Marriott 200,000 point reward
 

I am going to finally book the airline portion of the 200,000 point Marriott reward and would like to get the air miles on Delta. Does anyone know if I can do any better than 2 tickets at 60,000 miles each as a reward? Supposedly the only blackout destination on DL with this Marriott reward is India. What other destinations can I use to possibly get 2 tix @ 80,000 each or better? Thanks.

Can you get the two tickets to India on United. I know this is not Delta but with United restarting its flights to DEL on 4/1 you may be able to get the 80,000 miles per ticket.

I'd be interested to know what you find out.

A few weeks ago I ordered the 200'000 point reward to India on UA. Beforehand I did get confirmation from M+ that they issue coach award tickets to India for 80,000 miles.
Alongside with my request I sent an e-mail to Customer Service explaining the UA award to India, because the website award did not accept India.
I did get two e-mail aknowledgements. The one for the award request stating that they would get back to me if they needed more information, otherwise the award would be sent out within 2 -5 business days. The one for my e-mail stated how important my input was and I would get an answer very soon.

Well.... after waiting almost for 4 weeks and no response to either, as well as no acitivity on my account (checked on-line several times) I did call MR. Was passed to a couple of supervisors and finally ended up at the program main office somewhere in Utah.
A lady by the name of Nicole said that not all UA destinations were part of this award.
I politely pointed out that the Website states "UA Systemwide". She stated that "the destination India" was not part of their contract with UA.

I am very disappointed with Marriott because I was very much looking forward going to India where I have never been before. I had sincerely hoped I would be able to do so once I had reached the necessary points with Marriott. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Thanks for not letting this thread die, just yet!
I also had a similar experience...called Marriott in Oct. to request 2 tix to India on DL, therefore (I thought) giving me 160,000 DL SkyMiles. Like you, after waiting 2 weeks and getting no certs, miles or seeing points disappear from Marriott account, I called Marriott. Apparently they have decided that India is not an available destination for the DL points.
I would prefer to get Delta points over any other airline, as I dont want the tix to India, I just want to add to my pool of already accumulated SkyMiles so that my family and I will be able to plan some nice future vacations. Also, for all of Deltas negative points these days, they do still have some lower requirements as far as award miles (30,000 to Hawaii as opposed to 35,000 on AA) and with a family of 5 those few extra miles add up. So I really would prefer the award for Delta.
Would Marriott accept China or N. Africa on Delta, which might get me the 80,000 each? Any other suggestions would be great, as I prefer not to miss out on 40,000 points. THANKS !! Agents at both Delta and Marriott are very tight lipped on this award and dont offer much help.

Does anyone know how many miles it will take to get a free ticket on Delta to Dubai? This may provide the max miles.

I was unaware that one could convert the 2 tickets Marriott provides into your Skymiles account. Is this allowed? If lots of folks did this on the higher mileage tickets wouldn't Marriott tighten up this reward? Please explain.

If I may add on one more question- how likely would Marriott give two 5 night certs instead of one 10-night cert?

paradocs,
apparently what Marriott does on this reward (For 200,000 Marriott points receive 7 night stay plus 2 rt tix on various airline systems plus a few other small perks) is ask your intended flight destination (doesnt have to be where you are using your 7 day cert, just has to be a destination where there is a Marriott) and then whatever airline you tell them you want to use, they will then credit your FF account with however many points it takes to get 2 people there rt in coach. So yes, if you play your cards right, this is a very valuable award, and that is exactly why I am trying to find out the best way to maximize the points. There was some discussion here about 2 months ago that because this award had such value, it might quickly disappear, but Marriott seems proud to tout that this award is one of the best in the industry, and since it is relatively difficult to get to this level without being a real loyal Marriott customer, they probably wouldnt want to offend their top tier guests. But I do expect that one day soon it may go away or the point level may be raised.

As far as getting the 10-day certs broken into 2 5-day certs, I dont think they will do that on that particular award. But it never hurts to try.

Thanks Flyerwife, you have opened my eyes to a whole new dimension on using the 200,000 and 425,000 awards. I have used these awards before, but not anywhere near to the possibility you suggest. Another thread on the Marriott Board called "How to use M Points for Business or First Class" is also helpful on this topic.

paradocs,
believe it or not, the 200,000 award used to be even better and gave you a free rental car from Hertz for a week, but I think Marriott saw the huge smiles on their customers faces and decided they must be giving too much away. Just so you know, in order to use the hotel portion of the reward, you have to tell Marriott you are using a reward stay at the time of reservation. They book 50 weeks out. I am using mine for a week in Hawaii, room would normally be $400/ night, x 7 nights= value of room portion $2800. Not bad.

You all have me baffled. I last took this award some years ago and just got 2 free airline tix in the mail for TWA - no miles, etc. So, now what happens? Marriott puts miles into your ff account so you can get the tickets directly through the airline? What if you do not fly and just keep the miles? You do not get miles for the flights though, right?? Marriott then would not split a hotel award stay. I know Hilton will not either, nor Hyatt. At one time, they gave systemwide air but the car was only good in the US so you had to have time to take two vacations!

Karen:

It depends on the airline. The details for each airline are posted on the airline terms and conditions page at the MR website.

With some airlines, yes, you get the miles for the trip you request deposited into your frequent flyer account, and you can use them at your discretion.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 01-17-2001).]

Thanx FlyerWife and all those who have contributed to this very interesting and informative thread. I am kkenly interested in this since I have in excess of 200,000 points. I, too, did not know that you can get a voucher for a 7 night stay "uncoupled" from the flight segment. I naturally assumed that you flew at the same time and to the same destination as the location of the hotel you will be staying at.

As I now understand it, and PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG,

1) I can request a 7 night stay for any Marriott in the world for a certain time, as long as it is available;

2) I can request FF miles to perhaps ANY OTHER MARRIOTT IN THE WORLD, except perhaps those in India (based on this thread's comments);

3) It would appear that Delta is one of the airlines where you can obtain FF miles from Marriott to "bank" at a later date;

QUESTIONS:

1) How do I exactly request this "variant" of the 200,000 point award? Do I ask for the award to be split/decoupled -- will the agent know what I am talking about? Any specific Marriott Cust Srvc # I should call to accomplish this?

2) My reading of the airlines Terms and Conditions is that with only American or United can you get FF miles to bank. I don't see it for Delta or any other airline. Could you post the web URL where this is so and also for safety's sake advise me of all of the airlines that allow this?

3) What was the maximum amount of miles one was able to obtain from Marriott using this variant and into which FF account did one put them? Inasmuch as it is simple to open any FF account, even if I currently do not have one, I should be able to do this. Moreover, now that it is genuinely difficult to have miles expire in any account, there should be no problem about loss of these miles.

I would truly be indebted to all those who answer my questions, even if they were previously alluded to earlier, as I obviously did not "grok" those earlier answers!!

Thanx so much!!!!

I got a 200,000-point award from Marriott in December. They deposited 100,000 SkyMiles in my Delta account, so I know that Delta is handled that way. I could use those miles anyway I wanted. I also got a 7-day hotel certificate, which I requested to be issued in the name of my daughter. No problem.

Bruce

Has anyone gotten AA miles through one of these package deals?

[This message has been edited by pitflyer (edited 01-19-2001).]