Hmm. I tried all of that, but once at the Tracker page it just wanted to send me to the Residence Inn in St. Petersburg (FL). Weird, because I've never searched for that hotel before, so it's not pulling it out of my cookies. No idea why it doesn't work for me.

I just called. No hold time. Took 3-4 minutes.

Good to hear. Now when is WN going to open a station at PIE, so you can use that mandatory week at the RI? :p

I'm guessing you have to call'

Additional points required: First, earn the extra points needed to redeem your stay. Then, request your e-certificate when you reserve.

I would wager that arriving at TPA, taking 275 South then West across near Central Ave to the Treasure Island RI is faster than landing PIE and taking the congested roads of Clearwater to the beach. :p

You can fly Allegiant Air to/from PIE if you are lucky enough to live by one of their cities, I know because I was at the TI RI last week watching their jets at 1500 feet over the hotel landing PIE!

Has anyone with a hyphenated last name ever done a transfer out of Marriott to Southwest or another airline? I need to create a Rapid Rewards account but the system does not allow a hyphen. So I have to choose to either combine the name into one word or use a space in place of the hyphen. My MR account does have a hyphen. I am worried that the transfer is going to reject or get held up forever. I tried to reach out to Southwest but they couldn't really help me beyond saying to try it either way and see what happens.

I don't have an answer for you, but an observation over the years. It get to be hilarious some of the rules put into place and many don't fit real life situations, like your hyphenated name. MR has flagged my account several times for having an invalid email address, and it's especially funny when they send me an email to tell me!!!

It cannot be done online even with a 7 nights reward reservation. You don't seem to have booked a 7 nights reward stay with the 7 nights cert from the TP before.

What you described ONLY work for regular reward nights and does NOT work for the 7 nights cert because in reality the 7 nights reward booking would be split into a 5 nights cert AND a 2 nights cert which can ONLY be done from the side of CSR on their system.

We are currently staying at Marriott Sky City using the 7 nights cert - when I booked the stay in the exact way you described, Marriott site told me "you do not have enough points for the reward" despite the 7 nights cert is in the account. Had to call Marriott Reward (not the regular reservation line) to have the existing cert attached to the reservation.

Bottom line, the actual attachment of the cert can only be done by calling. This has been mentioned and discussed before and the conclusion is because the actual certs issued to the reward reservation are 5 and 2 nights. After all TP is not a frequently used reward redemption until now, Marriott has never had to spend the money to make it an automatic process like regular nights redemption.

I would disagree. Flying into PIE will always be closer to the beach than flying into TPA. You fly into PIE and then entrance to I-275 is only a 5-10 mins away. Driving from TPA is a 15 min drive across the bridge alone. Of course going the back way would be faster and the roads aren't that congested in Clearwater/St. Pete outside of normal rush hour.

We recently had an Allegiant MCI-PIE flight added. It's a nonstop listed at just under 3 hours, but this does not include time spent on the emergency landing for mechanical reasons and the time needed to book and fly some other airline from the diversion airport.

Actually I've probably ordered and used close to 10 TP (or its predecessor) awards in the past, but I've not tried to use the online tool to order it and I almost always have had a hotel award in mind when I ordered. So I don't remember having one of them sit, unused, in my online account.

But I agree with your assertion that it might well be due to the 5 night+2 night nature of the TP hotel award and thought that might be the case. Just that I'd never tried it myself.

If this is the case, do you think there is any possibility to cancel it and rebook as a 5 night and a separate 2 night elsewhere, nonconsecutive with 5 nights? What happens if the 7-night TP hotel rez is cancelled? Does it go back in as original?

I'm trying to find a 7-night award stay in various locations and it's proving very difficult.

I think the answer is no - doing a 5 plus 2 would be awesome, but it doesn't work. Otherwise FT would be all over it.

I've done TP's where we only slept in the beds 5 or 6 nights and then departed on a nighttime flight. Given the overall value of the TP it didn't bother me too much. It's still a better value for Marriott points than simple 5-night awards, assuming you know how to use frequent-flier miles properly.

I figured. Oh, well.

Meanwhile, I do have a current rez for 5 nights at a Cat 8 that I could add 2 nights to, I imagine (will check). And that's actually a great point re a late 6th night. In fact, my current flight out of Maui is at 9 PM, so we could add a day to our 5-night rez and basically use much of the 7th "day/night" till we drive off for the airport at dinner time. But that'll set me back 360k (if I do the 120k WN points, which would be my pick, I think, for the CP). I'd have to make up the difference between the 160k I've already got in the rez with 67k SPG points, which kind of pains me. I have 140k SPG right now, so that'd make a big dent.

I'm waffling b/c while we'd use the WN points and the companion pass, we probably wouldn't truly take advantage of it (we'll get maybe 3 trips a year with the CP b/c of other travel plans already in place. Do you guys think 67k SPG points are worth making the change from the 5-night rez of 160k to the 7-night TP?

Can I add a 7 night TP to a 5 night reservation, or does the reservation have to be 7 nights?

I'm not sure...might be one where you have to phone them.

I've never done a TP where I both wanted to check out early and was being charged an upgrade fee or some other fee per day. (Making it in my interest to actually shorten the stay.) So I've always just made them as 7 nights.