Marriott historically has allowed the hotel cert to be returned, but as mentioned at a greatly reduced rate. This was due to the value of the transferred airline miles. In fact at one time there was a concern that they stopped allowing returns, but Marriott Concierge responded that they still allowed it: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...ml#post8190815

There was another thread around 5 years ago asking this same thing, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...l#post18677011, and nobody that I know of responded at that time that Marriott had changed the rules on returning the hotel portion of a TP award.

Using someone else's 7 night travel package (booked for me):

Is it possible to add my own MR # to earn the stay credit?

I don't believe so.... probably worth a call to MR, though, for a definitive answer.

When I have used my travel package stays, my name was required to be on the reservation, even when I book for a friend. With that said, I don't believe it's possible to simply transfer it to another person and have that person get the credit for the nights.

I've never experienced this.

book 5/7 night reward stay as per usual using online functionality.

if not enough points in your account, great, then apply the marriott TP hotel certificate online.

if you have enough points to book the hotel stay, then call customer service and have them apply the cert from your account and refund the points.

In neither of these circumstances is there anything at all special or unusual about a travel package reservation that is different from a 100% points reservation and you can (and I have) booked them for friends without having any connection to my name or MR account afterwards.

But the question is will your friend get credit for the nights stayed? Before last year, this wasn't an issue because no credit was given for free nights. Now that you get credit for the nights stayed, can that credit go to a second party who used your cert or points? If I redeem the cert and stay for seven nights, I get seven nights credit. If my friend uses my cert and stays seven nights, will he get the seven nights credit?

I'm interested in heading to vietnam and wanted to book a marriott package where I could fly NYC-Vietnam via CX in first and/orJ with 7 night stays 1-5 cat. I have 270K marriott points or I would once I combine my spg and marriott account and transfer 9k Chase URs to top off my marriott account. Is this possible and would it be a good value? Anyone used a package like this? I'm also wondering if this is something that can be done on short notice. Like I want to take the trip from the third week of June into July. It used to be CX opened up seats in F/J on short dates but I don't know if that is still the case.

With a TP award, Marriott will only deposit airline "miles" in the program of your choice. How you use those miles after they are in your airline program's account is totally dependent on that airline program.

I can say that in general, international First Class award tickets tend to be much harder to come by than normal coach award tickets (for all airlines) and usually require farther out planning. Some may well open up Business and/or First Class awards last minute. But you will probably get better answers those types of program details in the airline forum rather than in the Marriott forum. You might be better off going over to the Cathay forum and asking there how easy/hard it is to get short notice FC award tickets to Vietnam. Also, if your not sure on the award pricing for various award flight options, they will be much better able to help you there as well.

All we can do here is say that in most circumstances, the airline miles tend to post in the program of choice within a week of ordering the TP award. Also, don't forget that Cathay partners with AA and AA is currently offering bonus miles (25% extra) right now. Also, I do believe you get fewer Asia miles (max of 85K miles) if you transfer directly to them rather than say AA or UA.

So you might want to go over to MilesBuzz and ask which airline might be the best airline to have short notice FC award tickets and how many points it would cost. Then when you get your answer, you might head over to that program's forum and look around. They might be able to help you search for available award tickets. Once you have that info, then you can decide if you will have enough points from a TP award (plus any that you might already have) for what you want and if there is availability. Don't forget to check the Marriott TP award webpage to verify how many miles are transferred to each airline program as they have different amounts for different airlines.

Not sure if there are any Cat5 or lower hotels in Vietnam (you may have to pay in some additional points if you plan to stay at the JW in Hanoi or the Renaissance in Saigon, for instance).... but if so, that would be a great deal if you can find the saver award inventory. Good luck.

First, so long as you are a little flexible you should have no problem using your travel package at the last minute, especially Vietnam in summer.

Let me throw this out here, although you didn't ask... If you are planning to stay in the JW Resort Phu Quoc a seven (of five) day cert makes sense. If you are planning to tour through Vietnam, it doesn't. The JW Hanoi is located over thirty minutes from where you would want to tour, and that's without traffic. You'd be better off staying in a non-Marriott property (Sofitel Metropole or the less expensive HGI) and saving your cert for another use. If you go to central Vietnam, there are no Marriott properties. (La Residencia is dirt cheap and world class.)

Does saver inventory impact using a cert? The cert is based on category, let's say a Cat 6 cert. When a saver award is offered, the number of points needed to redeem become lower but the cat doesn't change, so a Cat 7 property would still be Cat 7, which wouldn't allow you to use a Cat 6 cert. I've never tried to do this, but just assumed it works this way. Anyone know for sure?

I tried to do this a couple of years ago and was shot down. :eek:

I've taken off the last nine months to mostly travel and have pretty much only purchased last minute tickets. You'd be amazed at what opens up a day or two before a flight, both in points/miles and price. Flexibility is key, which probably won't work for the poster. A few days after returning from over a week in Prague on a last minute ~$450 r/t fare, I found a just over $500 r/t to Bali and wound up being home only a few days. Those were both coach, but I've also done two under $1k r/t J to Asia and one 75k SMs r/t J to Bangkok in the past year. (At the tail end of DL flying the route. :( ) Several times I've booked just a few hours before flight time - which means showing your cc at the airport and sometimes being selected for extra security.

I appreciate any input even if I don't ask because that may simply mean that I don't know what I don't know. I'm still trying to sort out my plans, but I was thinking I may look to use the cert in Bangkok for a few nights. I had also looked at the marriott property in Saigon the Renaissance Riverside Hotel (not sure how long I should spend in Ho Chi Minh City but I figure at least three or four nights?). I'm somewhat doubtful I will get more bang for my certs in Philippines. Another option may be to save the certs as I am considering going to colombia in the end of the summer and maybe I will get better value from the certs there.

In general, the more third world Asian countries (OK maybe second world) have great hotels at really low prices. You can find some amazing properties there that are category 5. But I almost always wind up paying for the room, as the prices are very low.

As the other poster said, Marriott will transfer the miles to who you designate, and after that, the rest is up to you. Make sure you know which airline you want to transfer to because there is no going back.

I try and find the flights first and then transfer the miles. I mostly trasnfer to United, where I hold status.

Billy

Yea I needed to top off my marriott account with 8k Chase URs but now I have enough to redeem the package. I'm going to credit to alaska airlines. and then try for a CX redemption in first or look at JAL. I have a little flexibility on dates so I can maybe build in a four of five days on either side of the trip and hopefully something opens up last minute with that flexibility. I don't like the idea of flying over without a return booked. So far I have lucked out and a return has always been bookable before I left US soil.