No point advance at SPG properties.

This is spring hill suites. Not booking SPG

This is interesting.

I have a 7 night reservation at a new category 6 hotel that I booked with my old cat 8 certificate. I won't be able to make that stay; I assume if I cancel the reservation, I will get a new category 5 certificate...

I believe it will be less stressful if you ask a rep to detach the certificate before cancelling the reservation. One of the Lurker's told us that we can downgrade a Cat 8 to a Cat 7 and receive a new Cat 5 and 30K back. Unfortunately, CSRs don't appear to know about this option.

It appears that canceling a reservation with a certificate attached will cause you certificate to be canceled as well. People have been successful in getting new certificates issued but not with it wasting a lot of time.

You need to first make some dummy bookings to deplete your existing point balance to at least below 30% of the requirement of your intended booking - this way would prevent the system automatically take points from your account, even not enough for the full requirement. I have found that the system WILL take partial payment from the point balance.
Once your point balance has gone down enough, then you can make the reservation with the point advance condition - can be done on all Marriott properties, not sure if it is done on Marriott site, would it also allow you to do so on SPG prperties. Supposedly SPG properties cannot be booked this way but who knows how the website behaves now, since there is no more SPG system any more.

It is going to be a multi-steps process and would involve lots of HUCA primarily to find a rep / supervisor willing to help. Most seem would not touch any TP certs. Based on at least 2 conversations with different call centers, a rep and a supervisor who sounded very robotic and very "by the book", both mentioned about agents would be reprimanded if they touched the TP certs including one guy who claimed he was a supervisor, said he valued about his job and would not put his job at risk to do anything against the internal memo that was issued 2 days and 3 hours ago (that was on a call made on Friday day time) by giving me the EXACT date and time of the memo...:rolleyes:
I suspect that Marriott has put a lot of pressure on their CSRs NOT to help customers on TP, may even with threat of terminating employments - that explained why it was so hard to find someone to help when the system actually allows remedies. Marriott does NOT want to make those remedies available to us the customers.

Back to the task on hand - trying to change a cert

1) Detach the cert from existing reservation first. This should not meet resistance from the CSR as the cert remains the cert as it is.

2) Using the codes we have deciphered so far, ask the CSR if s/he could "replace" the now detached cert with a new cert. Using the Codes would facilitate the communication and understanding. How much progress you can make depends on how the CSR's willingness to try. Essentially this is to cancel the detached cert with the full points returning to your account (from instant to a few minutes if the CSR knows how to do it - thru the "old" system - the CSR who helped me on Saturday had to call to find out the How To, then she told me she had to use the "old" system to cancel my QP80. It took several minutes before I saw the pts returned to my account.
A day before that I had a helpful CSR "did" it but was a failed attempt as I did not see any confirmation email nor points coming back. She told me it would take a few hours for the system update. We know that is NOT the case - that it is instant as long as the system is up and running (as evidenced that I could log in and out and back in.) Said rep was kind enough to send me an email 45min later, informing me the system did not fully cancel the cert. That I should call back in a later date. I appreciated her thoughtfulness to let me know the cancellation wasn't successful. What is interesting is, the email was sent from Starwoodhotels.com address... The number she gave to call back at a later date, is the old Marriott Gold Elite number.

3) The next step is to order the new cert you want. Again, using the Code to facilitate the process.

Read back tonywush's excellent write up on how he successfully did this. This should be used as a template for anyone who wants to swap their old certs with new certs, and get back their overpaid 30K in the process.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30121520-post6238.html

Pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious is not a "religious slam"; it is a slam against the hypocrite.

Has anyone managed after 8/18 to downgrade a 7-night package to get the 30k points back? I tried to downgrade OC6 -> OC5 (both mapping to NC4), and was told they cannot make any modifications until 9/18.

Several have succeeded.

Read just a few posts above yours - I gave enough information and even provide the link of Post 6367 from a poster successfully did it. It is a detailed report on how to do it. Of course it takes many calls and many hours wasted to get it done because it all depends on finding an agent willing to help.

I didn't condemn the Mormons; I condemned Marriott's religious hypocrisy.

If you have read anything about Marriott's religious posturing in the past, you would know that they have had to reconcile their religious issues with the LGBT community. https://qz.com/216328/how-marriots-o...travel-market/

You would have also seen that one of Marriott's priorities this past week during the merger with SPG was getting the Book of Mormon in 300K+ SPG rooms instead of concentrating on a smooth merger. https://www.thespectrum.com/story/ne...on/1104206002/

Obviously, Marriott is very serious about religion even if it is publicly traded. You may also want to check out all their "Golden Rule" propaganda - Marriott | Golden Rule

So, commenting on the religious hypocrisy of Marriott as a corporation is not that far of a stretch, which has also been done by prominent travel bloggers.

If your goal is to upgrade 1 category from say, NC5 to NC6 and you hold an OC8, it may make sense to wait and see how things shake out after 9/18 before downgrading OC8 to OC7 and getting the 30K refund. My feeling is that if you are in one of the "compromised" old categories and get that 30K refund 1 category downgrade you will be locked out of doing something like a 1 category upgrade at old TP chart rates (TBD if Marriott allows it) or at some other rate.

Ultimately, you may find yourself locked out of future 1 category upgrade concessions that I think Marriott will have to make with travel package holders affected by the 8/18 deadline and new category map.

I would say:

You would have also seen that one of Marriott's priorities this past week during the merger with SPG was getting the Book of Mormon in 300K+ SPG rooms IN PARALLEL TO concentrating on a smooth merger. https://www.thespectrum.com/story/ne...on/1104206002/

Marriott being such a huge organisation they can definitely do both at once.

Thanks. I had filled out a request at https://www.marriott.com/marriott/contact.mi (as described by https://onemileatatime.com/marriott-...kages-refunds/). I'll have to see if I can summon the strength to call...