OssianBlue

What? I defy you to find a CoC that states this!

SP03

The points have already been transferred into miles, which is akin to the journey being commenced.

I'm not arguing for Marriott to cancel all certs or make them worthless. But clearly people are redeeming for the certs now at last mins to take advantage of potential windfall. I may even do that. But I wouldn't expect Marriott to essentially give us miles for points at 1:1 ratio.

rny321

The points, unlike a flown flight segment, can be returned and the entire transaction could be reversed.

I admit that others know more about airline regulations than I do, but I would be surprised to hear that an airline based in the US or EU that intended to stay in business would cancel a segment mid-trip, leave a customer stranded and not offer enough compensation to complete the trip home. It would be different if a customer cancelled a segment, because the customer altered the transaction and not the airline.

pinniped

I don't think anyone is booking a TP right now expecting a windfall. I certainly would not book one expecting to get 120,000 FF miles for 120,000 MR points (effectively, by getting 150,000 points put back in my account on August 18th).

I did book one recently expecting to get a 1-week hotel stay. I expect that to be a current Category 5 hotel, which I understand is effectively a future Category 4 hotel. I expect no windfall - I just expect to redeem the award like normal, sometime prior to June 2019, my certificate's expiration date. If some bonus comes my way - an August 18, 2019 expiration date that I can then extend to August 18, 2020, or the ability to redeem a *new* Category 5 - then great. But I do not expect it at all.

This is why people are redeeming TP's right now: they've seen the new program, they've crapped a brick at how the TP's are devalued post-merger, and they're clearing out their points at today's rates. They may not be as aware of the program as all of us are - about how you can extend and upgrade certificates later - they just know they need to pull the trigger now and hope to use the certificate for their 2019 vacation or whatever. They expect no windfall beyond redeeming their points under the terms and conditions which they earned the points to begin with. Nobody beyond this forum and a few blog sites is talking about a redeposit of points back into accounts. Marriott hasn't hinted at that at all.

Toronto1970

I realize that I am taking a gamble with the TP I purchased a few days ago, but decided the risk was worth taking.

I purchased a Cat 6 TP. I am hoping to use it towards an SPG property which will be in the new Cat 6. I know that it will be EXTREMELY generous if they allow old Cat 6 (35K per night) certs to be used towards a new Cat 6 property (50K per night). Hopefully if they don't just refund something back in points and instead map the cert to the new Cat 4 or 5, they will still allow upgrading to a higher category for some fixed point level as they do now.

Worst case scenario, even if I can't end up using the hotel part of the TP for my planned stay, I'm still getting more airline points for the 300K Marriott points than I would have with the 100K SPG points I started with. So definitely worth the gamble IMHO.

PumpkinSmasher

That's what I'm thinking and hoping too. I wanted to actually buy into a higher category as well, but I actually had to put out a sort of noteworthy amount money to be able to buy a second cat 1-5 and that maxed me out on my SPG points for the year. Could've bought Marriott ones but they just aren't as good of a deal and when I started doing the math, it didn't make sense. I do hope my SO gets something in exchange as well on the cat 6. I feel like they're going to do something. Neither of us are expecting anything crazy, but something would be nice.

beagleflyer1977

It's been 5 days since I requested the 7-Night Cat 9 package and miles to United. Called today and they confirmed the UA# and that takes 3 biz days since the request is done, so today is the 3rd biz day. Not sure why I'm on a delay, but really annoying considering everyone here got their miles next day on United.

milemission

Several members including me are in the same dilemma.
There seems to be a couple options here:

-redeem for a cat 1-5 TP, get a floating cert and attach it after the hotel changes to cat 4(25,000)
-redeem for cat 6, book the hotel and call back for a refund of MR points(30,000)

Which one will you choose? Does anyone know when will the new rate start? I appreciate any feedback form you all, thank you!

PumpkinSmasher

Take this as a rumor, but my friend who works for Marriott told me that owners of TP should expect to receive an email on 8/2 informing them that if they don't attach their certificate by 8/4, they will be unable to book again until 8/18 due to a planned IT blackout that will merge everything together. This is especially noteworthy for anyone who does want to book at the old rates.

My friend also said that Marriott still has not officially decided what they will do with people who have unattached certificates post 8/18. They said the current leaning internally though is to try to find a way to map into the new categories, though not sure how it would work. Of course, anything could change and nothing is final, but just wanted to pass along.

tth6133

The 1st option would work except in the following 2 scenarios:
1) Marriott decides to cancel your cat 1-5 certificate and refund less than the full 150K points on 8/18; or
2) the hotel is no longer bookable with points for the dates you want.

The 2nd option is a little safer. The only risk is Marriott doesn't allow you to downgrade your certificate and reattach to the reservation. I don't foresee Marriott not allowing downgrades in these types of situations. Upgrade is a different story, however, and may cost you more than what's on the current chart.

Flying for Fun

Do do realize that a new Cat 5 cost 60K more than a new Cat 4 don't you? You would need a category 7 to get a new Categoy 1-4 and 60K which would be needed to upgrade to a new Cat 5. But what you propose is an option I can see. Cancel all floaters for a 150K point restricted New Cat 1-4. If you have a higher category certificate the additional points paid for it will be returned unrestricted. If you want to upgrade your new 150K point certificate you can do so at the prevailing rates. If you cancel the 150K restricted points certificate you will get back the 45K residual value. Your existing Cat 7 certificate is not going to get you 7 nights in the Maldives. It just isn't going to happen. An upgrade of a new Cat 1-4 with an additional 240K Marriott points would get you to a new Cat 7.

Just remember, all floater certificates will be defunct on August 18th. How that looks in the New Program is at Marriotts sole discretion. I don't see any windfalls here, just a lost opportunity to maximize what you have.

James

coconutjay

Hi All,
I've been reading most of the stuff on this thread and planning on buying a Cat 1-5 package, but cannot figure out the best FF program to get. I don't have a need for the hotel stay yet, but hoping post conversion, I will be able to book SPG hotels with the package (either equivalent point refund to be used for bookings or new Category cert assumption, I know there are many other speculative ideas out there, but I am gambling here with the hope it is in our favor). I am also going to attach this to a category 5 hotel that will be a cat 5 in the new program in hopes there is a bonus when I need to cancel it, the hope is that this doesn't happen enough for them to have to program something for, my bet is this is not so common.

Note: I converted a bunch of Amex MR Canada to SPG to buy this for the gamble, I may lose on this bet as I could have used the Amex travel program or the Aeroplan, but wanted to get a taste of the business/first class flight people often speak of.

I've tried to find information every where about flying to Tokyo from Toronto and which program is best to collect and use, but all that is mentioned are the flights from the US, nothing from Toronto. I apologize if this is not the right thread to post in, but any suggestions on the program would be great. I tried to post in one of the VS threads, but since this was related to the travel packages, I thought maybe someone may know this here. I looked at JAL, ANA as these were the best ones, but hard to collect here in Toronto. I found Virgin Atlantic and Alaskan, however can these be used to book the connecting flight to one of the US hubs with ANA or JAL. ANA uses I believe a code share with UA metal and was hoping I could use VS miles for this, but nothing I could find confirms this. I am not sure how the JAL flight using Alaskan could be done without getting a separate itinerary to get to the US, which is not preferred since additional costs are required (ie luggage/flight).

Any help would be appreciated.

pinniped

There's no single right answer for "best airline program."

AS is a popular one, but requires a lot of flexibility to get the best TPAC J awards. And as you pointed out, probably requires a positioning flight from YYZ.
UA isn't a popular airline (:eek), but it's not a bad place to store miles as you can redeem most of the Star Alliance online with minimal fees. Quality (on UA metal) is a common complaint, but availability for awards is actually not too bad.
AA has been my most-used airline (out of necessity) for most of my life and once had *great* award availability. But that hasn't been true for several years - now I rate UA (and UA's Star Alliance partner availability) well ahead of AA + the Oneworld seats you can see online.
AC may have advantages for you, being the home team and all. 120k would build you a poor man's RTW in J, if I recall correctly.

Look at various award levels - pay close attention to levels on partner or alliance awards. AS has the limitation that you can't combine partners, but it's also possible that the positioning flight + a JAL award seat ends up being your best overall value.

imverge

If your only goal is flying to Tokyo from Toronto then you are better off redeeming with Aeroplan as Air Canada offers direct flights to HND and the fuel surcharge is $86 return. You can also book EVA with a connection in TPE with fees of $55.

The other option is Alaska Airlines and redeem on Cathay Pacific with a connection in HKG.

sinfonia

It's a tough call. I am leaning towards the second choice (getting the category 6 and attempting a downgrade post-change). I might not be thinking about this correctly but I guess I figure I have less to lose. If I go cat 1-5 and do not attach it, I can lose out on the opportunity to use it (which I value) and receive fewer than the current valued point rate for the 7 nights. If I go cat 6 and attach it, I can lose out on the opportunity to receive back points in a downgrade, but I have not lost the opportunity to use it.

When I spoke to the platinum agent today, she, too, had not even known about the changes a) to the hotel categories or b) to the travel package pricing structure. She called over to some other desk twice during our conversation to relay my questions - namely, do they suggest I purchase 1-5 unattached or 6 attached, and if I do the 6, will I receive points back. She came back saying that she wanted to assure me that given my loyalty to Marriott, they would make it right whether it was by points or cash. I asked if the points I received back (if they refunded points for downgrading) would be fewer points back than the pricing delta on the current chart and she placed me on hold again, then came back saying that they did not know but again, she wanted to assure me that "certainly" based on my loyalty, Marriott was going to make this right by me.

I want to believe this agent because she seemed rather emphatic that Marriott was going to be fair in this and keep me happy, and I was trying to read between the lines in her assurances based on my loyalty whether status will somehow play a role in this or not. Maybe she was just saying it because that's how you talk to elite members or maybe she was hinting at something, but I have never been good at reading tea leaves and I take all of this with the biggest grain of salt which is that she did not even know about the changes to either hotel categories or travel package structures before my call, so to believe that she has some sort of insider insight to how corporate is going to handle this is probably absurd.

Having said that, I do believe that she is rather familiar with the customer service aspect of Marriott and how they handle issues with elites, and she gave me an example of how another issue with an elite was handled, and it may be that on a case by case basis, some platinum agents may be able to advocate for a fair resolution if a loyal member believes their account was not fairly handled.