Happy

Dont forget Marriott Rewards Insider the official company representatives also put out the "official" announcements here on FT - the bloggers articles are identical information.

Hence I dont really feel the bloggers are putting out premature information because the "official" company representatives have posted right here on FT on the same things.

Here are the new threads started by Marriott Rewards Insider - just how much more "official" it can get?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...es-update.html

SAME information is also found on the Marriott Insider website. You can find the 2 new threads posted by Communitymanagers.

https://insiders.marriottrewards.com/

THESE.ARE.THE.OFFICIAL.WORDS.

COMike78

You are talking crazy talk! I think we have firmly established that Marriott does not communicate with their CSRs via fancy online channels, everything is sent via interoffice memo and smoke signals. (I thought someone else had posted that a CSR said if they use their machine to "browse" the internet, they would be audited!) I think if we are all patient and willing to wait just a few more days, the memo will have been mailed globally and everything will be alright.

In all seriousness though, my only pain point with the bloggers has been their radio silence with the issues that everyone is having after following the "official" guidance.

Happy

My point is, Marriott should NOT issued their words Prematurely. If they are not ready internally, WHY can't they say so in the communication both to the bloggers and to the community here?

Just tell people yes, we would refund the 30K pts but the system is not ready to do so yet. Yes, the legacy certs still need to be subj to the lock down (because we have to manually review / convert each one of them, though they would never say that!) so just wait till Sept 19th...
But NO, they told us to submit the request thru the link provided in the Insiders post, and made it a big deal that over the weekend the system has successfully passed the "pressure test" so now the legacy cert can be used immediately... blah blah blah.

Now NONE of what is said has come true. Worse, their internal smoke signals have not reach any of the troops who actually doing the jobs...

Why wasted customers time when you tell them to submit the refund request thru the specific link when all they got back are completely ridiculous responses - see for yourself the 2 responses I copied from 2 different blogs comment sections... Have you read it?

Then the hours wasted for customers tried to use their legacy certs because now there is no more lock down time needed, but no supervisor or even manager would try to help? Or even understand how to do it?

There is a person on Lucky's blog that his stay starts this coming weekend but he is stonewalled on every call just like crimsona here experienced.

Personally I am in a better situation than many who are still struggling to get back what they are owed. However the whole situation is just VERY BAD that a big corporation can overtly fleece customers like that.

The tactics being employed is to make the task extremely difficult for people to get what they deserved, then eventually people give up due to the frustration and time wasted... That leads to the ultimate goal - breakage that is originally designed for.

Equally BAD is how some people are actually still willing to give the dishonesty their benefit of doubt. Seriously, that is exactly what the corporate is counting on - Placate you now but what we actually do or eventually do, that is another matter altogether.

I dont feel like we have to rely on the bloggers to get things right. It is YOUR own benefits, and own responsibilities to fend for yourselves You have not paid the bloggers a dime for their "services". just sayin.

Of the major bloggers -

Gary has hardly written the Marriott TP before the merger other than a mere reporting nature. He is not guilty of what you claimed.

Lucky has written a lot pre, and again post- merger. He has NOT yet responded to the comments that people were experienced problems when following the instructions.

To be fair, Greg the deal killer of FM, did post in the comment section on his latest update that he has asked multiple questions to his Marriott contact - the questions are listed very clearly - but of course he has yet gotten a word from Marriott, not even a courtesy reply which I am sure he would post immediately on any words received.

Below was what he posted yesterday - you can find it in the bottom of the comment section of his "premature" post of the refund information. The post does not have time stamp but as of now it was 16 hours ago. No words from Marriott.
Thanks for the input everyone. I’ve asked Marriott the following questions (but haven’t heard back yet):

1. When will we really be able to attach certificates to reservations? It’s not working yet.2. Certificate downgrade:2.a. When will we really be able to request a certificate downgrade? It’s not working yet.
2.b. Is there a deadline for doing this?
2.c. What if members previously attached their certificate? Can they still request the 30K difference?

3. Cancel and refund certificate: Is there a deadline for doing this?

4. Many who attached certificates before 8/18 are asking if they can change the dates of their reservation without detaching and re-attaching? The issue is that if they detach they’ll presumably get the mapped category rather than the category of the hotel they booked. In many cases the hotel they booked is now a higher level category. Of course I’ll post an update once I hear back
.................................................. .................................................. ................................................

Here is another blog;s article
https://loyaltylobby.com/2018/08/20/...ng-trust-left/

He also reported that Marriott has DISABLED the phone number to "Mr Marriott's Office" - you can no longer contact this office via phone.
In the past it took phone calls and Smiley90 has posted numerous "information" s/he was given when talking to the "Mr. Marriott;s Office" on the days leading to the final merger. Now this communication channel is cut off. The remaining one is the other option in the past - a snail mail, in case you are not aware.

https://loyaltylobby.com/2018/08/21/...hed-via-phone/

Marriott essentially cut off the Escalation channel for issues customers experiences, including problems happened during a stay, or reservation issues of all kinds, not just for the reward program. No doubt there are many calls into the "Mr Marriott's Office" on the TP fiasco since the weekend, this channel is cut off, no longer available - even for those customers who have issues fully outside the reward programs.

If that is still not enough to wake some of you up, how Marriott corporation has turned into, I dont know what else could finally make people see the reality.

SPG reps tried their best to help but their hands are tied because there is no more SPG platform!

So there you have it. Pretty much bloggers have some sort of contacts are included above. In case you have other sites, feel free to add.

As of now, at least a blogger has reached out but hasn't gotten anything back from Marriott.

rny321

Nobody is questioning that many things have very little value when a customer tries to cancel them. Prepaid hotel reservations, low cost airline tickets, sporting and entertainment tickets may be nearly worthless if a customer is unable to use them. In contrast, I doubt there are many examples when a hotel room was unavailable, a flight segment was cancelled, an outdoor baseball game was cancelled due to weather or a concert was cancelled due to the illness of a performer where a company with sufficient resources to make restitution based a refund on what a customer who chose to cancel would have received.

I believe the current Terms & Conditions state that hotel awards are nonrefundable. One blogger has claimed that any hotel awards that a customer cancels would only receive 5K in points regardless of the category held. Do those that keep insisting that old Cat 1-5 awards are only worth 45K believe that it would be an equitable solution for MPG to cancel a customer's new 7-night Cat 8 certificate and refund no more than 5K in points simply because MPG decided to reduce the number of categories?

Unless I missed something, MR and SPG each sent the same innocuous sounding Email about impending changes to hotel awards just over a week in advance of any changes. What was posted by various bloggers and at least one Lurkers did not end up being official policy. While it may have helped or hurt the small percentage of people who heard on 8/15 about new restrictions on existing travel awards, that wasn't a substitute for advance notice to all affected customers.

While travel companies have enormous flexibility to make changes to terms and conditions with little or no advance notice, that doesn't mean that people who are adversely affected shouldn't try to obtain better treatment. While it made sense to attach hotel awards to firm plans, any changes in dates would have negated any benefits from doing so. As some found out, trying to cancel a reservation with an attached certificate created more potential problems than not attaching until plans were definite.

GUWonder

COMike78

With all that is going on Marriott sort of reminds me of Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "La la la... I can't hear you... La la la!"

crimsona

I do have good news to share - armed with the code QP80, I managed to get an agent to reverse the 45k and deposit a new partial cat 4.

Still said there's a blackout until September, but I'll take the small win.

Will try to get it attached somehow, I'm exhausted as is

zachary

I have a theory that the bloggers are asking for comments about all of this and not hearing back. I suspect that Marriott is having meetings about what to do about all of this. At some point, we'll get another post from the Lurkers with a bunch of announcements that may or may not actually take place. That post will end with a request for questions that will not be answered. And none of the information provided will ever appear on marriottrewards.com because they don't want the run-of-the-mill members to know any of this information, hoping that they will just accept whatever Marriott gives them. It'll go here and on the Insider's website that even most Marriott employees don't seem to know about.

Normally, I'd think that this kind of silence means something good could happen. But Marriott's action have been customer unfriendly up to now, and I'm skeptical that it's going to change. Even the way they have the Lurkers behaving (posting and then disappearing) is troubling and strongly suggests that they don't intend to engage here the way SPG did. I hope that they prove me wrong.

Happy -- thanks for providing those links. That's the first blog I've seen where someone took Marriott to task for not publishing the conversion chart before August 18, which is the cause of this entire debacle.

Dr.Leo

Just got my 45K points reverted and got my new TP Cat 1-4. CSR said i can attach it anytime.

Duke5150

Let's give thumbs up to Blogger - Greg - Frequent Miler - who correctly use the word "HOSED" to describe the travel package situation.
Marriott offers 30K points to those who were travel-package hosed

MasterGeek

Will I lose my Old Category 7 certificate that is attached to a hotel reservation if I cancel the reservation ??

wonderman

I accept that the 30k refunds should have been forthcoming, but they did implement them swiftly.

I personally do not accept anything written on flyertalk as official without backup elsewhere, it needs to be on the company's website or literature issued by the company to be official in my eyes.

One we accept that the 30k refunds are processed (should be auto, it's silly they are asking people to apply for it) I think it's pretty hard to argue that the mapping isn't fair.

It make zero sense that they won't allow upgrades of some sort though, it's guaranteed to annoy people and it's not like they'd have to do it at anything other than the actual rate difference.

TheWiseOne

Sorry, if this is a really stupid question but here goes. I have/had a Cat 8 cert, what are now my best options? Is it to ask for it to be converted to a new Cat 5 and take 30k points or is there some way of converting it to a Cat 6?

zachary

I think your best option is to wait and see how this shakes out in the end, assuming your travel plans allow it.

TheWiseOne

They do. I had originally planned to use it for Hawaii in April but I was able to get the Waldorf on points so I am now planning on using the between Summer-Dec 2019.

Thanks for the reply!