I was charged 270k - which is the points for 7 night Cat 1-5 package.

Since we normally stay at Cat 5 properties, I am planning to call and have it fixed. If we end up not staying for 7 nights, we will just check out 1 or 2 days earlier.

On second thought, as davidsc111 pointed out, I may try to downgrade it to 5 night Cat 5 package and get 35k points back if the agent allows.

Anyone have recent experience with TPs on AS? I ordered three TPs a week ago Sunday, one to VS which posted on tuesday morning. But the two I used for AS have not bewn credited as of today. Should I be worried? I dont see my FF #s anywhere on the TP listed so cant double triple check that :)

Just figured I would check here to see how long of a wait people have experienced

My 1-5 cat certificate will expire in early March 2019, and you guys think we have chance to redeem at SPG property when Marriott release updated category list sometime soon (hopefully so) before August 1?

Think it's doable for me to call Marriott to extend my certificate to March 2020, or I'm out of luck and gotta come up with decision between now and March 2019?

AS may be very valuable if you can hit their sweet spot. Also, it's hard to get comparing to DL, AA and UA. For me, AS is the place to go. I have just got two and will get another two before Aug.

It depends on your travel plan / needs.

Caveat is - if you do not have travel plan in the next 6 to 9 months, DONT do speculative travel package redemption. You may wound up regret it.

Just a fair warning on AS - if you are thinking to use on CX you may want to examine the availability trend as a reality check. Hint - the availability has become much much harder to find, months before CX restructured its Asia Miles charts. Things have become decidedly worse.
On top of that, AS charts are very ripe for devaluation because it has been undervalued comparing to the US3.

New combined category list will come out this month but you won't be able to book based on the new combined category prior to August 1. More specifically, you won't be able to use the certificate on any SPG property prior to August 1. Since your certificate will be converted to points, you won't have a certificate after August 1. So it really doesn't matter.

Also, there's no point to extend the certificate because it will be converted to points, which presumably behave like ordinary points and won't expire. BTW, if you call to extend, the new expiration date will be 1 year from the date you called, not from the original expiration date of the certificate.

Thanks for your answers, which basically confirms my assumptions. Sound like I have nothing to lose by give Marriott a call for bump to Cat 7/8 certificate right now since new categories will kick on Aug 1 anyways.

Good warning.

Although, if you're thinking about cashing in your Marriott points for TPs, I assume you have no plans to redeem for hotel stays?
If so, the possibility that Marriott will devalue the TPs come Aug 1 is something to also consider.

Take the gamble and convert to AS now, and potentially be faced with an AS devaluation?
Or, hold your points at Marriott, and convert when needed, but then gamble on TP devaluation?

I think I will just pull the trigger and get two UA packages and book a week over New Years, which is always our big travel time, and one for next June.
SFO is our Hub and UA seems to be the easiest to book. I want to beat the Peak pricing and make sure I get the airline miles. We have plans to do Hawaii and London next year and these should be easy to book.

Wrong assumption. We used every travel cert we have redeemed the Travel Packages in the past and would do so in the future.

I meant, I assume, you don't typically redeem points directly for hotel stays, and would instead rather use them on TPs.

We DO redeem pts directly for hotel stays. Plenty of them. Hotel points to us are primarily for hotel stays. I believe we redeemed roughly 700K Marriott pts, except 1 Cat 5 TP which was NOT to AS, the rest was all for hotel stays in 4 Continents. TP is a niche redemption when one needs long stays the TP makes more sense then just redeeming for the nights, especially with the SPG ratio. Even the SPG pts we always used for hotel stays. We have never redeemed them for miles which we have more than we can use them but we always are short in hotel points.

Really, what one redeems should always based on one's own travel needs. For us who have month long trips several times a year, the need for hotel nights is far greater than the need for having miles sitting idly in various FFP accounts.