It's been almost a week since a representative said we will be able to make a reservation again with a certificate.
I get their decision on conversion+refund, but it is unheard of holding thousands( or more) of legitimate TP certificates back in their room.
They should normalize all booking process with a certificate as soon as possible. It should be their priority.

Just spent 40 minutes with the loyalty department that handles the travel package, and they told me they cannot refund the 7-night package. I told them I see people getting refunds for the hotel portion, and he told me his supervisor says it cannot be done.

How incompetent can these people be? I even said this is not the first time I had done this and how much the refund points would be. The person seems to understand but still says no. What the F are these people doing holding onto our points?

I agree and my guess is that when Marriott finally makes a REAL statement on Travel Packages (floating certificates, reservation changes, SPG property bookings) it will be as follows:

DOWNGRADE
1-time one category downgrade with 30K point refund only for categories negatively affected by the new category map (OC6, OC8, OCTier1-3)

UPGRADE
Based on the new Travel Package rates (see above quote for rate conversions by category)

So, if you have an OC8 (NC5) and downgrade to OC7 (NC5) to get your 30K refund and then upgrade from NC5 to NC6 you will need 180K points for a net cost of 510K (360K - 30K refund + 180K), which is the same as the new Travel Package rate for a category 6 property. Meaning you get no value for booking prior to Aug 18 armed with the old Travel Package rates unless you attached a reservation to a property and going forward do not need to change dates. If your property did not change to a new category after Aug 18, you should be OK to change dates.

If this downgrade/upgrade scenario is executed by Marriott, then not releasing the new category map, letting CSRs misinform their customers, setting a hard cut off date, having a blackout period, using SPG properties as post Aug 18 bookings bait, etc was not a bug; it was a feature realized under the guise of the merger integration to get a lot of points off their books. Most importantly, off their books at the category rate they ultimately wanted by duping consumers that need date changes, wanted to book an SPG property, or who were deceived by the multitude of ill-informed statements made by their CSRs prior to Aug 18 regarding the very information Marriott hid to obfuscate their OWN customers!

But, hey they put a Mormon bible in my room so they must be ethical. RIGHT?

Totally. Had they given notice of the mapping, as ANY ETHICAL COMPANY would have done, the above scenario would be both ethical and justifiable.

HOWEVER, since we had ZERO notice of the mapping and were robbed of the opportunity to upgrade at the pre-August 18th rates, that scenario is neither ethical nor justifiable. Worse yet, Marriott literally took people's money and let them buy SPG points to upgrade to category certificates that mapped to the same as the category they already had. They defrauded customers out of $300 or more! If they don't reverse course for those members, that might be criminal.

If Marriott wants to make up for this disaster, they need to give legacy TP holders a chance to do a one-time upgrade at the old rates (30,000 pts). That way we can make the education choice we would have made before the merger, had Marriott been transparent and released the mapping in advance. Anything short of that and most of us will still be upset, and rightly so.

The merge problems (including the legacy TP mapping) have been a PR disaster for Marriott. If Marriott doesn't fix this TP issue and the other MR redemption problems, they stand to lose a majority of their most loyal customers. I still hold out hope that they'll step up and do the right thing, but if they don't, we'll vote with our wallets and take our money and business travel elsewhere.

So is the consensus right now that we're going to have to wait until Sep 18 (at the earliest) to use our legacy travel package certs? I've got a hotel I'm wanting to book and I'm worried that its going to run out of award rooms for my dates. I don't have any more Marriott points so I can't book a holder.

Couldn't have said this better!

At the moment I have a certificate which I will need to un-attach and reattach to another hotel but I think I will wait a couple of months when everything settles down, as I know IT change like this is ALWAYS complicated and messy.

You can book A Points Advance reservation without having the points

3.14.c. Once a Travel Package is processed:

i. airline Miles cannot be transferred back to the Membership Account; and

ii. the hotel award portion of the Travel Package is non-refundable to the Member if cancelled or not used.

Terms & Conditions


3.14.c.ii was not in the old Terms and Conditions.

In a trip right now so not able to call, but if I already have a new travel pack, can it be attached ?

I wasn't able to do points advance since I had the requisite number in points in the account. I suppose I need to make a dummy booking to use up the points and then a second reservation on advance, and then try to attach the new cat 4?