You received a 5-day or 7-day hotel certificate. No matter what changes, you still hold the hotel certificate, no cash, no points. It is super clear to me.

If the old hotel certificate is worth 40,000 MR points, it should be worth the same level, or bumped one level up if it is in between. (Cat-6 50k in this case). This is how I read it.

This is my working plan exactly.

I could argue just the opposite: that they are going to convert them into points, but as a way perhaps to level the playing field between those who purchase TP speculatively and those who are refraining for whatever reason, they are instituting a one-month speed bump in redemptions. I truly don't know. I mean, honestly, anything is possible. The 'statement' given to OMAAT is deliberately uninformative, and can be made to mean anything anyone wants, rendering it little more than a Rorschach test of sorts.

This seems pretty definitive that will not be the case:
"If you are still trying to plan that perfect trip, you can hold onto the certificate and will be able to add it to a reservation starting September 18, 2018."

This may be lost in everyone's theorizing, but is anyone else not seeing the option to attach a 7 night certificate on the Marriott award booking page at the moment? I've searched two different cities and not seeing the option to apply my certificate.

You may want to reconsider that.

This is from a Starwood Lurker on the FT SPG Forum (posted about an hour ago):

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star...or-8-18-a.html

And duplicated here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...l#post30069191

It's clear that they intend to allow legacy certificates to convert to new certificates, but don't have the software ready yet.

I'm not too worried: my Cat 5 will become a future Cat 4, maybe in mid-September, maybe later. The freeze-out period likely means they'll reset expiration dates, probably to 1 year from the date they debug the software and open it up to new-program bookings.

We aren't getting points. If that was the game plan, they'd just issue a points credit on August 19th and be done with it. Wouldn't take difficult-to-write software.

I agree. But regardless of what happens, Marriott is shaping up to have PR disaster on their hands which is entirely of their own making.

The fact of the matter is that Marriott has not issued any official information to anyone via official channels on what will happen to these certs and we are now 8 days away from D-Day (or SPG-Day if you prefer). So if the blackout period does end up being true, what if I am one of those lucky Europeans who takes the entire month of August off and don't look at my email at all during this time? How would you expect me to feel when I come back on Sept 1 ready to book a hotel with my certificate only to be told "no can do - we are in the middle of a month-long blackout period and no redemption allowed!"? Even outside of Europe, this is period for major vacation time before school starts back up - I would not be spending too much time thinking about my unattached TP certs. Keeping in mind that I was not informed of this blackout at any point either on the phone when I obtained the TP cert or in the weeks (or even months) since the original merger date was announced.

Even if we all get blasted with emails today confirming everything as fact, common sense should dictate that you don't inform people 1 week prior.

I truly hope that the Marriott call center agents have access to Red Bull and strong coffee because it is going to be a rough ride for the next few weeks.

Yep.

And I think this makes a ton of sense from Marriott's perspective, especially considering the number of packages that they have undoubtedly sold in the last couple of months. They're all priced assuming inefficient redemptions and breakage/surrender at default point amount. Bumping the conversion until after the program combination gives them time to get it right after the big work is done.

Why? Ok, you come back and have to wait three weeks for a booking at some point in time in the next year. That doesn't seem particularly problematic. The only real issue would be people who were intending on using them at a Starwood property betwen Aug 18 and September 18 or at a Marriott property that is dropping in price during those dates.

While I place a great deal of trust in what I read on FT, I still do not consider it to be an official source of "truth" for Marriott communications. Show me the email!

The Marrmotts have been cowardly cagey, the smart vultures couldn't help but smell that sign of weakness so they cornered the Marmotts in expectation of a meaty dinner.

Hopefully, you'll consider the following as "truth"

Well, if you represented yourself as being an MVC owner in order to get the 5N, the reason you felt like a thief would be because you were one. Deceit = fraud, and in a case such as this obtaining the certificate through false pretenses is considered theft even though you may have paid the points, because you were not entitled to make the transaction. If you are caught, not only would you lose the certificate but the associate you deceived may be in trouble and may lose his/her job because of it.