Not that it makes it any better for either of us but...I am waiting for points to post to UA from the 29th as well.

Highly doubt current CAT8 cert will map to CAT8 in new program

Means Tier1-5 charts will be hugely devalued.

IMO

Current, 1-5 -> 1-4
6-7 -> 5
8-9 -> 6
T1-T3 -> 7
T4-T5->8

You could be right. This could be one of the reasons the Starwood Lurkers recommended applying your awards to a reservation before the change if possible.

But as more than a few have mentioned, we are all guessing at this point. So you have to ask yourself one question, do I feel lucky...? ;)

I purchased 2 packages on July 28, one for AS and one for UA. Agent told me 2 weeks for AS miles to post and 3 days for UA. I still haven't received my UA miles, but surprisingly the AS miles are in my account. Not sure when they posted as I haven't been checking and they are back dated to July 28.

I called Marriott to ask about the UA miles. They said as far as they can tell, they were transferred to UA and I needed to follow up with them. I called the 1K desk and the agent told me they had some issues with transfers on July 28/29 but the person who is in charge of looking into that is away, so she asked me to wait until the weekend. If the points haven't posted by Monday, I am to call back.

I think my biggest fear with these certs is that Marriot will convert them into equivalent certs at the new level, and we won't have the opportunity to cash them out anymore. I find it difficult enough to use 1 cert. Now I have 4!

​​​​​​​Im currently sitting on 4 cat 1-5 floaters. with 7night RC tokyo and 7 night STR maldives reservations. have not attached the certs. like many still on the sidelines on what to do

Same here and it's kept me from booking one final TP.

That would be fine with me.

I read that, he has the Cat-5 TPs and existing reservations on the Maldives. It would be wild dream to use the Cat-5 TP on SPG Maldives stay. :D

The way I see it, a direct porting of categories makes everybody below the Tier 4-5 Holders very happy as they can now redeem at more and better properties.

For Tier 4-5 holders, it is much the same.

The Certificate can still be used at any Marriott property they want PLUS they can now be redeemed at any top tier StR too.
I don't think this would be seen as a devaluation.

There is of course a scarcity question, with so many people then having access to rooms at top tier properties. However that falls more into the realm of a stealth devaluation and has far less of a headline risk, than the category numbers on certificates being marked down.

AS miles post the next week's Wed if your redemption is made before the cut off time by Friday the week before. Hence it depends on when one redeems - if one redeems on Sat. he would wait till the Wed the following week to see his miles, probably the longest possible wait.
UA should not take more than a few hours or even an overnight, in the normal time. There are known issues on the July 28/29 that you got caught in. At least they are aware and may manually post those that are currently hung up in the system.
We have enough to redeem 5 TPs but we only redeemed 2 and keep the certs as floaters as of now. On the new charts I see enough properties we would / could use in upcoming year, that their pt level actually go down. So we keep our pts for hotel stay as already have enough miles to accommodate us thru 2020 or beyond when here in US there are still avenues to collect miles at reasonable rates (but not for hotel points) No reason to pile any more miles.

Now we start the official 10-day countdown ;): 10.

???
how's getting what you redeemed for a devaluation?