I would not rely on the website. I just plugged in two adults and two children to a hotel and it came up as completely unavailable (2 adults had plenty of online availability). Right next to the room thing it says "Max 6 guests per room" So calling in and adding after booking might suffice. Might want to call 1st to see if it is within their policy. YMMV.

Wonder if that's just sloppy text...they have one suite that would sleep 6 but that copy shows up everywhere...

You can *usually* tell by the room type if 4 will be comfortable, tight, or flat-out impossible. For some hotels, I just know. e.g. An SHS 2-queen + sofabed is comfortable for 2 adults and 2 teenagers. Most standard 2-queen Marriott rooms are tight but doable. For other hotels, I come to FT and see what people are saying about them. Oddly enough, some suites have odd floorplans that make them tight for 4 people. I assume with the 18-month-old, you're looking for some decent floor space to put a pop-up crib or similar...

If it's a large North American city that I know has dozens of newer-build Marriotts across brand levels, I'll sometimes even search for 5 in one room - just to filter the list down to all but the biggest rooms and 2-bedroom suites. (Does not yield many full-service Marriotts and not as useful outside U.S./Canada.)

Absolutely.., If the site does not return options you think seem right reaching out to the hotel is warranted, as the site is not always right. What people sometimes do - not you or the poster we are answering - is make a reservation for two and just show up with the kids, too. The hotel is under no obligation to stuff more people in a room. make an accommodation or help in any way when extra guests are presented. For some reason posters sometimes advocate doing that. I've gotten a frantic call from friends who were in Paris, had not put the kids on the reservation and were astounded to find the hotel would not allow four in a room. They wound up staying outside the city in a much more expensive room.

Lots of inconsistencies. Here are the room details for a junior suite, 1 bedroom suite, and VP suite (same verbiage for each).

Maximum Occupancy: 2
1 King
Sofa bed
Rollaway beds permitted: 1
Cribs permitted: 1
Maximum cribs/rollaway beds permitted: 2
Featherbed, and Duvet

So max two people, but you can have a crib, rollaway, queen-pullout, and king bed... Like in this case it won't allow to be booked for more than two people online...

However the standard one king (no sofabed) allows to book for 3 people (you can do a rollaway). Two doubles 3 people as well (but not 4).

Calling (or emailing) may yield different results. Places like Paris (as someone else just mentioned) are particular about these things, best to confirm with the hotel.

I dont know where to post this tidbit - may be some of you already know.

After calling Marriott Reward to extend the cert for another year, the new information of the cert does not show up in the new site Activity screen even after lengthy time has passed (like over an hour).
However when I clicked Customer Support and then it led me to another screen with all the telephone numbers and such, at the top right hand corner, miraculously you now are able to get back the OLD site's "At a Glance" style of your account - where under the Activity I now see this - That is the indication the Cert has been extended with the partial points of 45,000 (Cat 5 cert).

On another note, is now the access to the Old site is completely gone?

I'd definitely call. I haven't run into these errors personally, but in Paris most hotels rooms I've booked have fit exactly that number of people with zero room for any kind of rollaway. One time we traveled with 5 to Paris and the triple room was one queen and one twin with just enough room to walk between them to get to the toilet/shower. (The other room was a two-twin room.)

The second child is 18 months old not 18 years old. So put in two adults and two children for the search. For most properties in the United States you should be fine with one room. For Europe and other parts of the world, there maybe a much more limited set of rooms at the typical property that can accommodate you.


--Jon

Thanks all - will have a look at hotels that officially allow 4 in a room, but will also bear in mind the potential flexibility given their ages... when we just had one child I would normally book a room for 2 adult so and then email the hotel asking for a crib in the room and didn't ever have an issue. Haven't wanted to risk that with 2 children though as we definitely need the extra space!

Two weeks ago I called the MR number and asked to book a 5-night package. They said they couldn't do it but gave me the number of the division that could handle my request. The number turned out to be for the Marriott Vacation Club. The first thing the agent did was verify my MVCI membership. I was able to book the package, but I don't think a non-member/owner would be successful.

Do you guys think Alaska is the best program to choose for the miles part of the travel package? I know preferences can vary widely but the CX redemptions are pretty appealing to me for 70k in F.

If you are planning a trip for which you can use an AS award for travel on CX (or possibly JAL for travel near Japan) then I would say yes. I ordered my first travel package last year and chose Alaksa with the idea of redeeming for either EK or CX with a preference to CX if my vacation lands in their travel regions. I have used AS in the past for JAL F redemption and was very happy.

I will likely get another vacation package this year but now that I am bulked up on AS points and likely will not do two back to back vacations to CX territory I am still deciding on which airline partner would be best. It will be one that gives me a decent chance of a premium cabin redemption for multiple people to the region I pick for the following vacation.

That's where I'm sending my next TP. Probably use the AS miles to go to Asia or Africa with a HKG stopover.

The CX F award is popular, but getting multiple seats on the same flight is quite difficult using AS miles. It'll be my wife and I traveling, and my guess is we'll be looking at 1 F + 1 J (or just 2 J).

Providing a data point on miles being credited.

I ordered a Travel Package last Friday (30 Mar 18) with the miles being credited to Alaska Mileage Plan (AS MP). The miles were posted as of this morning (4 Apr 18). So, including weekend days it took five days for miles to be processed and credited.

Did you make the conversion recently? Marriott website explicitly states that bonus miles from 35% Aeroplan offers are not applicable.