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I may have overlooked this, but I'm hoping for just a quick confirmation. The hotels that are dropping to 60K for the remainder of 2018...do I have to book and STAY during that timeframe, or can I book a stay for next summer and get the discounted rate?
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Originally Posted by mpeterson78
(Post 29998032)
I may have overlooked this, but I'm hoping for just a quick confirmation. The hotels that are dropping to 60K for the remainder of 2018...do I have to book and STAY during that timeframe, or can I book a stay for next summer and get the discounted rate?
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Originally Posted by flyer05
(Post 29998136)
The latter.
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Originally Posted by Happy
(Post 29997094)
You obviously do not know that the charts are NOT set in stone despite it has been published. Both Marriott and in particular SPG has NOT adhered to the published charts for any given hotels in the past. Happened many times. It has been questioned before, including myself, on a Westin LAX a couple years ago that supposedly to go down but it never did. In fact in SPG T&Cs somewhere it says hotel categories can be changed anytime without notice. If you go back to the annual category change thread each year, you would find at least 1/2 doz or more hotels did not come down as what the new year's charts said they would.
St. Regis Bora Bora 60K is a theoretical number on the chart but so far it seems no one has been able to book it - meaning ZERO availability thru end of 2018. We will see when Aug 1 comes, and when the property is eventually bookable with points, what the real, final, point cost would be. I would not be surprised a bit that eventually nobody would be able to fetch the "great value" with the widely touted "opportunity" by all the blogs in the universe. |
Come on Marriott, show us your cards. Don't be such wussy cowards! |
Originally Posted by MasterGeek
(Post 29998169)
Come on Marriott, show us your cards. Don't be such wussy cowards! |
Nights and flights or wait and see?
My wife is SPG gold and has about 140k SPG points at the moment, that vast majority of which we earned from credit card spend. Due to the changes in points earning on the SPG card, we don't expect to earn many SPG/Marriott points moving forward and likely won't have status again in the future. I'm trying to decide between redeeming points now through Marriott for a nights/flights package or maybe trying to book a five-night stay at a 2018 Category 7 property that would either be Cat 7 peak or Cat 8 in 2019. Our travel schedule isn't super flexible, and we likely won't do any traveling until next summer due to a baby on the way, so I'm not optimistic about our chances at snagging prime award space that works for us. If I knew what Marriott was going to do with floating 7-night certificates when the programs merge, this would probably be an easy decision, but we still don't know.
What would you do? Book a Cat 1-5 package and have 120k Marriott points left over, book a Cat 9 package and hope that the conversion nets us at least 120k Marriott points more than a Cat 1-5, or wait and try to book a nice property during the August-December 2018 period where everyone and their mom is going to be angling for the same award space? Thanks in advance for any advice! |
Originally Posted by MasterGeek
(Post 29998169)
Come on Marriott, show us your cards. Don't be such wussy cowards! OLD CHART https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...32c9bb03ae.png NEW CHART https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d857ce29cf.png Marriott will handle these certificates generously after August. Announcing that they will do so would create a massive amount of demand for the current certificates. By lack of info, they will keep demand down until it’s too late to buy the current certificates. I don’t think they would keep selling packages today if they planned on pulling the rug out from underneath everyone. I also believe Marriott will continue to allow people to upgrade and downgrade categories after August 1st. |
I'm so conflicted on snagging one of these. I'm sitting right at 255k (with the easy ability to add the last 15k from UR / AMEX if truly worth it) and can't decide whether to hold the points and go after the "Category 8 available temporarily as Category 7" play or cash in the 255k (or supplement up to 270k) for a Cat 1-5 + UA/AS.
I tend to think airline miles are more valuable (access to my company corporate rates for personal travel means I can usually find reasonable rates) but there are some hotels that are very attractive in the "8 as 7 space" Decisions decisions |
Originally Posted by Duke787
(Post 29998333)
I'm so conflicted on snagging one of these. I'm sitting right at 255k (with the easy ability to add the last 15k from UR / AMEX if truly worth it) and can't decide whether to hold the points and go after the "Category 8 available temporarily as Category 7" play or cash in the 255k (or supplement up to 270k) for a Cat 1-5 + UA/AS.
I tend to think airline miles are more valuable (access to my company corporate rates for personal travel means I can usually find reasonable rates) but there are some hotels that are very attractive in the "8 as 7 space" Decisions decisions You need 270K Marriott points which would convert into 132K UA miles or 120K AS miles and 7 nights in a category 1-5 hotel. If you cancel the travel certificate today they will give a refund of just 45K points. If Marriott refunds 45K points that will mean you’ll pay 225K Marriott points for 132K United miles (or 1.36 cents per UA mile or 1.5 cents per AS mile ). |
Originally Posted by entrada
(Post 29996030)
So I called in to upgrade my Cat 1-5 travel package to a Cat 8. But the representative said the cost would be 135,000 points. I expected the cost to be 90,000 points which is the difference in price between the Cat 8 (360,000) and the Cat 1-5 (270,000). She could not sell me the upgrade because the balance in my account was only 90,000. I believe the reason she quoted 135,000 points is that the value of the Cat 1-5 is 45,000. But she said they are two different transactions. If she cancels the Cat 1-5 it will take 2-3 days for the 45,000 to register. Was she handling the upgrade incorrectly or is this how others have had the process go?
07/18/2018 Rewards 5 Night Travel Package Category 1-5 Hotels 07/18/2018, Cancelled 10,000 Rewards +10,000 Points 07/18/2018 Rewards 5 Night Partial Package Category 8 Hotels 07/18/2018, Ordered -75,000 Rewards -75,000 Points 07/18/2018 5 Night Travel Package Category 1-5 Hotels 07/18/2018, Cancelled 10,000 Rewards +10,000 Points |
Another DP: called in to get our final Cat 1-5 package. Called the line on the TP page; on hold maybe 3 minutes, transferred to rewards for another hold of 15 or so. CSR fully understood what I wanted, and was done in less than 5 minutes.
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It's been a while since I redeemed a travel package. How long does it take to get the airline miles? The phone agent says it will take 3 business days, but I have read reports saying it posted instantly. I request United miles. Also can you use the 7 day certificate to book a reservation online or do you need to call the phone line to apply it? I am assuming it should work online.
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Originally Posted by Time traveller
(Post 29999182)
It's been a while since I redeemed a travel package. How long does it take to get the airline miles? The phone agent says it will take 3 business days, but I have read reports saying it posted instantly. I request United miles. Also can you use the 7 day certificate to book a reservation online or do you need to call the phone line to apply it? I am assuming it should work online.
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Originally Posted by Time traveller
(Post 29999182)
It's been a while since I redeemed a travel package. How long does it take to get the airline miles? The phone agent says it will take 3 business days, but I have read reports saying it posted instantly. I request United miles. Also can you use the 7 day certificate to book a reservation online or do you need to call the phone line to apply it? I am assuming it should work online.
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Originally Posted by tth6133
(Post 29999196)
Transfer is not instant and transfer time varies by airlines. Takes about 1 business day for miles to show up in your UA account. You need to call to attach your certificate to a reservation.
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Originally Posted by Time traveller
(Post 29999218)
Thanks for the info. I will wait a few days to check my United account. I tried to book a 7-day stay online and the certificate didn't show up. So as you mentioned, I will have to call in to make a reservation.
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Marriot Travel Package Novice questions
Good day all
Im planning to redeem for the 200K travel package and just had some novice questions. How long does it take to get the hotel certificate after contacting Marriott to swap my points for one of these travel packages? After I get the hotel certificate, do I need to ring the same Marriot number to book the 7 night stay? Im overseas in mid August and wondering if I have enough time to do this, that is if I was to ring them on the 27th July when I will get my full 200K points in my Marriot account I would like to have this transaction completely prior to August 1st if possible - as Im bit lost with how the new system will work in terms of the travel packages. In addition which airline is considered the most beneficial in terms of the travel package options? I'm in Australia so will travel via Qantas or other airlines that travel from Australia. I assume I need to make a account to that respective airline prior to ringing Marriot to obtain my 55K points? Thanks for your help |
1) Once you contact Marriott to redeem your travel package the hotel e-certificate portion will be loaded into your account immediately. The airline points will take longer depending on which airline you choose.
2) You can call or visit Marriott website to book your 7 night stay. Best to check award availability on the website and complete reservation which will give you the opportunity to attach the e-certificate that was deposited into your Marriott account. 3) Yes, if you contact Marriott on July 27 the travel package will be processed that day. 4) Since you are located in Australia I would assume Qantas would probably be a good option but figure out where you'd like to travel and the redemption rates as you'd only have 55K points. 5) Correct you will need to sign up an airline FF account where you want the points to be transferred. Hope this helps.... Good Luck :) |
Clearly Marriott knows people are wondering if there is an opportunity for positive arbitrage with these travel packages and they likely want to avoid such a windfall opportunity for obvious reasons. They also dont want the negative PR of forcefully canceling these certs for 45K points either. So my guess will be that these floater certificates will remain in people's accounts and be attachable up to the expiration date based on the legacy category (pre Aug 1 category). So it will be manual process wherein you call customer service and say I have a Cat 1-5 cert I want to use, the rep will say 'Ok, this is based on the old Cat 1 - 5 categories, which hotel are you looking to apply this to?" and then based on the response, they'll look at the legacy categories and apply the cert. After Aug 1 2019, all the legacy certs will have expired and then Marriott can do a across the board devaluation for all the properties which we expect anyways.
Even if the above doesnt happen, I dont really see the windfall option happening either. Because if its such a great opportunity, whats stopping us from canceling a reservation with a cert already attached and making it a floater and taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity at that point? |
I feel pretty confident the legacy hotel categories will not be used for anything after the merge.
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Originally Posted by PrivatePilot
(Post 29999581)
So my guess will be that these floater certificates will remain in people's accounts and be attachable up to the expiration date based on the legacy category (pre Aug 1 category). So it will be manual process wherein you call customer service and say I have a Cat 1-5 cert I want to use, the rep will say 'Ok, this is based on the old Cat 1 - 5 categories, which hotel are you looking to apply this to?" and then based on the response, they'll look at the legacy categories and apply the cert.
Originally Posted by PrivatePilot
(Post 29999581)
After Aug 1 2019, all the legacy certs will have expired and then Marriott can do a across the board devaluation for all the properties which we expect anyways.
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MR to MR transfers
The systems are still down. The exec told me they don't know when the System will be up- might even take as long as a week. I smell something funny
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I would like to book the Marriot travel package with the 7 night certificate for a stay in Courtyard Hong Kong before August 1, 2019This will be a room with one bed.
I would like to add my brother's name on as additional guest. He will be going with his girlfriend. Would they both have the elite benefits of lounge and breakfast if I am not there? |
Elite benefits are only available for the member.
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I apologize if this is a stupid question.
I have a "floater" TP category 1-5 certificate in my account. It is over a year old; I called and got the expiration date extended some time ago. Is there a way to attach that certificate to a reservation made on-line or do I have to call to do that? I've looked and don't see a place to attach it. |
Originally Posted by zachary
(Post 30000744)
I apologize if this is a stupid question.
I have a "floater" TP category 1-5 certificate in my account. It is over a year old; I called and got the expiration date extended some time ago. Is there a way to attach that certificate to a reservation made on-line or do I have to call to do that? I've looked and don't see a place to attach it. |
Originally Posted by Kalboz
(Post 29998324)
Marriott already gave us a huge hint, TP devaluation is coming up! So, get your travel packages and and make sure you attach them to specific properties (don't leave them floating):
Marriott will handle these certificates generously after August. Announcing that they will do so would create a massive amount of demand for the current certificates. By lack of info, they will keep demand down until it’s too late to buy the current certificates. I don’t think they would keep selling packages today if they planned on pulling the rug out from underneath everyone. I also believe Marriott will continue to allow people to upgrade and downgrade categories after August 1st. Thanks. |
Originally Posted by ScottTexas
(Post 30000786)
If I attach my Category 1-5 cert to a specific property now, can I change it later?
Originally Posted by ScottTexas
(Post 30000786)
Are there any Cat 5 properties that we know will later be LESS valuable that I should avoid in terms of choosing which property to attach the cert to?
[Source: Dan's Deals]
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Originally Posted by ScottTexas
(Post 30000786)
Newbie question on these TPs. If I attach my Category 1-5 cert to a specific property now, can I change it later? Are there any Cat 5 properties that we know will later be LESS valuable that I should avoid in terms of choosing which property to attach the cert to?
Thanks. Currently I have a Cat 6 cert attached to a Cat 6 hotel for a stay in November in a city that we definitely would need the stay. The hotel will go down from current Cat 6 (30K/night) to Cat 4 (as current Cat 5 at 25K/night). We do not know would we get back the difference of 30K pts with hotel downgrade to a lower Category. In the past when a hotel is downgraded, IIRC, Marriott would rebook the hotel and refund the point difference - in this case it is 30K additional. The process is NOT automatic. You will need to call and the rep can take care of it without touching the reservation already in place. SPG just announced they now can do it the Marriott way versus in the past SPG requires a cancellation of the existing award and then rebook it with the lower category - this can be problematic when hotel no longer has award nights available! Given Lurker said SPG now will do the Marriott way after Aug 1st, I imagine Marriott would maintain the same mechanism in the past, i.e. refund the point difference should the hotel cat goes down. People would also need to modify / cancel existing award stays due to many legitimate reasons. Unfortunately Marriott has not given any information in this area. Though based on how SPG would model the current Marriott way, I am somewhat confident that Marriott would keep the old mechanism to handle such situations, Therefore it comes down to your own personal evaluation whether you would book a hotel that would go down in pt/night level after August 1st. In our situation, there is no other alternative before August 1st, i.e. there is one porperty at Cat 3, which is included in the Cat 1 to 5 cert anyway, but at a less convenient location. Next came to Cat 6, Cat 8 and Cat 9. The Cat 8 actually would do down form current 40K to 35K/night but of course not bookable at that level now. So we booked the Cat 6 which seems the best compromise. |
I am wondering if I should really attach the 7 night category 6 Courtyard HK certificate for a stay later this year. It is Category 6 right now but after the change, it will be Category 4.
The CSR I spoke with actually booked me for a 5 night travel certificate for Cat 6 for 250k (120k to Alaska Airlines) I told her I wanted the 7 night travel package for Cat 6 (300k) She cancelled the 5 night travel certificate but still deducted the 250k plus the 300k for the 7 night package. I am now in the negative for my account. I called CSR back to explain the situation and CSR said it will take 7 to 10 business day to receive the 250k back. Had I known the problem, I would have just kept the 5 nights, Cat 6, 120k Alaska air package for 250k How many days should it take for the miles to transfer to Alaska Air? |
Remember that the categories are not comparable. HK Courtyard is dropping 5K to 25 so it will be the equivalent of a current Cat 5. This is precisely why I am letting a 1-5 cert float for a redemption at that property.
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Originally Posted by metoo
(Post 30001111)
I am wondering if I should really attach the 7 night category 6 Courtyard HK certificate for a stay later this year. It is Category 6 right now but after the change, it will be Category 4.
The CSR I spoke with actually booked me for a 5 night travel certificate for Cat 6 for 250k (120k to Alaska Airlines) I told her I wanted the 7 night travel package for Cat 6 (300k) She cancelled the 5 night travel certificate but still deducted the 250k plus the 300k for the 7 night package. I am now in the negative for my account. I called CSR back to explain the situation and CSR said it will take 7 to 10 business day to receive the 250k back. Had I known the problem, I would have just kept the 5 nights, Cat 6, 120k Alaska air package for 250k How many days should it take for the miles to transfer to Alaska Air? Read back upthread there was a poster said Marriott audited his 5 night cert and eventually took 30K from his account to exchange it to a 7 nights cert, without any notification to him. He went all the way to Exec Office but was told the plain fact, he is not eligible for 5 nights cert. There were a few similar DPs on Reddit. So I am not sure if taking the 5 nights cert when rep offered, would be a sure thing, especially if the stay is indeed needed, not a dummy place holder. Happened to a friend in somewhat similar situation - he canceled an existing booking and wanted to use the cert for a different hotel. The rep canceled the booking alright but the cert did not come back. Instead his point bal went up by 45K pts. The rep claimed the cert would come back quickly. Of course it did not, and remained not the next morning. This snafu happened on Friday evening. He called many times and nobody could fix it. Then he called Saturday yesterday a few times and eventually got a competent rep who deconstructed the whole thing and now his balance went back to what it should be and the re-issued cert is attached to the new hotel he wants. He also had a misfortune in June when calling to extend an expiring cert, the rep extended a wrong cert which did not expire until Nov. The June expiry cert of course disappeared. He did not catch it until a few days ago when he was ready to book hotel. Took many calls but eventually the disappeared cert was reinstated - by way of 1) deducted 45K pts from his account on a rep who failed to re-deposit the 45K pts back to make him whole. 2) Many more calls later a competent rep deposited 45K back to his account to make him whole. Correct process is to deduct 45K and deposit 45K on the same call but with how Marriott CS is going these days, he would be lucky enough to get back his cert that previous rep did not extended correctly in June. In light of the above, I am skeptical the points would come back by themselves without human intervention. Just call back and eventually you will get a rep that is capable to fix it. |
Frequent Miler has a post on navigating the phone tree to get to a rep who knows Travel Packages.
https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2018/06/26/navigating-marriotts-phone-prompts-to-book-a-travel-package/ |
Lucky's Theory On How Marriott Will Handle Existing Travel Packages
https://onemileatatime.boardingarea....avel-packages/ My inclination is that Marriott will do a direct category conversion, which is to say that a Category 1-5 certificate will continue to be valid at Categories 1-5. That would be very generous. I also don’t think it would be unreasonable for them to downgrade each certificate by one category, meaning a Category 1-5 certificate would be valid at Categories 1-4 going forward. But personally I think anything less than that would be stingy and unfair. So, with this in mind, I’ll share what I plan on doing with my points in a subsequent post, since I’m sitting on a lot of Starpoints. |
Originally Posted by OssianBlue
(Post 30001256)
Frequent Miler has a post on navigating the phone tree to get to a rep who knows Travel Packages.
https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.c...ravel-package/ Reward Details
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Can TP used to book Marriott vacation clubs like this Category 8:
Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club |
Originally Posted by yoyo
(Post 30001643)
Can TP used to book Marriott vacation clubs like this Category 8:
Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club |
Originally Posted by Kalboz
(Post 30001622)
Followed his instructions today, and it took 25-minutes and then I was disconnected :eek: Received the following email
Reward Details
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Originally Posted by metoo
(Post 30001111)
I am wondering if I should really attach the 7 night category 6 Courtyard HK certificate for a stay later this year. It is Category 6 right now but after the change, it will be Category 4.
The CSR I spoke with actually booked me for a 5 night travel certificate for Cat 6 for 250k (120k to Alaska Airlines) I told her I wanted the 7 night travel package for Cat 6 (300k) She cancelled the 5 night travel certificate but still deducted the 250k plus the 300k for the 7 night package. I am now in the negative for my account. I called CSR back to explain the situation and CSR said it will take 7 to 10 business day to receive the 250k back. Had I known the problem, I would have just kept the 5 nights, Cat 6, 120k Alaska air package for 250k How many days should it take for the miles to transfer to Alaska Air? |
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