Just to follow up:

We ended up ticketing our honeymoon last week. We ended up cutting out SFO and Napa Valley.. we decided it would just be toooo busy with it included and we can always do Napa for a week another time where Thailand is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We decided it made more sense to just stick with Thailand the whole time. I had a new confirmation on hold until midnight on Thursday last week. At 10pm I was having it ticketed when I started thinking about BKK. I ended up (ridiculously fortunately) getting disconnected with the USAirways CSR while she was double checking the mileage needed.

In the end, after discussing with my Fiance, we decided to change up one little thing in the itinerary...

Outbound
JFK > LAX (USAirways First Class)
LAX > BKK (Thai Airways Business Class)

Arrive in BKK at 6am... Depart BKK the following night at 7pm (intentionally!)

BKK > HKT (Thai Airways Business Class)

------------------------------------------------------------
Inbound
HKT > BKK (Thai Airways Business Class)
BKK > FRA (Thai Airways Business Class)
FRA > JFK (Lufthansa Business Class)

We decided while we want to spend our entire honeymoon in Thailand, it just wouldn't be right not to at least spend 36 hours in BKK! While it makes the trip a bit more busy, I really feel like it adds to the overall trip! We want to spend the majority of the honeymoon relaxing and doing nothing but BKK is now in as well!

We are still deciding on a hotel in BKK but we will definitely be picking out a top tier one for the night. We are then staying at the JW Phuket for 7 nights... To finish up the trip we are going to make a last minute decision. We can either extend our time at the JW Phuket by 2 nights or... we can stay at Trisara or Amanpuri for 2 nights (3 FULL days) in the end.

I'm really very happy with our final itinerary and I want to thank everyone for the help! If anyone has any thoughts on the hotel situations described above, I welcome all suggestions. Thank you again everyone for all of the help!!

:D

Congrats on the booking. I am glad it worked out. They are points well spent. The layover in Bangkok will be nice.

If you want to stay in the Marriott family, I recommend the JW. Its only a Cat 5, but a TOP notch property with (IMHO) the best lounge in the Marriott family. (I think you were concerned about not being a Plat next year. Golds get Lounge access too.)

If you want to venture outside of Marriott, consider the Mandarin Oriental or Peninsula. Great properties on the river. (Marriott has a property on the river as well-Bangkok Resort and Spa.)

ENJOY!

Sounds like a great trip ^ We spent our honeymoon in Thailand too and loved it - cannot recommend the JW Phuket highly enough, it's an outstanding hotel and they really looked after us well.

In BKK I would definitely recommend the JW as well - the lounge there is absolutely incredible, which is a slight downside actually since you're only there for 1 day and it's actually hard to drag yourself out of there to go explore the city when it's boiling hot outside!

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions - very familiar with that part of the world.

Thank you both! Those are the 3 hotels we were looking at for BKK. The JW, The Oriental, and the Peninsula.

Funny enough, if the JW is a category 5, I just received my "Premier Visa Anniv. Free Night, 1-5 Hotels" from my Marriott Credit Card. It actually expires 11/30/2011. Has anyone had any luck extending this for 6 months? That could take care of the BKK hotel too! My Fiance was leaning towards the JW because she said it seemed to have a really good location!

Thats a GREAT use of that cert. We have been able to extend it 30 days. 6 mos, I think will be a challenge. You can try. Some people have said they have been able to reserve on the cert even though it was expiring before the stay. I think thats bad advice. All Marriott info points to the STAY needing to be completed before expiration.

(FYI-the JW is a great location. You may checkout restaurants before your stay. We were just at the JW for 5 nights. We ate almost every meal in the lounge. We would do things during the day. (Maybe eat lunch out.) Enjoy the lounge in the evening--alcohol included.

Thanks again! I will try to extend the cert but to be honest, if I can't, I guess I can't complain too much! I may just stay at the JW anyway for the location and the lounge! This is going to be such an amazing trip. It's kind of sad though as I think this is going to be my last hurrah. I have 3k points in my account now with a new job and no travel in my future. I DO have one 7 night cert at a category 1-5 which I will eventually upgrade (if need be) for one last little vacation.... but all of my Marriott fun is coming to an end. :( What a way to go out though!! :D

Edit: By the way, with my rollover nights and my credit card nights I'm already over 75 nights for the year (with 2 nights of actual stays). Platinum for at least another year! :D

Hotel Cert expired
 

I did the AA transfer last year (June) before the AA/MR tiff ended that relationship

I was able to use one of my hotel certs

I didn't use my second one

I forgot about it to be honest

Its now missing from my account and I presume its expired. It must be, since I made the transaction sometime during June 2010.

What are the odds that I can get it reinstated? I tried calling this a.m. when I noticed it but the cust service desk is closed until Tuesday I presume

You could try calling Marriott customer care over the holiday weekend to see if they will reinstate the room certificate. It would be worth it even if they charge a moderate penalty (around 50,000 points).

I think they consider the hotel part of these awards to be worth about 45,000 MR points (the rest being used in the conversion to miles). You may be able to get that added back to your account even if the certificate itself has expired (sort of "selling it back" since you didn't use it), even if they won't extend the validity retroactively. (Just a suggestion, can't say for sure.)

thanks, with the holiday I have to wait till tomorrow to find out

Marriott travel package & airline xfer question
 

Thinking of redeeming a Marriott travel package and, since they no longer partner with AA (my most often used carrier), is there any opinion as the best program into which to transfer the 100,000 miles?

With the current landscape in 2011, I'd probably convert into UA as long as I had some sort of *A status.

Since this thread began, UA and AA have added true one-way redemption on their own metal, which for me has increased the value of those miles by quite a bit. The UA/CO route map means that's a lot of metal. :)

Exception would be if I had a use for one of the awards that's a specific niche for AC or US. I'm not as familiar with those programs in 2011, but IIRC AC has an advantageous stopover and routing rules, meaning you can put together the backbone of an RTW on a pretty cheap award. I also recall that US subdivides Asia a bit differently than some other carriers, creating a couple niches there for cheaper awards.

In addition to one-ways, I've always liked the comparatively low taxes on awards with UA and AA. I know US is a bit higher (although I don't think they're in BA-land) and I'm not sure about AC.

Thanks, pinniped. I don't have status on *A. Is there a difference in redemption for elite members? I currently do have 83K on United....could add to the pot.

I would choose UA as the best. You just can't beat *Alliance for availability, redemption and top notch airlines that aren't (yet) charging too high of fuel surcharges.

No difference in redemption that I'm aware of. UA 1K's get additional access to coach inventory on UA metal.

I'd just be hesitant to put a bunch of miles into an alliance where you don't hold status. It sort of locks you in to redeeming premium cabin.

Of course, FT'ers like to redeem premium cabin...but I also like having the option to use a few miles to take care of what would have been an expensive coach trip. (e.g., US to/from Canada.) MCI-ORD-YUL is always about $300-350 each way. I don't need F on those short flights...it's a perfect place for 12,500 miles. As long as I have a basic low-tier status, I know I can get an acceptable seat, check a bag if necessary, and get a little bit of help during irrops. It won't be a great trip but it won't be an awful one either...

With AA top-tier, I wonder if someone in the *A would comp you mid-tier...

I just received a CO comp to Silver a couple weeks ago...my UA 1P will expire but hopefully (if all goes well in the merger) the CO Silver will live one more year. CO is definitely still comping (e.g., they aren't saying "Email United if you want a comp"), but I'm still worried that somehow the computers will blend 1P through 2/12 with Silver through 2/13 and just dump the Silver entirely.

I would have to vote for AA. 20K from Hawaii to Europe off-peak with a free "stopover" in BOS (as in two vacations) cannot be beat. Essentially only 10k to Hawaii and Europe each. UA does not allow stop overs on one way awards.

One problem with reviving a five year old thread is that the title may not precisely fit the current question. dalm cannot redeem Marriott points for AA miles. The question really is "Which Marriott partner domestic airline has the most valuable miles."

Off to Marriott country.

Will Travel Package Miles Earn Delta 100% Bonus
 

I was thinking about booking a travel package with the 120K miles option and was wondering if the current Delta 100% Bonus on transfers will apply?

Couldn't find anything specifically regarding Delta, although I did find quite a bit on the previous US Air 50% bonus on transfers that worked.

I always thought that those bonuses were only for transfer and buy, and this would only work if the promo was for hotel transfers.

If this does work then I will definetely be doing a 120K delta package as soon as I crack my megabonus! 270K Marriott for 240K miles+7 nights in a cat 5 would be awesome!

Back when AA was a partner they had a 35% bonus on transfers to AA that were NOT travel packages. Because I wanted to stay at a property I ended up redeeming for a travel package and ended up getting the bonus even though it explicitly said it wouldn't happen...

The US air bonus worked with a travel package I did earlier this year. Bought a Cat 6 package with 120k miles and earned a 60k bonus from us air.

I just looked at the delta board and those transfers that get the 100% bonus are transfer between skymiles accounts not hotel point transfers into Delta.

No
 

The current Delta Promo is on transfer of miles from delta account to delta account (which cost $$$).
Is not like the current promo they have on Amex transfer.

Delta has run a transfer promo with Marriott in the past, usually towards end of the year.

On those promo, the ravel package transfer has received the bonus.

Hi! I'm putting together a trip to Phuket for next year as well, and I was wondering if you could tell me what you ended up using in points for those travel plans.

And I guess to be specific, how many points/how many miles as part of the package. Thanks!

Seth

Sure.

1 7 night travel package Category 6 w/ 120,000 miles: 300,000 MR points
1 7 night travel package Cat. 1-5 w/ 120,000 miles: 270,000 MR points

I took the 240k miles and transferred them to USAirways (Star Alliance) and booked 2 round trip tickets to Phuket. Business class internationally and first class domestically. Had I transferred the miles about a month earlier I would have received 50-75% more miles and would've been able to do first class the whole way but you snooze you lose...

So, in summary, 570k MR points which also gave me 240k * alliance miles. I still have one 7 night cat 1-5 hotel award that I plan to extend 1 year and upgrade to a higher category but no rush on that. We're also staying 1 night in BKK (by choice) and paying at either the Mandarin Oriental or the Peninsula as well as staying 2 extra nights at the end of Phuket at either Trisara or Amanpuri (have not decided yet).

Hope that helps! If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

Thanks :)

Awesome, I really appreciate the info.

Thanks again!

Rewards travel package - do I get priority in booking hotel?
 

I am looking at getting a Rewards travel package. The hotels I am interested in currently do not have availability for booking with points, but paid rooms are available. Does that mean I would also be locked out from using the travel package certificate, or will I be able to use it assuming paid rooms are still available?

No, the availability is the same as any other points booking.

Marriott Travel Package and US Airways Bonus Buy Miles?
 

Just saw that US Airways is offering a bonus when you buy Dividend Miles in December. If I get a Hotel + Air travel package through Marriott Rewards during this time period, does anyone know if I will also get the additional bonus miles added on?

Get a 100% bonus when you buy miles
Need a few more miles? No problem. The Buy miles program lets you pick up the miles as you'll need to get where you want to be.

And during the month of December, enjoy a 100% bonus. It's our holiday gift to you! Simply buy miles December 1 - 31, 2011 and you'll automatically earn your bonus – up to 40,000 miles.

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...s/default.html

I wouldn't think so since that promotion is specifically for busying miles through US Airways. The points from Hotel+Air package would come through as a transfer to US Airways.

I agree, I do not think this would have applied. But, they have had promos that did give bonus miles for Hotel transfers. I was able to get three bus. class tickets on ANA IAD-BKK earlier this year, plus the (2) 5 night certs. (We have MVCI weeks, which allow 5 night travel packages.)

This is correct, and those transfer promos were lucrative and wonderful. I used them too, in conjunction with Marriott Travel Package redemptions. Delta had similar transfer promos, which I also used. Both airlines offered them around the holidays in past years, IIRC. I'm hopeful one or both of them will repeat this year, soon. Benefits both Marriott and the airline.

AA did too IIRC...sadly they were removed from the MR program :mad:

Travel packages cancelled
 

Removed double post.

Travel packages cancelled
 

Tried to book one today and was told they are discontinued as of oct 31 2011. Bummer

Don't think so.......

https://www.marriott.com/rewards/use...ck.mi#packages

(The all inclusive options have been discontinued. But, Travel Packages are alive and well.)

Yes i pointed that out also but she said the website must be out of date.
I could call back to another agent but now decided to just book five days anyways.

Is there any chance they were confused about the all inclusive awards that were discontinued this month? I just called the Plat line and was told Travel Packages were still active. If they were discontinued, that would be HUGE news. People would be going nuts.

Definitely call and book with another agent. My wife booked a Travel Package this week - no problem. Also changed an existing one (moved dates) - no problem there, either.