Goober,

I stand corrected and am thankful I misread your post. I have tried to clarify my situation with Marriott all morning and have not been able to get through to them. I did get the qouote from you and do not know why I gave credit to Marriott. I have read Marriotts conditions and the one I posted is not listed anywhere on Marriotts site. I will delete my post to avoid confusion.

Does anyone know what the old award # would be for about 80,000 points to transfer it to an airline account. I do not have a booklet and Marriott has erased all of the old reward rates, even if you do a linked search on this forum. I'm thinking of a transfer to an airline and then a transfer to HHonors. I have just had too many battles with Marriott posting points, etc. Time to move on. This would be much appreciated.

You don't need the old table to transfer points to airline miles. In fact, with 80,000 points, you do better to use the new table. Claim a 565 (70k) and a 788 (10k). This will get you your choice of the following:
* 27,000 miles (old table would have given 22,000) on any of AA/AC/AS/BA/CO/DL/MX/NW/TW/UA/US/LatinPass
* 19,000 miles on CX/EK/KL/NH/QF/SQ/Qualiflyer
* 18 credits on WN

Depending on your exact balance, you could also buy points to reach a 565 and a 789 (20k) for 90,000. This would get you 30,000 miles on the first group, 21,000 on the second, or 20 Southwest credits (which count toward Companion status, remember).

Edited for minor stupidity.

[This message has been edited by silverpie (edited 04-25-2001).]

I am using an old reward in a couple weeks for a three night stay at The Lodge at Sonoma in Sonoma, CA. I redeemed that reward for 50,000 points, and it is now 78,000!! An increase of over 50%!!

In the last year I have pretty much depleted my Marriott points, so my question is should I switch my loyalty? Is Starwood or Hyatt now a better deal now based on these changes or are they all pretty much the same??

If anyone wants to grab a print out of Marriott's old travel award page (awards 712 to 716), here's the link to Google's cached version:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache...+rewards&hl=en

Or, you can just search for marriott travel rewards in Google. I'm not sure how often Google updates its cache...

- Peter

That's in an ideal world. Let's try out a few of these scenarios that could occur:

1. Plans change, and you need to add/subtract a day from the reservation.
2. The reservation is less than two weeks away, and you don't want to pay a ransom just to redeem your own points.
3. Same trip, but want to change to a different property.
4. You want to see what the points are from the previous award chart (now removed for "your convenience") and compare the two.
5. You want to go from a package deal to an a la carte travel itinerary due to finding a great airfare later, or vice versa.
6. You are on a long business trip and want to go from there to a vacation.
7. You want to upgrade your room.

Any of these common changes can be made with awards from the other major programs, but not at Marriott. Hyatt and Starwood provide same-day electronic awards, and Hilton can now turn an award around in 24-48 hours. Marriott still requires reliable snail mail, a location to mail it to (tough for road warriors) and several calls to complete the transaction. Unacceptable to a frequent traveler in the year 2001.

---

As for the Marriott/Starwood comparison, I would argue that the reason that myself (and perhaps a few others) spend 100-200 nights a year at Marriott was due to a rewards program that we felt was superior to the others. Now that the points have been devalued to levels comparable to other programs, add in the paperwork nightmare trying to redeem them, and you have a program that is now clearly inferior.

I will be allowing my Platinum card to expire this year and just jump between hotel promotions. As we just found out, loyalty is for chumps.

One question that I haven't seen addressed here is: Given the changes, does it now make sense to choose miles rather than points for stays at Marriott properties?

The conventional wisdom before the changes was that the points almost always offered better value than taking 3 miles/dollar. I wonder if that is still the case.

Tino,
the New Orleans Marriott you spoke of in a previous post is sold out the evening of May 5. Every other night of the Jazzfest (which is next week) is available not only for paying customers but for reward travel at the old conversion chart, in case you are interested. I tried to get booked into this property 3 months ago on award travel and could not get it because of the May 5 sellout but if you can work around that date it is there right now for you. This is after all the Jazzfest and since the dates are known so early it is not surprising that hotel rooms are scarce less than 2 weeks before the event.
While I am in no way sticking up for Marriott, several of your above points surprise me. Will Hilton or Starwood really allow you to change properties after reserving an award and guarantee that your newly desired location is available? Doesn't any traveler with last minute change of plans incur inconvenience and possible expense (as every airline charges ~$100 for changes)? The package deal I believe you are speaking of does not, in fact, tie you to air/hotel purchases and you make those reservations on your own, having secured airline miles for the trip and reserved flights independent of Marriott.

As a Plat elite member, as I am as well, your upgrades are essentially a non-issue, and as inconvenient as the removal of the old award chart is, certainly your handbook gives that information.
Since you are Plat and have travelled 100-200 nights at Marriott but only redeemed 2 small awards, I would think you would possibly (?) welcome an opportunity to use a reward, even at a larger point premium, for the last minute changes you may encounter, thereby being able to get into the very hotel that under the previous system would have been unavailable to you.
As I have tried Hiltons over the past months due to the promos, and felt that Marriott delivers a better product for the most part as far as rooms, locations, etc. those factors should also figure into your comparisons. You yourself posted only a week ago on this board about the devaluation of the Hilton and Hyatt awards, and you praised Marriott for it's many property locations.
Have many of the reward requirements changed? Yes. Will this be disastrous for most of us? We'll see in time. It is sad to see the 713 go, but we knew it was a good thing while it lasted, and were warned well in advance by people on this board that changes were to occur. Marriott has also given us til the end of July to order those rewards.
If I seem to be siding with Marriott, I'm not. I would love things to have stayed the way they were. But we all can't have our cake and eat it too. Something has kept you loyal to Marriott over the years, in your case it does not seem to be award redemption since you have not used many, and must have a large bank of points at this stage, as do I.
I apologize if the tone of this post is at all argumentative. I do not mean for it to be. My intention is simply to inform and compare. I do not live in the ideal world that you alluded to. These are facts. Travel on awards takes planning, perserverance, investigation and quick thinking in many instances.The luxury of time is not always there.

[This message has been edited by flyerwife (edited 04-25-2001).]

[This message has been edited by flyerwife (edited 04-25-2001).]

I always choose hotel points since I have enough airline miles.

Also if you are Silver elite you get 12 pts/dollar which later you can redeem for 4miles per dollar (30K pts -> 10K miles). If you are higher elite or redeem for more miles, this gets even better. So getting points is better than 3 miles/dollar

DOC 2 BE:

I considered waiting, but I don't think that's necessary. I still believe I will be able to return the hotel portion for 25% of the award value (50k points) or extend it if necessary. I ordered my 713 this morning since my last months charges finally posted pushing me just over 200k. It's probably ok to wait, but I wouldn't wait until the last minute in case you have trouble getting through.

I took the time on the phone to ask if the new corresponding all inclusive award (250k with cap controls, in this case) had the same trade in value for the hotel cert. Initially he thought it did .. at 25% of the point value, but then decided to check with a supervisor who checked with another office and they came back with "not sure, but probably .. if you return one now, it's 25% of the award total. We still have to figure this stuff out for the new awards. The sense was that this stuff hasn't changed, but it's not crystal clear yet. The question is what is the percentage for the no-cap all inclusives? Since the point difference is strictly for the hotel portion cap control and has nothing to do with the airline award unless you choose to use more miles for something like a UA standard no-cap award, it's not clear to me that the percentages shouldn't be higher for them.

I wish Marriott had an active lurker here.

Tino:

I agree that it's hard to use Marriott rewards for last minute stuff, but perhaps that will be a bit better with the new no-capacity stuff. However, the requirement of the paper certificate makes that option very hard to do with Marriott.

Silverpie:

Thanks for the interesting evaluation http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif I guess each traveler has to evaluate his/her situation, since there is no one answer.

-David

I, too, wish that Marriott was more electronic vs. snail mail, however I have always paid the $35.00 for the rush fee because I usually make my plans at the last minute (book hotel in advance for award stay, cancel if necessary).

Once, Marriott sent the cert airborne to the JW overseas because it was so last minute. $35.00 seems like a small price to pay and unfortunately, when I travel for leisure, it's with little or no planning; though I suppose I'm in the minority here.

I hate these changes - the 200,000 point reward was one of the major things that keeps me going to Marriott. I only wish it weren't ending.

so...from what I gather....the 713 now costs 235k,250k or 270k depending on what category hotel you want....now....the big question..are they still depositing the required amount of miles directly into your FF account?? I've cashed on the 713 several times and it's gone directly into my CO account 120K at a time...is this still possible?? Just costing more points?? I noticed that the hotels in Japan are category 5 which means that 235k will get you the same amount of FF miles (120K) if you tell them you're going to Asia on CO. You lose the option of staying later at a Category 6 or 7..and you pay 35k more...but it's STILL a good value. The FF miles alone almost pay for the 235k at 2 cents/mile.

GoodBye to the 10 day Choice Hotel awards (714). Goodbye to Marriott loyalty. I am extremely unhappy about the total disappearance of anything similar to the old 714 award. The 714 gave us up to 240,000 air miles and 2 10 day choice hotel certificates. It was the greatest reward value. We would use the 10 day as 2 rooms 5 days each, which would accomodate my family of 4 very comfortably. To get anything close to the 714, we would have to order 2x 270,000 award plus 2 x 3 day cat 7 at 82,000, which = 704,000 points. For cat 6 hotels it is 646,000 points. That is a 65% or 52% increase. I am no longer going out of my way to accumulate Marriott points anymore. I plan to go with whatever hotel chain has the best promo/rates at the time. I own 3 Marriott t/s and stay approx 50 nights in hotels a year. I find it difficult to recommend anyone to purchase a Marriott t/s when the loyal customer base is treated this poorly. There are too many changes, too complicated and not enough transition time. To make the best use of your current points, you have to modify your vacation plans for this year and next, which is too drastic for travellers who plan years in advance. Using the hotel certificates, requires reserving a year in advance. I used to a very loyal customer but no more.

Yes, and the fact that it is airline miles has been formalized in the charts, along with several new international airlines + Southwest. The destination no longer matters.

What matters is how many miles would you like deposited into your airline account, and what category hotel would you like?

-David

I stay quite a bit at both Marriott and Starwood and am also very disappointed in the increase in the points for awards. To begin with Marriott's awards hasn't appeal to me all that much and now appeals even less. I was able to cash in on the 200K award as I had read that the increase was coming.

Despite Silverpie's very carefully thought out post, Marriott awards still does not appeal to me because in trying to book the Maui Marriott for various dates several months away, I was told that there is no availability and basically had to reserve March 2002.

If I want to stay in Maui next week, Starwood will give me the room if I had the points and the room is available.

If I can't make the trip in March 2002 then I have to send in the certificate?

Try to book one of Marriott's top hotels like Paris - my money saids it's virtually impossible.

I'm actually going to concentrate on Hiltons and Hyatts over Marriott now.