Plat, I will get at least 6,750 points for the stay (Plat welcome points are given for every stay anyway), and the usual 3 room nights credit.

However, if I made an awards reservation, it would have cost me 75,000 points, and I would get no points FOR the stay, and no room night credit. ($1,000 in cheques costs 135,000 points, so $450 in cheques costs 45% of 135,000 points, or 60,750, which is also a better return on the points than a 3 night award reservation). Net cost in points for the same stay would be 54,000 points using cheques, versus 75,000 for a regular award stay. Make sense?

Vicki is absolutely right about the time consuming nature of having the cheques applied at check out, it is tedious and long, and you must allow about 90+ seconds for each $50 cheque applied (cheques are always in $50 denominations when you order $1,000 worth), so in my example above, considering NINE cheques will be used, allow about 15 extra minutes for check out. Change is never given for cheques used, so for a $495 total folio, use NINE cheques, and pay $45 on credit card, and there is no benefit to using cheques to pay for taxes anyway.



PS. Important to note, IMO, the math changes significantly, in favor of using a regular awards stay, instead of cheques, for category 7 & 8 hotels, assuming the room cost is also applicably higher. (Category 8, at 40,000 points per night, would be 120,000 points for three nights, but if the room would otherwise cost $389 per night, it would wipe out $1,000 in cheques, at a cost of 135,000 points, leaving a balance of $167 plus taxes, but with a points return of 17,505 for Plats.)

Well, I am a heavy user of these checks also (I am near 100% in converting my points into these) and I have made no such experience at all. Used the cheques yesterday in Orlando, where the FDC saw them, typed on the keyboard for about 10 seconds and then produced a folio that showed the two vouchers (in that case) applied seperately and the remainder of my folio charged to my card. Time to checkout: about 25 seconds. Another property I had recently just stamped "Redeemed" on them and then applied the whole amount of them as one item on the folio named "Gift Cheque redemption".

Similar experience at all other places I have been to - none of those have ever entered the voucher-number while I was there. That said, it shows that the use of these cheques is totally unpredictable in regard to how they are applied (I also remember reports where they are used in a way to reduce the rate and by that the number of points you earn - this has not happened to me also so far) - just one thing is definetly true: There have not been any cases where someone reported he was refused to use the cheques...so for me they are same as cash - just different color.

Greetings - Dirk

WOW, I wish that I had your easy experience with redeeming cheques! For the $4,000 which I have already spent, spread out over about ten different properties, each and every time I have ever used them the FDC entered each and every check individually while I stood there, and it was always time consuming.

I have been told that the reason for the individual entry of each cheque is to make sure that the cheques were not stolen or counterfeited, but I do not really know whether this is accurate or not.

Thanks for the help....I am leaning towards this route for the future.. I have always just used points and I think this would have been a better route.

Now since most of my paying nights are business and we use a booking agent, I need to learn how to get all these great rates I see on FT.