I got 35k + 15k...but I wasn't autoregistered....

The 25k and 35k offers sound like mediocre bonuses compared with recent offering from SPG (stay3stayFree) and Hyatt's former FFNs. I wonder if this really drives incremental revenue?

The Cat 1-5 offer is much better but still somewhat disappointing compared to the recent SPG offer which provided free rooms at resorts (including Cat 6 and 7). Cat 5 is basically useless to me with Marriott as most of the rewards I want are at least Cat 6, and for city properties, Cat 7-8.

I got the MegaBonus using the Visa card only and my company requires we book on the company mastercard. Have already stayed 111 nights in bed this year and have 40 more nights already booked.

Looks like I will call them today (still horribly jet lagged) and see if I can get a better offer.

I keep getting major point offers from SPG and you'd think MR would want to at least throw something out their to match.

Can you have your promo changed ? I have 5000 points after every 2nd stay but i would rather have the free night after 2 stays... how can i change that ?

This is *any* Visa and not just the MR Visa correct?

Correct. I use my government Visa for work travel and Visa specific Megabonus works fine with it.

after this other thread you started on SPG http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...-comments.html

and now this post, something tells me your wife will have no choice but to take along a tent and sleeping bag very shortly

the usual lame marriott promos. noth worth to book extra nights because of some few points

My wife has no ax to grind with Marriott. She has had dozens of stays with them and Hilton over the past year, along with a few with Hyatt and IC and has had no problem she felt worth complaining about. The only problem she has had is with the disreputable Starwood property. There are a few Marriott hotels that she likes so much that she will stay in them bonus or not.

BUT, presumably the purpose of a bonus is to get the on-the-fence frequent traveler to choose one hotel over another comparable hotel. As things are now, she is going to be more likely to stay with Hilton for their tepid double-points offer, or elsewhere. In my opinion the Priority Club offer of 2,000 bonus points per night if you use four different brands is pretty good, especially if combined with other bonus opportunities and the chance to buy-up an extra 2,000 or 3,000 points for five or ten dollars. So you're reasonably looking at the possibility of as many as 8,000 (or more) priority club points per night. My wife isn't a big fan of Priority Club hotels, but it's a decent offer.

So the bottom line is that I think Marriott is going to lose some incremental business, including that of my wife. I think they should consider the fact that many of their business travelers only use AMEX. But my wife will only be chasing a bonus when she doesn't stay with Marriott; she has no hard feelings towards the company. They have done her no wrong. That's not the case in regards to the disreputable Starwood hotel I posted about.

So if a city had only Starwood properties, she might prefer a tent.

Best Cat 1-4 hotels to redeem the 2 Fall MegaBonus free nights on Asia trip?
 

I am registered for Fall Marriott Megabonus promo (up to 2 free nights option) and have an upcoming Jan/Feb trip to Asia I just booked using BA miles.
JAL outbound JAL JFK-NRT (stop)-SGN) and CX inbound BKK-HKG (stop)-YVR (stop).

Looking at booking the hotels for the trip now and wondering if the experts on the board can reco any Cat 1-4 hotels that would be great redemptions for me on this trip.

I do know you can get it changed if you are Platinum; I got the last one changed. I don't know about Gold. Best to call MR and ask.

Oh, a targetted Sapphire promo. You wrote that it was a regular Marriott card promo above! The regular Sapphire can't even transfer into Marriott points (you need the Sapphire Preferred for that!). Rather misleading therefore to call that a "regular Marriott card" IMHO...

Haven't stayed there, but I believe the Renaisance in Bangkok us a cat 4 and always gets great reviews on this board.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yout best bet for HKG is Marriott SkyCity Hong Kong and Courtyard Hong Kong. The Ren is CAT 5 and JW is CAT 6 you are out of luck at both.

And for Japan the super limiting amount of Marriott (and any other international brands) is not particular helping. And I think Tokyo CY Ginza is a Cat 5 if not Cat 6.

I got this one too.