Just thought I would pass this along, as I found it humorous.

Called in to extend the expiration of a 7 night, CAT 1-5 cert. I had it attached to a reservation later this month, but travel plans changed and it ended up being back in my account.
No problem to extend, but was warned that I never should have had a 7 night cert, as I am not a Vacation Club owner. I should only ever have a 5 night.

I chuckled, and let her know that was opposite from my understanding, but she confirmed it with supervisor, since she needed some help figuring out the expiration anyway.

did some changes last night and some were updated immediately and some took overnight to show up.. was just as concerned as you but the rep seemed very experienced and assured that he had it in his system - gave cert numbers etc..

I understood that they usually only let you extend 1 year, which (as noted in my post) I already did this past January. Are you suggesting that they'll let you extend the certificate indefinitely?

This. Nobody should expect anything more than the points-value of current certificates to be retain. Those that don't have a same-value category after transition, if you end up with less you have a reason to complain - I'd hope Marriott would either match them to the higher one or to the lower one & refund the difference. Don't expect anything more than that and you can only be positively surprised.

Huh. Was any reason given? I've never tried to cancel one of these before, but I assume in the past it was a pretty easy phone call to do so?

In the past any upgrade or downgrade bumped the expiration out for 12 months from the change.

I'd certainly not count on that in the new program going forward, however.

Well, yes. There's a re-valuation occurring with winners and losers. You're basically arguing that your certificate should grandfather you into the current rates.

I don't know the dates of my intended stay yet. They should allow give me at least 1 year of time to decide what to do with the cert. Category changes normally happen in early March every year.

We dont know whether the extension benefit will still exist or not.

Below is my experiences today on doing a simple detachment and reward booking cancellation - that turned into a very time consuming follow up with 2 lengthy hold time calls to finally semi-assure that things are done right.

Take away is, ALWAYS ask the rep to give you the New Cert Number and an email confirmation of the event.

On the 3rd call the rep found the Cat 6 cert issued this morning from the canceled reservation but the date of issuance is backdated to June 1st when I upgraded the original Cat 5 to 6 and then attached to the reservation. That might be why the 2nd rep could not find it and went to hunt for it but the time lapse was so long the phone eventually disconnected after putting me on hold for over 30 min...

3rd rep did not put me on hold so we had long pause of silence while she was going thru the account - she found an unused Cat 6 cert and gave me the cert number which does not match with anything I have in my records. She said she tried to order a new Cat 6 cert, the system return her the same number of the cert that has June 1st issuance date - so she presumed it was the original cert returned. In reality it isn't. Rather it is freshly ordered by the 1st rep who decided he needed to backdate the cert to the time when I upgraded the Cat 5 so the expiration date would not be extended further I assume?

Even more strange, while we were talking, 2 emails came to my inbox - one was the ordering of a new Cat 6 cert, one was the cancellation of the very same Cat 6 cert - the last 4 digits of the cert does NOT match with the current unused Cat 6 cert bearing a June 1st date the 3rd rep has found. I have no idea whether is the result from the 2nd rep who said she would resend me the canceled reservation email which still has not come yet but is viewable online as canceled. I have made a screen shot of it just in case as I believe the canceled reservations would drop off after a while. May be the 2nd rep also has resent me the emails related to the "redeem" and "cancel" of the Cat 6 cert with today's date Aug 13, that finally come in with almost an hour delay.

Still have not receive the email on the "redeem" of the backdated Cat 6 cert.

Looking at the confirmation emails both show Aug 13 as the date of redemption and the date of cancellation, I believe the 1st rep detached the Cat 6 cert then canceled it because he felt the returned Cat 6 cert should bear the same issuance date of June 1st. He then issued another Cat 6 cert to back date it to the original June 1st date when I upgraded the Cat 5.

Though many reps would not pay attention or care about this discrepancy on the dates as many have said when you upgrade / downgrade, detaching, your cert starts a new year from the date such event happens. This rep decides he needs to correct the date, so he went thru the motion of issuing and backdating the returned Cat 6 cert which the 3rd rep finally finds it. Most likely it is because of the back date June 1st, the 2nd rep is very confused on what has happened. The 3rd rep actually told me she needed to "think through it" when she went silent but not put me on hold for the music. She said despite "they" dont like reps not talking to the customers for long stretch but she prefers to NOT put customer on hold that often can cause disconnect. Rather she would let the line be silent while she thinks thru the issues...

So, for those of you who have to do what I have done - be sure to get the Cert Number of your returned Cert - this way you can compare with the previous records and know for sure a Cert has returned (reissued) back to your account even though you still not see it online.

I still do not see the unused Cat 6 cert in my account but with the cert number the 3rd rep gave to me and her assurance this IS the cert issued by the 1st rep after canceling the Cat 6 booking, I feel more comfortable now and hope this returned Cat 6 cert would show up tomorrow.

I have a Category 9 cert that I'd like to use for a stay in London. Problem is there is little likelihood I'll be able to make the trip before fall 2019. I can go ahead and make a booking for a hotel I'd be happy with, but I'm likely to have to rebook later. Under these circumstances, is there any point attaching the cert now? Conversely, is there any risk that attaching the cert will produce a worse outcome than leaving it floating?

Read my lengthy post 5109 on today's experiences - a rep took the trouble to cancel the detached cert because it bored today's date while the original date was June1st when I upgraded it from Cat 5 to Cat 6. He then reissued the return cert and backdated it to June 1st 2018. That caused lots of confusion to the subsequent rep(s) who tried to find the returned cert when it has not shown up in my account...

So new "briefing" may be already in effect that NO extension beyond the 2nd year. My upgraded Cat 6 is from a Cat 5 extended once the past March.

That's really interesting. I think it is entirely possible they are tightening up a bunch of the informal rules in the new program. I wonder if these reports about not being able to surrender for 45K are an example of this. All of this would increase breakage in the program.

Upgraded to Cat 9
 

I just upgrade a Cat 8 travel package to Cat 9. In my account they showed a refund of 135,000 for cat 8 an a deduction of 165,000 for cat 9 vs the old 240,000 an 270,000. Looks like we may take a heavy hit.
Never seen this before.

135K is equivalent to 45K surrender value plus the buy up from 1-5 to 8 (3x30k). 165K is the same except with the buy up being 4x30K to go to 9.

I've seen it before. That''s how the process has worked for years. I saw something similar around five years ago.

The difference in points is what really counts when you buy up.