I'm sure they have plenty of history however you broke down the transaction into separate parts; airline points and subsequently the award liability, stating the miles immediately relieved Marriott of that liability. I merely stated that liability is mitigated by the costs associated with purchasing those airline miles so the write down could be minimal or non-existent. Marriott has the data, we don't.

They very well may blend the liability in toto however that's not what you stated in your first post on the matter.

Called twice to upgrade 1-5 to Tier 4 Ritz. first took 30+ to tell me not allowed.

HUCA, she said after 30 that the system is down and can't make it happen.

I check in today at Ritz, hoping I can do this after the fact...

I'll try one more accounting explanation and then leave it. You are mixing apples and oranges or balance sheets and income statements. The reduction in the liability occurs on the balance sheet while the cost to purchase the miles occurs on the income statement. When the purchase of miles is completed the balance sheet liability is reduced. There is no subsequent negation since the rest of the transaction occurs on the income statement. You were the one that combined the transaction into both the balance sheet and income statement. I, as I previously stated, simply was responding to the OP who theorized the purchase of Travel Packages were reducing the liability on Marriott's balance sheet. And they are!

I have one Cat 7 certificate. The hotel I am planing to stay is currently Cat 7 but will be Cat 5 later this August. Should I downgrade to get some points back before attaching it to the reservation?

You're using category numbers on the certificates as though they had some permanent meaning. They don't (unless a certificate is attached to a reservation). A room at today's Cat 7 requires 35,000 points per night. On 18 August, a Category 5 room will require 35,000 points per night.

Buying a cat 5 certificate today (25,000 points per night) will not attach to a cat 7 reservation today, so you couldn't reserve that room today with a cat 5 certificate, and the old cat 5 certificate will not redeem a room at a (new) cat 5 on 18 August.

Here is the new chart, which takes effect on August 18th: https://members.marriott.com/redeem/...&lk=1000280106

And here you can enter the hotel and find out the change (if any) in the number of points required for a night's room reservation on 18 August and after: https://points-redemption.marriott.com/category-change

Does anyone know if I use the book now pay later option for points booking does that guarantee me the lower number of points?

If I get Cat-9 package, will it become the new Cat-7? Then I can book the new Cat-8 stay? This would be the highest MR category.

Nobody. Knows.

I too have a certificate expiring in November that I'd like to extend. I've called five times and each time after waiting on hold and then the agent placing me on hold a while they've come back and said that it's too far from the expiration date now to extend it and to come back and try closer to expiration. I think for the next call I'll just upgrade the certificate to extend it automatically because this is getting annoying.

I don't know why they *can't* extend it for you now, but you really should wait until November to extend it. They extend it by 1 year from the date of your extension phone call, not from the original date of the certificate.

When I think I'm going to extend one, I just set an alarm in my phone for the week prior to the expiration. You can easily do the upgrade in that same phone call (obviously November would be at *new* upgrade rates).

I have usually extended my TP's one day before they will expire. That being said, I did extend two of my TP's at the end of July. I had no problem doing this. I wanted to attach one to a hotel in Nov. and in order to do so, they had to extend it anyway. It was not a problem.