I did it last year because I wanted to book for this summer's travel. Yes, now it looks like aeroplan excluded the marriott travel package for the bonus...sad!

Does the expiration date of a certificate remain the same when upgrading the category? I have a cat5 cert that I'm fairly certain I'll upgrade to cat9, so I was curious if you could keep bumping the category one level at a time to extend the expiration date.

Did anyone hear anything about Marriott 7-night Travel Package going away soon or after the Marriott/SPG merger?

Not explicitly.

But one of the active threads discusses a rumor that Marriott is moving to a "dynamic pricing" system (think Southwest Rapid Rewards), doing away with categories. So if the TP survives, it does so in a pretty altered format.

Maybe 270k MR = 120k airline miles + a $1400 gift card? That's approximately the Cat 5 TP value today... The pessimist in me does *not* actually expect a gift card award to exist, but some similar mechanic would have to get created for there to be TP's in a Southwest-style program.

It's all just rumors of course.

Yes, it does keep extending the expiration date.

Hmmmm.... Wonder why this hasn't received more play on FT over the years?

(1) Redeem Cat 5 cert...five years ago today.
(2) Call Apr 8, 2014 to ask for the courtesy extension.
(3) Call Apr 7, 2015 to upgrade it to a Cat 6.
(4) Call Apr 6, 2016 to upgrade it to a Cat 7
(5) Call Apr 5, 2017 to upgrade it to a Cat 8
(6) Call Apr 4, 2018 to upgrade it to a Cat 9
(7) Complete stay by Apr 3, 2019....six years after redeeming it.

Would that have worked? (I mean, not that it's a terribly smart thing to *plan* to do...that's six years of category increases you had to live through...)

Wondering the same thing. I still have 7 day cert that expires next year. Was hoping to use for Hawaii next year. I have not upgraded to Category 8 yet. Wanted to wait until closer to date. Trying to decide if i should put points in now to get certificate. Of course, Marriott has right to change hotel pricing and with certificate, it is only a certificate, not a guarantee the hotel I already reserved for 2019 will stay at same price. Correct me if I am wrong!

That's why I asked. I haven't heard anyone mention it so I wasn't sure if it was even possible. If you're planning to do cat9 there's not really anywhere Marriott can move the categories up to. At least until they invent a cat10. Obviously not a good long term plan but it could have its uses.

Issue I see is that Marriott is likely going to increase the tiers and combine them in some way. So right now they have Ritz separate so you don't have Marriotts creeping up above Cat 9. In theory if they instead had 15 categories, some of the top Marriotts would increase while I assume the Cat9 cert would stay at Cat 9. I have two unexpired certs and this has me worried since I don't have an immediate redemption plan.

Yeah with the upcoming program changes the idea is probably a bit late to the game. Guess we'll see if the travel packages stick around after the changes.

Is there a time frame for the change?

Can I transfer the airline miles to my SO's airline account instead of my own or do they verify the name?

Best value airline transfer partner at the moment after taking promotional bonuses into account? United (+10%), Avianca Lifemiles (+25%) or something else?

I've got more American / Alaska than I know what to do with.

Only you can decide which is "best". Where will you be flying in the next 12-24 months?

With the impending program changes, I'm thinking about redeeming some travel packages while we still have the chance. I'm confident that they'll still honor the certificates, the issue though is expiry.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the ability to extend is an unofficial thing? I'm scared this will go away with the new combined program and I'll be left with too many certificates to use up in a year.