Usefulness of Marriott points?
 

Hi, I'm new to Marriott, but I should be comming into atleast 100,000 of them in th enext few months for work.

You guys are the Marriott point experts, so how do feel about them in relation to HH and SPG?

I see they have some interesting awards like the Orient Express. Has anyone tried to book that?

Marc

Marc,

The Marriott package rewards - despite their recent devaluation - still represent good value, with redemption for air/hotel packages on most major airlines. I redeemed ~250K points last year for a BA round-trip in F (YYZ-DAR) and a 6-night cert at any Category 6 (of 7) hotel worldwide.

The hotel rewards, in my experience, are somewhat harder to redeem than in other chains. The redemption process (via requests for paper certs) is problematic and creates problems for short-notice awards.

I've recently switched from Marriott (Plat) to SPG and Hilton, due more to their treatment of elite members than reward redemption.

FWIW,
-Zombie-

We did the Orient Express in October. It was a great experience. We needed a little flexibility to get an available date, but got one in a four day range in our plans.

We've also taken the cruise option, a couple of years ago. It was my first cruise experience and I wasn't aware of the add-ons and extensions, such as air and hotels, and optioanl excursions before and after the cruise, that could be gotten through the cruise lines in conjunction with the free cruise, at a price. I understand Marriott is better about this now.today

[This message has been edited by robbr (edited 03-05-2003).]