qwest01

For the first time ever I got a free 1 night cat 1-4 cert in the fall mega bonus. It needs to be used by end March.

So I looked on-line to reserve a night but saw no way to book using the cert. So I call Marriott Rewards and they said I had to book by phone. So I booked the night and clearly stated that I wanted the mega bonus free night cert to be applied to the booking at the cat 4 hotel I had selected.

Now the reservation shows up in my list of upcoming reservations.

BUT.

1. It shows 20,000 points will be deducted from my account. However they have not yet been deducted.

2. On the reservation details it states: "You do not have eCertificates for this reservation. Order eCertificates. If you have not ordered eCertificate(s) 7 days prior to your stay, eCertificates will be auto-ordered for you.

Marriott Rewards told me it takes 24 hours for the free night cert to be applied to the reservation. Why? Surely there should be a better, simpler way to do this?

Will this free night cert get applied to the reservation I made or will it cost me the points?

njcommodore

I think it's a bug in the system. It shows points but it will use the cert.

dw

In the past, when booking by phone, it has in fact taken up to 24 hours for the cert to show as being attached to the reservation. I received an e-mail confirmation once this was done.

nacho

Are you sure? Mine are expiring until end of May.

pwrshift

I used 4 MegaBonus 1-4 category nights last fall and had to call to redeem them rather than have MR points deductions and confusion.

gibraltar87

Your E-certs when applied at a CAT4 property is worth 20K points. The points will be covered by the e-cert, so none will be taken from your personal account.

It does take 24 hours--the e-cert will be sent electronically to your hotel of your choice.

eleeut

i called one in, and the reservation shows "promotional certificate" as reward description.

qwest01

The booking is now using the cert - took 48 hours to happen.

MDtR-Chicago

To answer your original question... you can usually* book online. Just go thru the steps to make a points reservation and right at the end, before you confirm, there will be an option to use a cert.

* Some of us have had a heck of a time lately with this randomly not working then working again. Sometimes the certs just don't show up as an option.

maize&blue

Whenever I've booked MegaBonus nights online and later spoke to a phone agent, they've always made modifications to the reservation and told me the MegaBonus certs need to redeemed over the phone. I don't know if that means the online reservations wouldn't have worked, but it sounds like the company line is to book by phone.

lkar

I think I had this problem once. I booked a dummy cancelable reservation to use up most of my points and then booked my one night stay and not having the points forced use of the cert. Then I cancelled the dummy and got the points back. At least that's how I remember it. Memory isn't as good as it once was. Maybe I imagined it.

MDtR-Chicago

It's worked for me in the past but only when the option was actually offered, which isn't all the time. No problem at check-in, if I could actually book it.

Counsellor

Worked for me just the other day when I booked reward reservations to use my MegaBonus free nights in May. The last screen showed that I could use the certificates if I clicked the radio button.

In fact, if I remember correctly, it was already clicked as the default.

Moriens

You will be fine. Last year I used one of my certificates (on the night it expired) to make a reservation just before driving to the hotel, and everything still worked perfectly. (I did get the same message on the website, and it took the front desk half a minute longer than usual, but they knew what to do.)

Here is another thread on this topic: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...ows-using.html