I would confidently tell the CSRs that "I did not read this on a blog, I read it on Flyer Talk" which apparently IS an official source. :D

Ha, already did that as well. They claimed that that channel doesn't exist, which might be true given the responses people are getting when they contact using the method outlined in that post. The email responses are saying that they have to call the call center.

The frustrating part is that I've now found three different people that really want to help but their hands are tied. They all understand the situation in full.

When you cancel and get the cert back, does the expiration extend to a year from cancellation or does it revert back to prevous cert expiration date?

Also, noticed on two cat 1-5 certs I attache to a booking recently, one done in july one done last friday. july one shows value of 45k which is what others have, the other one shows 270k. Anyone else experience this? What if I cancel? Do I get cert back or potentially 270k(fingers crossed-long shot)

It says 270k because it's not a partial cert. You will not get 270k back; don't cancel your cert on that assumption. Also, I would disregard what I said about cancelling online now that the merger has happened; I posted that pre-merger. I saw a poster say they cancelled and they ended up with 45k in their account and no way to get their old certificate back.

That's a good question. My certificate shows 'old' category 6. I haven't received an email or anything telling me about the changes.. so if I didn't know the 'news' from here, It would be very confusing calling in to try to use it to book a 'new' category 6.

Ron.

Yes, I am surprised nobody picked up on this - THE REAL THING, The mechanism to get refund is NOT working.

So Marriott once again used Starwood Lurker "channel" to tell people how to request refund as well as tell people the TP cert is immediately usable -

Yet, these are just another lies because of the response you get from using the link to request refund, does NOT work.

And, as of 11pm last night, it was NOT possible to attach a legacy cert to an existing booking.

Way to go Marriott to continue blotch up even the Ad Hoc remedies.

This is so evident that Marriott has never intended to make any remedy which only came due to lots of pressure from the Social Media bad publicity. Then it hastily came up with some remedies that got the bloggers' praises as if that everything now would be fine, totally forgive how the mess was created due to Marriott greed to begin with.

Unfortunately, such remedies are so far NOT functioning as we are told. Is there anything new now that what Marriott told us, never to be the truth the first time being told?

Can they manually give you a Partial Cat 1-4 new cert?

That was the supervisor handled mine on Sunday on an Unattached Partial Cat 6 cert. She canceled the existing old Partial and ordered a new Partial but noted it had 75K instead of 45K. She mentioned the 75K figure multiple times as it carried some significance. My confirmation email also noted 75K.

I dont know if we can still surrender the new certs. I did read several DPs from people who tried to surrender their UNATTACHED old certs without any success despite many HUCA and multiple supervisors trying to help thru yesterday from day thru night time. Not a single positive DP.

So much for the latest "communication" from Starwood Lurker about the refund mechanism and how the legacy certs are now ready to be used immediately. The official language even claimed they have passed the "Pressure Test" successfully over the weekend so no more need to have the one month lock down...

All are LIES after LIES just to put out the roaring fire ignited by Marriott greed.

It is obviously SO AD HOC that even their call centers reps including supervisors dont know or have the ability to coax the system to do any booking using the legacy certs yesterday.

And we see this kind of responses from Refund Request submitted via the website they put up and communicated via a blogger.

Strange ways to communicate thru out the whole ordeal, and even more strange that up to now Marriott still tried to fool its customers by putting out "fake news" that none mentioned in Starwood Lurker's post is working!

No. Cannot be done. I tried last night at 11pm, thru 2 call centers. Supervisors tried to help but system would not allow it. Seems it must be first converted to the new certs before being able to use it. I hadn't thought about to suggest that but hind sight, this must be necessary as the supervisor I talked to on Sunday went in to convert my old Partial P870 to a New Partial QP80 with 75K. She did not know if the system allowed her to do the conversion but apparently going thru a Cancellation, putting back 75K in my account and then Ordering the new Partial using 75K, worked.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30108459-post6020.html

Can not believe the top management still tried to continue its spin to get away fleecing the customers.
The whole Point argument is a complete crock of you know what because the cert can NOT be used outside its category. The points they kept using as excuse is referring to the Off Peak / Standard / Peak WITHIN the category - yet by spinning the points, there are many gullible customers thought they could use the cert to book the Off Peak priced hotels in one category up. No, they can NOT!
In fact, anybody uses the cert in 2018, is already been CHEATED because there is Peak pricing until early 2019. Yet Marriott is using Peak Pricing to map the conversion of the legacy certs.
Whoever dreamed up this "clever" way thinking it would let Marriott get rid of the largest possible point liability now is facing a big PR disaster.
If they actually put out the FAQ as you posted (link above), I believe legal action from customers become feasible.

There is a formal announcement on an official channel....insiders . marriottrewards .com

DONT touch your certs online yourself. Unless you just want the surrender value. If you still plan to use it for hotel stay, the only way is the old way - calling to book. But before the legacy is converted to new cert, the system would not allow legacy cert to be used. I now believe the supervisor must manually exchange the old into the new before the cert could actually be used. I also believe (suspect) why there was a month long lock down announced before this Ad Hoc announcement, is the conversion is NOT done by the system but manually done by dedicated group. Else if IT is programmed to do the conversion, why it takes a full month to do so?
Given the greed Marriott has demonstrated so far, I seriously doubt it would spend IT resources for a ONE TIME EVENT on the conversion, especially with the complexity of the legacy certs that not only has many categories but also has the Partial certs, and also the different extension - some still in its 1st year, some already in its 2nd year, some actually has had expiration dates that are in 3rd year from the initial redemption.... To handle all kind of combo by IT programming would cost $$$$$$ and it is only a One Time Event... Come to think about this, that the one month long lock down makes sense for manual conversion.

You do NOT get 270K back. The bulk of points have already gone to your airline miles. You will only get the 45K back as your other Partial cert. The sole reason you still see the 270K is because said cert is a "virgin" cert, has not gone thru any extension / upgrade / downgrade, etc. Hence it still displays the original WHOLE PACKAGE value when you purchased it - it by no means would contain 270K. You know that

Since it's apparently going to be a manua process (I agree with your reasoning happy)....one must wonder whether it is possible to upgrade during the conversion (by surrendering and buying a partial package for new pts price)...

Wow. This is NOT what we are told. Obviously the dept we are told to send the request to, has not received the latest Ad Hoc Spin. Left hand does not know Right hand is doing. Or better yet, the troops do not know how the generals have changed their tactics and course.

Yes, but NOT NOW. And I do not know a surrendering method would work at all.

You need to have the old Partial converted to a new Partial before you can even do anything, including using the cert!

Once you surrender your old cert, all you get back are points. And you can NOT get a Partial because you no longer have a Partial in your account.

Go back to read a post about how the poster canceled his ressie online, legacy cert did not come back. Supervisor could only returned 45K pts but could not give him back his partial - and he actually needed the stay!

If you find my post(s) detailed the conversation with the supervisor on the topic of upgrade, WHY the 75K value in my Partial from a Cat 6 Partial is important is because said value would be from where to calculate the difference to pay in order to upgrade to the new Cat 5 - it is 60K because the new Cat 5 Partial is 135K. It jumps 100% but can be done according to the supervisor who emphasized that the upgrade cost would be based on the NEW TP table, and NOT the legacy table when the 30K incremental each category up was used.

Marriott Insider put out the information yesterday at 5pm. It is as Official as it can get.

Slightly OT but can someone advise if the points showing on SPG should come across to Marriott at x 3? I just merged my accounts and got the same amount of points in my Marriott as my SPG. I can't remember if I had 12,000 starpoints or 3,000 starpoints left. After transfer I have 12,000 Marriot points.

Sorry to repost this, but I haven't seen any discussion on what seem like it should be a pretty important topic. Has anyone successfully had a travel package applied to any SPG property? I've been trying and so far it's not possible. The Marriott reps won't touch SPG reservations and SPG reps have no idea how to do anything with a TP certificate.

I merged yesterday and they came across as 3x.

Are you saying your SPG bal has not changed to 3x already when you initiated the merger yesterday? i.e. it was 10K in SPG and then going to Marriott became 30K?

I believe the 3x in SPG account is automatically done.

The points in my SPG account already turned into 3x since Sunday. In fact I have seen 2 lines showing in my Marriott account as being the pts moved over from SPG despite I had never initiated such move. But the Marriott bal only showed the SPG coming in, not incl my existing Marriott bal in it.

By the evening when I logged back, said entries were gone and my Marriott bal returned back to just Marriott bal.

My SPG bal remains the already translated 3x number.
That is also the same case for a friend whose SPG account bal turned into 3x since Sunday.

Would be interesting if we transfer ours to Marriott would again get 3x, as what Smiley90 seems to suggest. That would be quite a windfall unplanned as I still have over 239K SPG pts before 3x. :D But now it is showing 738K so it is already converted, actually since Mid-day Sunday.

One blogger said that Marriott told him the SPG bal converted to 3x in SPG account is done in batches and the projected finish time could be as late as end of this week.

[The points showing in your new Marriott account from SPG was already converted to 3X.

James

So I have an "old" Cat 8 7nt certificate that's unattached and valid until 7/2019. Don't know where to go yet, but
does anyone know what category that translates into with the new program?

I thought I saw an answer for it a while back but can't find anything now. I can't imagine it will be the same in the new program as there
are a number of St. Regis properties that are now Cat 7 that for sure were not Cat 8 under the old program! One can wish though.

Maps to cat 5, with a 30k points refund when requested. If it works, eventually.

Called into Marriott Rewards line, on hold for 30+ mins and finally got a rep whose voice sounded like sleepy. Asked for full refund of an old Cat8 TP cert but he said no refund/upgrade/downgrade until Sep 14th. Oh well, whatever you said.

I am started to getting frustrated in terms of the massive communication issue between Marriott loyalty head office and front line Marriott agents. Meanwhile, my experience on calling SPG line is 10x better, even in the situation where they are in the dark and can't help (i.e. book some all suite hotels on points) but at least they are willing to check supervisor or try going through the system and tell me what the roadblock they have. Marriott agents just tell you whatever they *think* is right without even trying.

No. All failures from the comment sections of various blogs that I checked periodically as I too, want to book an SPG property but would not bother to call until there are successes being reported.
All being reported were Marriott told customer to call SPG, SPG reps while tried to help have no idea how to book it. It is a total disgrace on top of the cheating people 30K to start, and then the steps described by Marriott Insider at a post late afternoon passed 5pm has not been working at all, despite she claimed that the system has successfully passed the "pressure test" on Sunday so they can lift the block. Lies after Lies.

Keyword - if it works, eventually.

Currently nothing works despite the Marriott Insider posted the process after 5pm yesterday. If they are not ready but still need to put out the fire from the PR disaster, why can't they give the guideline but tell people it will still need some time to implement the new policy? Instead the Fake News (blatant lies) again caused many members have wasted lots of time to call and nothing can be accomplished. Meanwhile it ties up its own CSR resources too, not to mention most Marriott CSRs are not only in the dark, as ignorant as usual, but some, including the supervisors, blamed the bloggers for sending out the information - yet, this information is directly from Marriott Insider, posted here on FT, as a vetted Company Representative.

Just how worse the situation could become?

True reflection of the value system of the respective corporation and its management.

I am beginning to get the feeling that Happy is unhappy...

Thanks a lot Marriott, you have made us all lose faith in the internet. :D

To tell you the truth, my own situation is actually slightly better than most here who are in the same boat holding the Cat 6, 8 and the Tier 1-3. Thanks to a friend's initiative to take action on Sunday and urged me to follow suit. We are in good shape now while others continue to struggle.

However, the whole thing is so fouled up that I can tell you that I have totally lost faith on Marriott, not on internet where we can get a lot more information just that you need to have the ability to sort things out, and I do believe many of us process such ability.

If you do not voice your unhappiness / frustration / anger, on how big corporations trying to fleece you, and only passively wait for their mercy, then good luck to keep waiting. Though because there are others would not take this abuse lying down, you will get to reap the same fruits when the corporations finally reluctantly to make things right, to some degree. It would not be due to someone patiently waiting for the right thing to happen, but it is the result of the collective pressures from Social Media platforms that force the corporations to change course.

Just tried calling to use a 7 night travel package for a Sheraton property and was told they can't do that... yet. No ETA on when that will be possible.

I spoke to a MPG employee who told me that she found out about a policy update from an assistant who read about it on The Points Guy. So, someone at MPG tells something to someone at TPG. Afterwards, someone else at MPG reads TPG... Talk about a circular method of reporting.

I am actually sitting perfectly with my certs, but I definitely feel for those that are in less favorable positions. The way Marriott has handled the TPs during the period leading up to the transition (almost complete silence) and since (misleading and constantly changing messaging through unofficial channels) boggles my mind. Here you have Marriott's most loyal customers with massive points balances and it seems like Marriott is going out of their way to bend them over and destroy any good will. While I do believe that the overall number of people impacted is small, this small number is a very vocal and social media-savvy community. At this point the genie is out of the bottle and I am thinking that no matter what Marriott does, it will be impossible for them to earn back the trust of these uber-loyal members that they have flushed down the toilet.

I get that Old Cat 8 will result in a new Cat 5 with a 30K point refund (when it eventually starts working)

Does anyone have any clue on what happens with the Old Cat 9? What does that map to? And what is the refund amount?

For a successful company that hopes to retain customer loyalty, it is generally cheaper to handle things fairly in the beginning. MPG could have announced months ago that Old 1-5 maps to new 4, Old 7 to new 5, old Tier 1-3 to new 6 and Tier 4-5 to new 7. At the same time, it could have been made clear that mismatched old certificates would be refunded appropriate points. If that had happened, I believe most would be fine with the results. That would have been cheaper and less controversial for the company than the end result.

Already answered above in Post #5974 :

Now that I will be getting a 90k pt refund for my 3 original Cat 6 TPs, I suppose I am satisfied. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I still think it wouldn't be a bad idea if Marriott gave a 1-time exception to be able to upgrade or downgrade your cert (by at least 1 category). I don't think I would pay the 60k pts to upgrade my original Cat 6 cert to a Cat 7 cert (which would give me a new Cat 5 cert instead of a new Cat 1-4 cert), but at least it would be an option, and would solve MOST of the issues people had of having to guess at what categories the new TP certs would cover. As others mentioned above, it's also now somewhat unfair that original Cat 6/8/T1-3 TP holders are now seemingly able to extend their TPs by 1 year compared to everybody else (granted I win here by having original Cat 6 certs and the ability to extend my certs).

Today I tried to cancel a res with an old cat 8 cert attached and get the cert returned to my account. Fail. Even after confirming with her multiple times that I wanted the cert returned to the account and asking her to confirm it had been returned she screwed it up and canceled the cert and now I have 135k points instead of a cert. When she was confirming she returned the cert I think she mistakenly saw another cert I had in the account and thought that was it - but it wasn't. Now I am on hold again trying to get it fixed and the new agent is telling me she does not think she can fix it - still on hold while she checks. What a fiasco.

Edit: Agent 2 claims the system is hardcoded to cancel and refund legacy certs when the attached res is cancelled (so if anyone wants points back attach legacy cert to a res then cancel it). Now on hold to get a supervisor to see if anything can be done to fix their mistake.

If you use award wallet, it will have your balance pre merger.

Please dont blame the first agent because what you are told by the 2nd agent is what exactly how the current system behaves.

It is very ironic that those of us who attached a cert to a booking now as we are being URGED to do so, could not change hotel due to the coding in the system. Else you lose your cert and got back the point refund instead. It is NOT the agent's fault. It is how the system is coded to do it this way.

It has become clearer and clearer to me that, the legacy cert has to be converted to the New certs before it could be used.

Unfortunately for those of you who have attached the legacy certs, now it becomes a nightmare to detach and rebook, Marriott Insider's post from Aug 20th after 5pm notwithstanding. System is NOT ready to handle ANYTHING she said in her post!

For those of us whose certs are NOT attached, if you really want to use it now before the dust settled, you should ask the supervisor to CONVERT it to the new cert. A competent supervisor did this for me on Sunday around 2:30pm - she canceled my Partial 6 and redeemed a Partial 1-4 in the new system, noting the new Partial 1-4 contains 75K value (versus the 45K from an old Cat 5). She was very honest to me that she did not know if the system would allow it and be prepared for failure. We agreed to go ahead. System allowed it. And I have the Partial 1-4 with 75K in my account. The 75K value does not show online but is indeed in the confirmation emails I received. A P870 was canceled, and a QP80 with 75K value was redeemed. I saw the usual 0 pts on a Cancelled Reward and a Negative 75K on a redemption, in the Activity page after overnight.

So if you want to try this route, ask for a supervisor and suggest if this would work. You will get a NEW Partial cert based on the new TP conversion level, and then that cert should be able to book the corresponding hotel. That would be my guess.

Good luck to those who continue to struggle thru this mess. Personally I would just make reward reservation without points on Marriott properties and wait for the eventual solution days / weeks from now. Unfortunately this would not work for SPG properties as right now it seems you have to still use SPG side to book those with actual points in your SPG account, from what I have read.