There is no reason to believe that Marriott will not renew the e-certificates from packages for an additional year. I recently requested a package. I currently plan to use the hotel portion in September 2019, after the current expiration date. The Marriott Rewards rep assured me that I would be able to renew once for an additional year.

Could the the Marriott rep be wrong? Sure. But I don't think so. There is no reason for Marriott to put in a change that will anger and frustrate good Marriott customers, especially because the one-year extension does not inflict any real cost on hotels or on corporate marketing.

Just wanted to share my experience. We (husband & wife) own Marriott timeshare and sometime we traded our week for MR points. My husband's name is on MR account. On 7/24, I called MVC to redeem 2 5-night travel packages. the rep told me that I can have the miles deposited to my UA account and the miles should be posted within 3 business days. I did not see the miles posted so I called back and was told that the name on UA account has to be the same name on MR account but I should wait for another 4 business days to see if the miles posted to my account. Yesterday, when I called back again, they said that the miles is posted to my husband's UA account. I told them that that's not the case because 1) I never put in his UA mileage # in his MR account and 2) I logged on my husband's UA account and did not see the miles. She then did a "work order" to have the miles taken back from my UA account to move to my husband's account. I told her that miles was NOT posted to my account and that's the reason why I had to call. Anyway, to make the story short, today, I logged on my husband's UA account, and the miles posted.
The first time (to redeem the travel package) took 15 minutes. The second time took 1 1/2 hour and the last time took almost 2 hrs.
BTW, during the second time, Marriott told me that if miles don't post, I should contact UA. I told them that I initiate the transaction with Marriott and Marriott have the record for this transaction, NOT UA, so I don't understand why I should call UA.

Ridiculous, Marriott rep initially try to tell me the same thing - call UA. I called UA and UA rep said they can't see the miles until they post on my account.

I was wondering...I am not an MVC owner but my dad is. I was hoping to redeem a 5 night package, but was wondering if there were any DPs of Marriott allowing this for a direct family member of an MVC owner?

I know some reps will give them out on accident but that you can get audited and in trouble later for it (them too). I don't want to cause that kind of trouble, so wondering if having my dad on the phone or providing his info will make this a legitimate booking.

Thoughts?

You might try asking this question in the Marriott forum on Timeshare Users Group - Marriott Forum.

I am not fully convinced and think there is a risk. If they go very generous on the treatment of floater certs, I could see them ending the historical practice of extending validity to limit the $$ exposure of the conversion to the new program.
Personally I would much prefer a 'fair' conversion, perhaps mapping old categories to new -- and continue to allow us 1 extension, rather than some of the more wild theories of points windfalls that some expect.

The problem is there's no "fair" way to convert these certificates equitably for everyone. If these certificates remain in one form or another post 8/18, there's no guarantee they would still be extendable as they're now.

I honestly believe the rep has misinformed you because the NAME on the airlines FFPs NEED TO MATCH the name of the name of the MR account from which the miles were redeemed. Else most airlines would "reject" the transfer. You follow this thread you see Virgain Atlantic has done this to a few posters that their names not matched 100% or whatever.

When you first posted the redemption I was quite skeptical that would work. Turned out it was nothing but a lot more hassle to get it done the only allowed way.

The rep should never tell you that you could get the miles sent to your UA account.

My UA miles were deposited in one or two days.

Actually am told now it will likely be Monday. I guess they're running behind. Not sure how it will all play out now!

Let's suppose I recently redeemed Rewards points for an MVCI-member 5-night travel package for a Category 7 hotel and 120,000 airline miles. I would currently have this e-certificate in my account:

Rewards Certificate 5 Night Travel Package Category 7 Hotels - 270,000 Points - Expires 07/21/2019

I could use the e-certificate now, but I have until almost a year from now. If I wanted to use it now for a higher category hotel, I could call Marriott Member Services and pay points for the difference to a higher category. Also, I could ask Member Services to extend the expiration date.

August 18, 2018, the current structure of Marriott Categories and R-C Tiers goes away, and the Starwood legacy properties will join the program. There's a completely different redemption chart. I would expect my account to show this:

Rewards Certificate 5 Night Travel Package 35,000 Points Per Night Hotel - 270,000 Points - Expires 07/21/2019

I still expect to be able to call Member Services to pay points to move the e-certificate to a higher value. I still expect to be able to extend the expiration.

I don't expect much to change, except to be compatible with the new redemption structure. Anything better, such as Marriott "rounding up" to the next new category when point values between old and new categories don't align, would be great, but I don't expect it.

In other words, I don't expect a windfall, but I also don't expect to be cheated. Neither would be in Marriott's interest.

Sure there is: for every unattached cert, give the member a new Cat 4 and a points refund matching the difference in cost between their old category and old category 5. Maybe the expiration date on all certificates be August 30, 2019 so nobody can complain that they're getting stuck with a low-cat certificate and no time to earn points and upgrade back to a higher new category.

Everybody's made whole on points, no one gets a windfall. You're subject to the new categories, which are bigger steps up than the old categories, but that's what you live with by not attaching the cert before the changeover.

They *could* do this. Whether they do, or take a more customer-friendly path of letting some members receive "half-category" windfalls, I don't know.

Since we're going to live in the Marriott system, I don't expect the ability to upgrade or extend a certificate in the future to change.

What you just described is one of the possible outcomes for TP certificates post 8/18. There're quite a few other possibilities. Some of them equally likely and others less likely. We just don't know. If we believe some of the people at Marriott have said (and I have no reason to doubt them), Marriott hasn't made its final decision with these legacy certificates, because of their pending IT upgrades. We all hope for the best, but we may also be disappointed in one aspect or another on 8/18.

No, that's not a "fair" way for some certificate holders. For example, if you had bought a cat-9 certificate or one of certificates for RCs, you'd expect you could use it for one of top hotels post 8/18. If your certificate now becomes a new cat-4 certificate, and even if you're allowed to upgrade to some higher new category, the cost of the upgrade would be significantly higher based on the new chart than the amount of refund you could have received.