I'm also not completely sure of exactly what you are wanting, but it sounds like you want to order "part" of a Travel Package award now (i.e. airline miles), but not the hotel part (5 night cert). And if I'm understanding you correctly, then you won't be able to do that. The TP award is a single award with two parts (airline miles and hotel cert). You have to order it as a single award and all the points will come out of your account(s) at that time.

With that said, you can make the 5 or 6 night award right now before you order the award and not have a cert attached to it. So that part is possible. But you can't transfer the airline miles from a TP award without also not receiving the 5 night award cert into your account. Though you don't have to then attach that hotel award cert to your already existing award reservation.

OK--I think I got it. You will need two reservations--a five night and a 1 one night. BECAUSE, the travel package is a 5 night fixed certificate.

Now, you can trick the system to make the awards reservations without utilizing points. It will require making a dummy reservation. First, make an award that you will not use. (Make sure the reservation is cancelable.) Allow points to be withdrawn for this reservation. Make sure enough points are used to bring your balance below the amounts needed for your Aruba reservations.

THEN, make your Aruba reservations. The system will tell you you either must buy points or order certs later. Select the "order certs" later option.

Now, cancel your dummy reservation. All of those points return instantly to your account. Then you should be able to order your TP when ready.

But you can do what you suggested at first. Book a 5 day and a 1 day reservation now, with points. That way you have everything locked in - available and at a category 5. Then later, when you want to change from "hotel only" to travel package, just call marriott, they will change out the certs and take the additional points then. I have done this in the past because I wasn't sure I was going to use a travel package (i.e. I might have booked a paid room if I found a great fare) but if I didn't and I needed the miles, I might change to a travel package. I've done this several times.

Not as sure about combining points from accounts - that is supposed to work but I have personally never done it.

Billy

Travel Package Questions
 

Strange as it may sound, I have never really used the travel package preferring instead to just use the points for the usual 7 night (before the 2009 enhancements) and now for the 5 night redemptions.

Anyway, I now need to get a Southwest companion pass in the next week or 2 and the only option I can see is to redeem for a travel package that would instantly give me 120K SW RR points (which I believe would instantly qualify me for a companion pass)

So my questions are:
1. I saw reports in Jan this year that SW RR points from Marriott travel packages were posting as companion pass qualifying points. Any more recent reports. I really dont need want to redeem 300K+ points if I am not going to end up with the Companion Pass.

2. How long does it take for the points to post in my SW RR records from the time I initiate the transfer? How long after they post can I start making reservations for my companion?

3. The lowest redemption is 270K for a 7 night stay at a Cat 5 hotel + 120K SW points. I have no use for the hotel redemption, right now but will definitely use it at some point. If I do a Cat 5 now and later decide to vacation at a Cat 7 property, can I just pay the difference in points (30K for Cat 6, 60K for Cat 7 or 90K for Cat 8 at the travel package rate) or am I stuck with vacationing at a Cat 5 only.

Any and all insight would be highly appreciated!

Thanks, this is what I was looking for. Sorry my post was confusing, it was not easy trying to explain it. We don't want to book the nights with points because that would cause the points to come out of our account. Then when we go to actually do the travel package, the points wouldn't be there. This dummy reservation trick should work, thanks.

This is what I was wanting to do, lock in the reservation now with points but not have it pull any points from our account because we need those for the travel package that we will actually request later this year. I will attach the certs once we get them from the travel package and credit card.

Just make sure your dummy reservations are within any cancelation window. :D

Not confusing. Some things are complicated to explain in a post. When you order the TP and have your free night cert, just have the MR rep attach the certs to the existing award reservation. We have done this several times.

I can answer question 3. Yes, you can order a cat 1-5 TP then upgrade the cert to a higher category later if needed. They take the difference in points. We just did this ourselves. Had a cat 6 TP and upped it to a Cat 8 cert. Done very easily and instantly on the phone with MR.

My main question was can I make a single 6 night reservation or should I make a 5 night and a 1 night? I am thinking I probably should do two since I will get the five night certificate as the end of this year from the travel package but the credit card free night won't come along until early 2013 since that is the credit card anniversary.

So they won't possibly make you switch rooms if you have a separate 5 night and 1 night reservation?

You do not need to separate your six-night stay into two different reservations. We can attach both rewards to a single reservation.

Best Regards,

Drew

Thanks for the response. I'll move forward with a Cat 5 TP with 120K WN RR points tomorrow once the Plat line opens. I'll provide data points once I am through with the whole process.

Great! I would really appreciate your confirmation of the CPQPs from the Marriott travel package as I'm also considering a similar route to earn the companion pass.

Question about package redemption
 

There is a promotion of getting additional 40K miles if I convert my Marriott points to Aeroplan miles. This has to be done by June 18th. I have 360K points which I plan to redeem into 120K miles and 7-night stay at a category 8 hotel. If I call Marriott rewards on Monday (June 18th) to make the redemption, will the 120K miles be posted with the right activity date of June 18th?

I made a similar package redemption 8 days ago which hasn't posted yet so I have no basis to guess whether the one I plan to redeem next Monday will be posted with the right activity date.

Please make comments, thanks in advance! I will report back on the activity dates once they are posted.

I am reporting the status of my Marriott package redemption as below:

120K miles posted to my Aeroplan account on June 18 with the activity date of June 10 which is also the activity date shown in the Marriott account:

06/10/2012 Reward 7 Night Travel Package Category 6 Hotels -300,000 pts

For this particular redemption, the activity dates of Marriott and Aeroplan match.

I will report the activity date in my Aeroplan account for the the package I redeemed yesterday(June 18th as it is shown in my Marriott account). Hopefully they will match.