username

I have never redeemed any rewards with Marriott. I have some questions about the process:

1 - will elite upgrades be granted when using an award? (It confuses me since there is also an upgrade award. Is that for non-elites?)

2 - how are the availability with the standard rewards? Does the inventory get adjusted regularly and unused inventory released for rewards as we get closer to the date? Do Elite members have a different inventory?

3 - if I give a reward to someone, would the person "inherit" my elite treatments? (Starwood puts both names on the reservation so the person might get upgrades...)

4 - this whole paper certificate business sounds a little inefficient. Are they going electronic any time soon?

Thanks,

Steven

bltst2

1. I'm not sure if they are supposed to provide elite benefits, but I always have recieved them.

2. Availability is tough. I don't think elite members get extra inventory. They do have a premium "ANYTIME" award, which gets you a room, no matter what, at a 50 percent premium of points. (So, if an award costs 50,000 points normally - but it is unavailable, for 75,000 you can get it)

3. Book it under your name and MR number, then simply change the name on the reservation later. No problems.

4. I think that is why Marriott uses the paper, people lose them, forget about them, never redeem them. I've not heard of any electronic changes to the system.

chai

Topic of this thread seemed relevant, so I thought I'd try posting my question here, too.

I've gotten a couple of the free Category 1--4 certificates from the fall promo. I see that they are valid for studio or one-bedroom units at Residence Inns. However, when I used the corporate Website, specifying that I was using the standard Category 4 award (which I assume means no auto upgrades without an additional certificate), the Residence Inn in New Orleans also showed 2-bedroom units available for reward booking. So I snagged one.

Anyone know---will this actually not be honored by the front desk with just the Cat 4 certificates I hold? Is Marriott assuming that I know that I need some kind of upgrade certificate (at additional points expense) to claim the unit on check-in? Or can I rest assured that if they offered the 2-bedroom, I really can have it?

TIA!

TrojanHorse

When did you receive your certs? I haven't received any of mine yet?

flyerwife

chai,

The Category 4 Weekend certificates indicate that the accompanying reservations should be made by calling 1-800-MARRIOTT, and not booked on line as with the regular awards. The certificate says that if you fail to do this, you will be charged the full room rate.

Just to be sure, I would call the 800 number to confirm that your certificate is indeed valid for the reservation you have made.

TrojanHorse,

We received our certificates separately, about 2 weeks after the 3rd eligible weekend stay. If you check your statement on line, you should see a notation from Marriott identifying the issuance of this certificate. Ours came about 2 weeks later. They look very similar to the usual award certs, and are valid through Dec. 31, 2002.

chai

A-ha! Thanks very much, flyerwife.

TrojanHorse---I got them in the same timeframe that flyerwife describes, and there was a note in my online account statement, too, as she says. Good luck getting yours!

PhoebeSnow

I too booked a 2 room suite at a Residence Inn (Savannah, GA). I called the hotel and since the reward is good for a standard room or 1 BDRM suite, you pay the difference between the 1 BDRM suite rate and 2 BDRM suite rate.

chai

PhoebeSnow,

Very helpful! Many thanks.

Flyerwife---looked at the certificate again. It doesn't actually say you can't make a reservation online; the wording seems mainly designed to reemphasize that you need to tell them in advance that it's a reward stay. But I'm going to call the 800 number now anyway and will post what I find.

[This message has been edited by chai (edited 12-20-2001).]

OK, here's what 800-MARRIOTT said: you should be able to make the reservations for the Rewarding Weekend nights online just as you would make a regular award res, although there's the small issue (apparently not a significant one?) that the reward code for the Rewarding Wkends promo is W14, which is not a standard reward code. But the agent seemed to feel that this was really not significant and would make no difference to the hotel at check-in, unless you were trying to use an RW cert during the week, which is of course against the rules for RW. The main thing is that as with regular award reservations, you must indicate when making the reservation that you are using an award cert as payment.

Regarding booking a 2-bedroom at an RI with this or any other reward certificate: Marriott Rewards told me that the rules technically indicate that you must get an upgrade certificate (5K points per night) to stay in a room larger than a 1-bed. However, the agent I spoke with also said that you can call the hotel individually and see whether they will allow you to just pay the rate difference (1- vs. 2-bed) at the front desk instead of redeeming points for the upgrade. This particular hotel (New Orleans RI on St. Joseph) said when I called that paying the difference is OK.

[This message has been edited by chai (edited 12-20-2001).]

TrojanHorse

thanks all, I just checked, not only is it posted on the website for my account, but I hadn't opened that piece of mail. I guess I should open ALL my mail before I post

jscamp2

>>1 - will elite upgrades be granted when using an award? (It confuses me since there is also an upgrade award. Is that for non-elites?)

Per the terms & conditions, there are no elite benefits when using a certificate, and it is good for a "general" (usually non-view)room. The actual practice varies from hotel to hotel as to whether they still give you your elite benefits or not, but they can always fall back to "We don't have to give you any additional benefits on a point stay" if they want/need to. Let me add that
I only saw an RI give a larger room to a person oncewithout an upgrade cert or having them pay the difference, and that was because he was using a certificate a level higher which was (you guessed it!) 5K points more per night, and he stayed at their hotel about 3 months of the year, so it was "as a favor to one of our best customers."

>>2 - how are the availability with the standard rewards? Does the inventory get adjusted regularly and unused inventory released for rewards as we get closer to the date? Do Elite members have a different inventory?

Availability is dependent on the size of the hotel, primarily. Most hotels set aside 10% of their rooms for point redemption under "normal" rewards. Then there's the possibility of an event or a busy season or a blackout date which can further limit the availability, as well as individual hotel policies. I know of one hotel in CT that doesn't accept rewards on weekends in the summer. Paris Champs-Elysee for a long time would only accept the "anytime" rewards, and Rome still won't accept "anytime" certificates, although the Ambasciotori Palace Concorde (partner) will, at least thru 12/31/01. As was mentioned above, the "anytime" certificate will blow though a blackout and open up the "general room pool" if the "regular points" rooms are booked up, but at a 50% premium.

>>3 - if I give a reward to someone, would the person "inherit" my elite treatments? (Starwood puts both names on the reservation so the person might get upgrades...)

Since you technically don't get elite benefits when using a reward, no, but since the reservation does get flagged with your elite status as long as it's your MR account # attached to it, it becomes up to the hotels again, as mentioned in my reply to #1.

>>4 - this whole paper certificate business sounds a little inefficient. Are they going electronic any time soon?

Even internally there was conflicting information. After 9-11, Jan Girard sent out an e-mail to the MR reps saying that the planned rollout of "e-certs" in 2002 was being scrapped as part of the cutbacks requested, but then Lynne Hildebrand said in the live chat that it was still planned. I asked around and the biggest obstacle seemed to be that there are a lot of franchise properties that simply aren't set up to be able to receive the information electronically, and to prevent confusion, it has to be rolled out everywhere at once so until all the hotels' computers are upgraded it can't happen.

And the question about the RI's needing upgrade certs has been answered already, but let me also clarify that even Gold and Platinum level elites still need the upgrade certificate for the 2 BR/Penthouse type room.

(And yes, I used to work there, if you couldn't tell.)

paradocs

I am staying at the Park City Marriott. I was talking to the front desk manager today about Marriott Rewards. He says at this hotel they normally don't let more than 10 rooms per night go to an award. There are 199 rooms total. So, that's 5% in this case. Doesn't seem like very much!

BTW: I think this is my 3 hundreth post!