Wow! That's a great bargain. How did they cost it out to deduct only 30K points for 5 nights even without airline miles? Even with 5th night free, that's only 7,500 points per night, which as I recall was the Cat 1 charge.

Currently, Marriott rewards silver. Anything easy I can do to bump this up before my stay in Jan 2019?
No status elsewhere ... just been hoarding the points, and not planning any other stays... :)

YES, it is a devaluation. NO, it is NOT fair to everyone. It definitely is not fair to me, or anyone who booked a Cat 8 or higher certificate. I, for one, do not stay at Cat 1-4 properties, and I WOULD NEVER have booked a TP if I had been notified in advance that my cert would be changed to a CAT 1-4. I specifically booked a CAT 8 certificate, expecting to book at hotels that are valued at 40,000 points per night. ALL of today's Cat 8 hotels are moving to Cat 5 or Cat 6. The fair way to handle this would be to give me a 40,000 point per night certificate, or translate certs to the closest possible category. THAT keeps people whole. Forcibly downgrading our high-level certs to a CAT 1-4 certificate, even with a refund of additional points, without ANY notice is NOT keeping us whole because the new travel packages are at peak rates and require MORE points to upgrade the certificate back to the level of hotel we were promised we'd be able to use. It's worse for those with Cat 9 and above than Cat 8 even. Again, I for one have ZERO use for a Cat 1-4 certificate, and had I been notified in advance that this would be the outcome, I would NOT have purchased a travel package.

The only way that dropping all certs to Cat 1-4 would be fair to those with high level TPs, would be to allow a grace period for those who have no use for a Cat 1-4 to get the equivalent points back for 6 nights at the per night rate of their certificate (meaning 240,000 for a Cat 8, etc.), or turn it into a 240,000 point overall certificate. And before you say "but you're voluntarily cancelling"--no, we aren't. We're being forced into a product that we did not purchase without any notice in advance, and AFTER part of that package was already delivered (air miles).

Again, many of us, Marriott and SPG's most loyal customers, who stay at high-end properties (Cat 8-Tier 5) will NOT be satisfied with that solution.

You're approaching this myopically. Current Cat 1-5 cert + 90k points may be the same as Cat 8 from Marriott's perspective (and yours), but it's not to all customers. Marriott is selling these packages as valid for 1 year. It would be unreasonable for them to exchange, say, a Cat 8 package for Cat 1-5 + 90k. If the customer had wanted a Cat 1-5 package and to keep 90k points, they would've redeemed for Cat 1-5. And if Marriott didn't want to sell such packages, they could've shown good faith by stopping the sale of packages above Cat 5 and provided sufficient notice of any such forced conversion plans well before the conversion date.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people take things that are posted as gospel truth just because it contains the phrase "a CSR told me..." or "I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend..." or something along those lines. The only certain fact that is that Marriott has manufactured a huge shite-show for themselves with the way they have communicated (or not communicated) the impact to "legacy" TPs. The only saving grace for Marriott is that this cluster is fairly limited in scope in that it only impacts the small % of their members who even know what a TP is, let alone have decided to play roulette during this window of uncertainty.

The long and short of it is that at this late stage, Marriott knows EXACTLY what they are going to do with regards to legacy TPs, but it has not been made public and front line CSRs have not been enlightened (or have been told to play dumb...). All we can do is wait for official word from Marriott and continue to speculate. Once we do know for certain, at least someone on this board will be able to brag as having "nailed it" since I think every conceivable scenario has been posted by someone! I propose that person officially becomes the King or Queen of the TP.

You get 90K back. For 60K you can buy up and get any of those Cat 5s AND you are protected from peak pricing.

It's unreasonable to expect that your current Cat 8 would allow you to book a hotel that will have a standard cost of 50K and a peak cost of 60K after 8/18.

As a data point, I called yesterday and today and ordered travel packages. Both times I got a helpful rep to pick up immediately using the regular rewards line, I couldn’t believe it. Less than 10 minutes total on each call.

Transferred to southwest and the miles are already in my account for the first one, so less than 24 hours. He quoted me 3 business days max transfer time. There isn’t even a way to pay to expedite it since it is so quick to begin with.

So anyone who doesn’t want to risk letting the transaction carry on over the merger should be able to transfer to southwest without issue today. I know southwest isn’t the greatest redemption but 120,000 points buys $1800 worth of checked-bag included economy airfare which is what my family and I use most these days. I’m getting 0.667 cents per Marriott point (or 2 cents per SPG) before even factoring in the value of the 7-night cert.

Yes. But the categories of properties are changing on 8/18. You're basically arguing to grandfather in all existing point costs for the length of validity of the certificate.

called to book one last package. Took 30 mins or so, not too bad. Booking was smooth.
They were too good to be sustainable, glad I was able to book 3 more before they go away. RIP.

The soon to be released SPG luxury American Express card or an American Express Platinum card gives you Gold status. I have been considering this myself. From my limited understanding, this could give you a room upgrade but no lounge/breakfast benefits. (If I would get lounge access/breakfast, it would make the decision much easier)

PS Research the SPG card soon. For many people, there will be a three day window to apply in order to get the bonus. After that three day window, there are restrictions on who can earn a bonus based upon both your American Express and Chase activity.

:D^

That's one very complex way to fairly resolve the issue. I think the simplest fair solution is to map cat 1-5 to newcat 1-4, map cat 7 to newcat 5, map tier 1-3 to newcat 6, and map tier 4-5 to newcat 8. For cat 6,8, and 9; either be generous and round up, or do a partial refund down to the nearest level (e.g., for cat 8, map to newcat 5 and refund 30k, the differential in old cat 7 and cat 8 pricing) and preferably offer the customer the choice to "buy" rounding up (e.g., for cat 8, customer pays 60k additional to round up to newcat 6...60k based on 50k newcat 6 pricing - 40k oldcat 8 pricing multiplied by 6 nights which mimics how the travel package differentials are normally calculated).

I've tried to follow this whole thread since the April announcement but I may have missed something so anyone feel free to let me know if I missed this option:

Marriott is going to give the owners of floater certificates the chance to choose from a list of options what happens to the certs.

Who said I was expecting to get a 50k or 60k/night rate? If Marriott gave those of us with Cat 8's a 40,000 point cert, and told us we could book a standard rate Cat 5 now, or we could wait until 2019 to attach it to a Cat 6 off-peak reservation at the full value, that would be FINE with me. Not expecting to get a 50k/night standard rate. But to your point, no. It's absolutely not unreasonable to expect my cert to retain its 40,000 point/night value. My certificate is valid well into 2019, and given that a 40,000-point/night certificate would technically work for any Cat 5 at any time OR any Cat 6 during off-peak times, that would be a solution that would keep me whole and allow me access to most of the same hotels.

Again, I'm not expecting a windfall. I'm expecting to keep the value of the certificate I purchased, even if that means there are some limitations (ex. needing to travel on off-peak travel times to get a Cat 6)

What would be unreasonable would be to downgrade a certificate with ZERO notice and without a customer's consent.

I feel your pain. Here it is just my opinion. I do not want to fight and I'm not related to Marriott. Just my side's view.

When we purchased TP, it is clear that this is Marriott TP and is subject to MR's T&C. It is subject to MR's hotel availability when you redeem the hotel stays. It is no difference from redeeming with MR points. This is not SPG's travel package.

For your Cat-8 TP, you spend 135,000 MRs, or 22,500 MRs/day. You get right to book 7 nights worth 40,000 MRs/day. And you can and are supposed to book those Cat-8 hotel stays. You get the opportunity to book the stay before the changes. We do not get the right to get free 40,000 MRs/day certificate to book any MR/SPG properties. This is beyond Marriott's T&C of those TP. I do not think you can say MR forcing us to downgrade since we can still book those Cat-8 stays. We get no rights to use those TPs on the SPG properties.

I do not think it is fair asking Marriott to refund you 40,000 MRs/day since you spend only 22,500 MRs/day. The same asking Marriott to refund you 25,000 MRs/day for the Cat 1-5 TP that you only spend 7,500 MRs/day.

If I were you, I'd book the Cat-8 stay now and not risking the TP get downgraded. We all know that this is only a rumor. This downgrade may not even be true. Maybe Marriott would be kindly enough to upgrade your Cat-8 TP to the new Cat-6 TP.

We all desire something. :p