Let me start by giving Marriott some credit for offering to give the 30,000 points back. I would have been incredibly stupid not to do that, but it's good that they did. One wonders why they didn't think of that when they announced this on Saturday.

But as others have said, it's not really the right solution. The right thing to do was to release the conversion chart in advance. Had they done so, people could have gotten what they wanted. The way to fix that is to allow a one-time upgrade or downgrade. That's fair since Marriott caused the problem by being intentionally opaque.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret......................if enough of us hadn't screamed bloody murder, we wouldn't be getting 30k pt refunds right now. ;)

Oh hey, what I and many other observers posted came true!

No one month blackout is good too, since I had a stay starting September 18 and thought I was stuck

Actually based on the conversation yesterday with a supervisor based in Illinois, upgrade will be possible later on, but of course based on the new TP chart. So for my Partial Cat 6 that has 75K value, she looked up the Partial Cat 5 in the new chart and told me the price would be 135K, hence I would need to pay 60K difference, twice than in the past, but IS possible, just not for now.

Please take note that tne new certs do NOT show point value any more - so it is imperative for those who own the Cat 6 and 8, especially the Partial certs, to get a confirmation email whenever it is converted to the new Cat 1 to 4, so you have doc proof on the surrender value or the base for upgrade.
This is what it shows on the email I received yesterday when the supervisor did the cancellation of the old Partial Cat 6 and reordered the Partial Cat 1-4 (it does not show any point value online but she reiterated to me it had 75K and the email confirmed that.)

• Description: PARTIAL PACKAGE - 7 NIGHTS CATEGORY 1-4
• Reward code: QP80
• Valid through: Monday, August 19, 2019
• Total points redeemed: 75,000
• Confirmed on: Sunday, August 19, 2018

I would like to know those who have their Partial Cat 5 certs when converted to the new Partial Cat 1-4, what the Reward Code reads.

Anyone have any luck applying TP's to hotels yet? I just tried applying one to a Westin, called the MR # and waited for an hour before pick up. They immediately sent me to SPG who told me it had to be done directly through the hotel, which doesn't sound right. If anyone can help out, much appreciated.

But that is a fair upgrade - going from a 25k hotel cert to a 35k hotel cert, effectively jumping from old Cat5 to old Cat7, which would cost 60k (double upgrade).

Where this falls apart, is at the higher cats, as has been discussed previously. Going from 35k to 50k hotels for instance (old 7->T3, new 5->7). That used to cost 90k. Now it will cost 180k.

They just should round up the Cat6, 8, 9, T1 certs and be done with it for everyones sake.

You are very naive. Had it not be a lot of people calling Marriott on the weekend AND lots of negative publicity on various Social Media platform, you can continue patiently waiting...

Many who received the short-ends are NOT outsiders nor gamblers - they are misled by the CSRs and the strange "official" channel that is the Starwood Lurker who is given bogus information to feed the members. (Not his fault as he is just a messenger who has to do his job.)
Note that the last blow of the bad news is delivered by a different, much junior Lurker instead of William who has told us unattached floaters would be converted to points according to the "Loyalty Team", any coincidence?

Check this thread out:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starwood-starwood-preferred-guest/1926286-travel-packages-update.html

Feel free to call me naive, but like I said - There are other options between "silent acceptance" and "screaming bloody murder threatening lawsuits". There's such a thing as civil discourse, much as today's society seems to have discarded it. I never said everyone should quietly sit there and twiddle their thumbs, but calling Lurkers liars and going 'omg marriott has ruined my life and cost me tens of thousands of dollars" hyperbole isn't the way to go.

I am fully willing to give the MR team the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a merger of this size. I'm sure a lot of things only become clear as it's happening and they are evidently listening to feedback. That feedback can be communicated in a non-hysterical fashion, too.

No it is not because we are talking about the Old Cat 6 which was for 30K hotels, and the Old Cat 7 which was for 35K hotels. The price difference between the Old Cat 6 and the Old Cat 7 was only 30K.
Now EVEN IF your new Cat 1-4 from the Old Cat 6 still holds 30K more than the Old Cat 5, i.e. 75K versus 45K, you would need to pay 60K to be able to book the new Cat 5 - versus the old TP you only need to pay 30K additional to do that.

So just how this is not a devaluation?

Hence the upgrade cost has jumped 100% from the Old TP to the New TP. That as you would agree, is a major devaluation of the program, not to mention many better or more desirable hotels have gone up in categories.

To give you an example, this is a Springhill, nobody would ever associate a Springhill with "aspirational".
When we stayed at Springhill Kallispell, Montana in last Sept, it was a 10K property. It went to 15K shortly afterward in the usual sleazy way of category creep during the span of a year. Today said hotel is 25K property.
It jumped from 10K to 25K in less than 12 months.
There are quite some numbers of similar jumps in very basic hotels that nobody here or the bloggers even know these properties exist.
There are a lot devaluation going on other than the TP that is the focus on this thread.
I think those who said the bigger issue is, you have LESS number of hotels that can be used with the same level of certs after August 18th, and that is very true.

You can say that because now you would enjoy the fruit from others effort. Yes, that is one of the many options as well. It has nothing to do being civilized or not. It is much more to whether consumer rights are protected. That major corporations can not just bully the customers at will. It will backlash them.

I am sure in Canada the consumer protection is equally strong. No idea about Switzerland which should be very civilized based on own experiences. Yet, EU has even stronger consumer protection laws than in the US, but of course Switzerland is not belonging to EU.

Now while we are at it, I remember you have posted numerous lengthy posts on whatever "info" you were getting (being fed) by "Mr Marriott's Office". Guess what? None of the "info" turned out to be truth. All were deceiving lies. Good for you still have patience and virtue to wait for Marriott to do the right thing... The company has never intended to do the right thing from the beginning. Else it would not be such ridiculous conversion chart and betting on members would just take it lying down.
It should have announced the one time refund on the overcharge at the same time the new conversion table was announced.
Did it do so? Or rather, this is just an Ad Hoc reaction to the disgruntled customers everywhere?
I can tell that Marriott has totally lost my confidence as a corporation that I am willing to give my business to. All these subsequent gestures are not going to make up the damage on goodwill it has done. full stop.

Check the link in post 5980.

How many people have merged their SPG and Marriott accounts so that they can actually use the points that were in their Starwood account to book something? Every time I've checked the page, the button is inactive, which means that the points that were in my Starwood account (basically everything) are stuck in limbo.

Edit: With the recent hold times, would it be appropriate to change HUCA to HUCAFACA: Hang Up, Call Again, Fall Asleep, Call Again?