Was your certificate attached prior to 8/18? If so, you should be 100% ok. I booked a hotel which was an old Category 8, applied a Category 8 certificate to it prior to the merger. Its now a new Category 6 but no issues here at check in. You booked the correct cert at the time and didnt change anything so there should be no issues.

I am not sure if you can make any changes (like date changes, etc.).

I'm in more or less the same circumstances. Old category 9 cert attached to a hotel that moved to new category 7, and it looks as though I will need to shift the reservation from spring of 19 to the fall. At least one poster has been told that date change will cancel the reservation and return the cert to your account at which point it will be insufficient to book the same hotel. So far no upgrades allowed though many think it likely that this will happen in the future.

i did attach prior to 8/18

however, now i may need to cancel my plans, and my understanding is that it will convert to a cert good at properties cat1-5...where as the property i want to use it at is a new cat 6

so from what i see, i could downgrade to save 30k points, but its of more value for me to upgrade for 30k points

i think the problem with this mapping is that folks like myself, now have a certificate that i cant use where i could before 8/18...very frustrating

I think your best move is to hold tight until Marriott confirms their position going forward. Especially since you want to change your reservation for Fall 2019, which is not bookable yet because Marriott's system doesn't book 1-year out.

They trade off of their religion by putting the bibles in there. That makes commentary fair game, IMHO. Commenting on the (dying?) practice of selling porn on demand in their rooms is/was similarly fair game.

That's my plan. I imagine in a couple of months things will be more clear. If worse comes to worse, there's at least one new category 6 hotel, though not my first choice, I'd be happy with.

Not sure how you can possibly construe his comment as a condemning Mormons in general. The comment was directed at the unethical publicly traded corporation executives, who happen to be Mormons proselytizing their guests through the distribution of their religious texts.

Old category 9 was the sweet spot with the new category map. I wouldn't be too disappointed if you can not upgrade to a new category 7 as you got max value unless the category 6 hotels are not great and probably should be category 5. I'm stuck with an old category 8 that got hosed in the new category map.

No, categoriy 9 holders cannot be an exception. If Marriott changes their decisions on upgrade/downgrade they already announced, everyone regardless of which category he possesses must be treated fairly.

In that regard, Marriott should upgrade every certificate for free after they are done with conversion.
I would suggest
OC5 -> NC4 -> NC5 after free upgrade.
OC6 -> NC4+30k -> NC5 after free upgrade
OC7 -> NC5 -> NC6 after free upgrade
OC8 -> NC5 + 30k-> NC6 after free upgrade
OC9 -> NC6 -> NC7 after free upgrade
Tier1-3 -> NC6 + 30k -> NC7 after free upgrade
Tier4-5 -> NC7 -> NC8 after free upgrade

Nothing will satisfy customers other than this.:p

I think that is wishful thinking, but you never know. Enough bad PR and a hit on quarterly sales might make it happen.

If your hotel has moved to higher category than pre 8/18, any change made to the booking would VOID the initial level with the lower category cert.

Thank you for posting that. It proves a willing and capable agent CAN help.
It is correct the QP80 is for the OC6 mapped to NC4, while QP83 is for the OC5 mapped to NC4.
You now receive the 30K refund back, much sooner than those who are waiting for the handling of their requests submitted online.

IIRC the latest response was that there were technical difficulties so we cannot handle such requests now. Please resubmit it at later date. This is at least change of tone from the initial ridiculous response about no refund and your cert is now not valid because you have not attached to a property prior 8/18... blah blah blah. That was the Original Intent by Marriott which finally gave in to the public outcry and agreed to a refund. Unfortunately judged by how things have been going, one would be lucky to see the 30K refund by October.

What you have done can be applied to virtually any downgrade from higher category certs. A poster has downgraded his Old Cat 8 to NC4 and got back 135K from the OC8, reorder a QP83 with 45K as you did.

Any change done on existing booking on a property goes up in category would VOID the original booking and you wound up having a cert no longer can book the same hotel.

Agree. Sit tight and not be surprised when Sept 18th comes we still may not see ANY official announcement of any kind and the mess remains just the same.
While here we sweat over the unusuable certificates, folks on the SPG side are literally losing their points into Dark Hole. The highest disappeared points I have read, was 610K points... Some people's SPG accounts simply lost all their point balances, and many who canceled SPG bookings but the internal e-Certs attached to the bookings were not canceled simultaneously. As a result, no point is refunded from the canceled reward bookings!
They are getting even worse responses from Marriott CS while SPG CS could not help because SPG system is no more.

In the short run, it doesn't make much difference whether the lack of notice about upcoming changes in travel packages was due to neglect, incompetence or dishonesty. Although Marriott has regularly extended hotel certificates, allowed category changes, and provided modest refunds for unused hotel partial packages, MPG was under no obligation to continue the practice. Unlike SPG's Terms & Conditions which stated that advance notice of devaluations would be provided, Marriott's did not. Still, based on prior experience with both MR and SPG and the fact that the head of the combined Loyalty program was a (13-year?) SPG veteran, I would have expected some notice of impending changes.

It's amazing how the discussions on FT appear to have shifted from aggressive methods to achieve LTPP to looking at other hotel chains. Although I believe the apparent end of the policy of allowing extensions and categories should have been disclosed in advance, that loss of flexibility is less objectionable than not announcing the actual conversion rates. Since converting and attaching legacy hotel awards is still a time consuming process, allowing category changes to those certificates over the next few weeks might negate some of the recent negative feelings towards MPG.

I'm not despondent, but would like the option. The loss of flexibility to upgrade was revealed (if you can call it that) only very close to 8/18, well after the time I selected my TP. Together with Marriott's category changes which have moved many average 4 star hotels into NC7, it greatly limits my options. But it's an annoyance compared to the way the changes have affected others.

Update on my situation. So after getting my cat 4 night partial pack, I was unable to book the Springhill suites main gate in Anaheim on points advance.

Even after depleting my account, I was unable to book it on points advance (at 0 percent, 50 percent or 90 percent of the points of the booking)

So back to the phones. First agent was able to book it on points advance, but unable to attach due to September 19 quote, but at least have a booking to work with

Another 45 minutes later, gave new agent the booking reference number and he managed to attach the cert without issues.

I am not touching this booking in case of jinxing myself