For a hotel that is increasing in category on March 6, for a stay in September, could I book seven nights now at thcurrentcategory (6) on points now, and apply the hotel and flight package a few months from now, retaining the current pricing as a category six, and not the new pricing as a category seven?


ressons why this might be to my advantage are

i may not have enough points now

i want to order the package later so that it has a later expiration date in case I don’t travel as planned and want to use it latrr

Yes, I have done this in the past.

Is there a limit for reservations made without having the point amounts? I see several travel packages in my future but do not have the points yet to get them. (hello JAL refund to SPG hopefully sooner than later).

Hello All,

Newbie here, please excuse the questions below if they seem silly.

I have a current 7 night stay (travel package certificate) at a category 6 hotel booked for April.
I went through the category update occurring in March, and saw that a nearby hotel is moving from category 7 to category 6. I'd much prefer to stay at that hotel instead.

A few questions I have:

• Can I change my reservations? If so, can I do it myself online, or do I need to phone in.
• I assume in order to apply my 7 night certificate, the hotel would need to have award availability? If I check online using my dates, and room availability using points comes up, does that mean I'm good to go?

Thanks in advance guys

a) You should be able to change your reservation. Usually, redemption reservations have a generous cancellation policy (you can check in your reservation). You should be able to cancel online as long as the certificate has not been attached to the reservation. If it has, I suggest you call.b) Yes, the new hotel you're trying to book needs to have award availability. Please be aware that the new categories won't kick in before 6 March, so you shouldn't book earlier than that if you want to make sure the booking reflects the new category. Maybe you would like to hold on to your current reservation until then.

You can book now, and when the new categories kick in on March 6th, your reservation will show the change to a category 6. You can then call in to apply your travel package cert to the reservation.

Not in your, but if you had already applied points to a reservation starting after March 6th, you could call Marriott afterwards to refund the points. On a travel cert, it's a bit more awkward - ask them to remove the cert from the reservation, then downgrade the cert to a category 6 (if they still allow it - most answers have been yes, so it may be a hang up and retry if they say no), then reattach it.

And just to be complete, if you make a reservation at a category 6 now which moves to a category 7 but don't have the points / certificate to attach now, the booking category will be on the reservation, and calling in will allow the agent to apply the points / cert as a category 6.

Just for clarification, I already have a reservation at a category 6 hotel with the certificate attached.

My plan was to just call in after March 6th and ask the agent to confirm whether the new hotel (to be category 6 too) has availability. If confirmed, I was going to ask the agent to cancel my existing reservation, and book the new reservation with my certificate.

Would this work?

Way easier to call in to make these kinds of changes. As long as you have not violated the terms of cancellation that you agreed to at booking, you can make changes or cancel a reservation (per those terms, of course). As for having award availability to complete the reservation, sometimes this has been the case, but other times (over the phone) they have been able to force inventory open for me so that I could use the certificate.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the great answers guys.
I'll give Marriott a call and see what they can do.

So I emailed Marriott to extend one of my 7 night cat 1-5 vouchers. Logged in today and see Rewards Certificate: P830 PARTIAL PKG-CAT 1-5
Does that mean it's the same as before (7 night cat 1-5)?

The term "PARTIAL" is Marriott's internal notation meaning it's the nights only, not the airline miles (which were already awarded). Does the expiry date reflect the extension?

It does

Just transfered to alaska using TP and the agent told me it takes 2 weeks. Is it take that long or usually faster? Can i get free expedited with gold marriott?

I sent to UA last week and that took 3 days.