^

Couldn't resist any longer. I went ahead and pulled the plug on a Southwest TP award before the sky falls. :)

What is the typical wait for TP points to post to Alaska?

So what did you book ?

How many airline miles ( what airline ) and what category Marriott for the 5 night stay ?

How many Marriott points did it cost you ?

Just bought the 7 day package and transferred 120k points to Avios to take advantage of the 35% promotion, do anyone know how long it takes to post to Avios?

For those who want the 5 day package, best of luck, I tried calling the Australian, Hong Kong, UK and US call centre and they all refused to book the 5 day package, eventually ran out of patience and booked the 7 day package instead.

typical wait for TP points to post to Alaska?
 

I ordered my 7 Night Travel Package Category 1-5 Hotels at 01/22/17 and miles were posted to my Alaska Mileage Plan account at 02/01/2017.

Where exactly do I go in my rewards account to use the 7-night certificate?

I've never been able to successfully do this online. There are accounts upthread of people being able to add them to the Dream Tracker thing and do it from there.

I called in another one over the weekend - this time for United miles. No hold time, UA miles posted in less than 24 hours. A little bit frustrating that it isn't a few clicks in the mobile app, but overall not too much of a hassle at all.

Thanks for responding, but I meant, once I redeemed the travel package and have the 7-night certificate in my rewards account, where exactly do I go to book my hotel room?

Ah... If it's same-category and you're actually booking a 7-nighter, I just assumed it automatically attached. I could be wrong though.

I almost always end up phoning them for the hotel booking as well, as I usually don't redeem Category 5. Cat 6-8 is usually what I'm looking at, so I make the call for the cert upgrade and booking all at one shot.

Just search for availability like you would any award, then once you have found 7nights at your chosen hotel, call them up and book over the phone. They will use the TP rather than deduct points

If Michael_V already has the hotel cert in their account from previous conversion, they would just do the search for points availability and when you get to the payment page you can select to attach the certificate.

While that works for using the free night cert from the credit cards I can't get it to add my cert for a 7 night stay.

Make a reservation online only without the pts as the system would not recognize the 7 night cert due to when it actually applies, it would be split into a 5 nights and a 2 nights certs.

The only way is to call and the CSR would manually attach the cert to your booking, then you will see the 5 and 2 nights certs in the booking.

This has been discussed at least 10 times or more in the past few months, even just a couple pages before when someone tried to book online.

Nope. It does not work that way for ours, nor for many others bookings to use the Travel Package cert.

The system does NOT recognize you have a cert, just tell you you dont have sufficient points and you can buy points to finish the payment.:rolleyes:

If you have actually been successful in doing what you describe, then you are the only person who has been able to attach the cert to the existing booking. No idea about your comment of "in Their Account from Previous Conversion." What conversion you referred to?

In reality, the cert when attached, it is split into a 5 nights and a 2 nights cert - 2 certs showing in the booking - did yours done online by yourself as you claimed, showing such attachment?

No, it will NOT automatically attached.

Just used a 7 nights cert on a stay in Hong Kong for the exact Cat 6.

Booked the res online, system did not recognize the cert but instruct me to buy points.
Cannot choose the cert at "payment". Called and CSR attached the cert.

It has been mentioned and discussed at least 10 times in the past few months - the Travel Package 7 nights cert would be split into a 5 nights and a 2 nights cert when it actually attached to the booking - and those of us who actually have gone thru the process believe, the reason why it would not be auto-attached online is because the system is never designed to recognize a 7 nights cert and knows to split it this way - because after all, the TP redemption is a very very small percentage in the universe. Only when now with the SPG transfer the TP redemption is become much more known by members. Besides, given the total amount of points needed to redeem TP, without the 1 to 3 SPG transfer, there are not many people who have such a big pile to redeem the packages as Marriott program is not known for easy earning such as HHonors!

Folks can just scroll back a few pages and know the only way to do it is to call.

For the poster(s) claim it can be attached at payment, well, s/he would be the only one(s) who has claimed the positive experience - or, may be s/he is just guessing, based on the REGULAR redemption of certs from Mega Bonus or from CC bonus / anniversary cert. TP cert is totally different.

I'm struggling to understand the benefit of the 5 night vs 7 night stay. I must be missing something.

For example, (and this assumes these are the redemption amounts):
http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.co...theyre-secret/

If one redeems the Travel Package for a Cat 9 property:
5 days costs 345k
7 days costs 390k

If you redeemed without the travel package it would cost:
5 days: 180k
7 days: 270k

In either scenario one gets 132k United miles.
But for 5 nights you spend an add'l 165k to get them vs 7 nights where you get the 132k United miles for 120k.

What am I missing? Is the only benefit that people can use less miles (perhaps they don't have the extra?)

First of all, it's really just best to assume that you can't book the 5-night package. Some people get lucky but that's nothing you can rely on unless you are a timeshare owner.

The benefit is simple. Fewer MR points for the same number of miles. It can be hard to find a cat. 1-5 that you actually want to spend seven consecutive nights in. Category 8 and 9 packages aren't as popular because the primary objective is usually the air miles, not so much the hotel nights. So whatever points you spend to upgrade the hotel week, you can't spend on a second travel package.

Kind of. The "benefit" is that a lot of people don't want to stay somewhere for 7 nights. They much prefer staying 5 nights (or even less) somewhere. That means if you have to order a 7 night award, you are wasting the points for the extra 2 nights as you only wanted 5 nights. That extra 90K points means you are almost half way to ordering your next 5 night TP award. :)

So yes, they use less points to get what they want and 90K points isn't a trivial number of points.

Makes me wonder why they even display this awards chart

Which awards chart are you talking about? I didn't think Marriott actively advertises the 5-night award chart. IOW, you have to be an MVCI owner to see the chart on a Marriott website or you have to go to Blog writers that are posting the site.

can somebody please let me know how long does it usually take for the points to post to my airlines account ( specifically AA ) if I were to redeem my points for a travel package?

I transferred to Delta and it took 2 business days. The rep on the phone quoted me 3 business days.

I've had all of UA, AA, and WN post in about a day.

The reps always quote three days, but they're usually faster.

I pulled the plug on a WN TP award last Saturday and the points were in my WN account on Monday.

wow that was really quick turnaround times. Rep tolde it will take 1-2 weeks and so I'm wondering if the points transfer process is backed up or something right now but if they do post within a week I would be really happy as i have a need for the miles right away.

I may be wrong, but I've always been under the impression that the time it takes for airline miles to post was less about how quickly Marriott gets the miles to the airlines and more about how often the airline checks the "Marriott queue" to pull in the airline miles to their program.

Some airlines may pull miles in more often. Others less often.

Since my UA miles landed on a Sunday, I'm going to guess that United's IT department actually built an automated tool to receive the Marriott queue.

Shocking, I know. :p

I cant decide which tp to get! Already got one wn and one as package over the last year..which airline is the least likely to be devalued? As, aa, or ua? Shoild i justw ait for another ua bonus?

I travel the most to asia and east asia, followed by europe.

Already have:
Wn cp +120k points
195k as
175k aa
185k ur
12.5k ua

The question of which airline program will have the least devaluations over the next year or so might get better responses in MilesBuzz or possibly one of the airline forums. A hotel forum probably won't have the same number of airline program experts looking in it as those other forums will.

I'd personally go with UA from an overall standpoint. Sure if you want airplanes with showers go with AS, or if you want Cathay Pacific biz class to Asia then AA is good. However, your points balances don't suggest that you have a ton to waste (although depends on your travel needs) so I'd suggest looking at United. United by far is the best at releasing award availability that is easy to search for and book right now. AA is terrible in this regard. Plus, AA and AS miles are easy to get via churning right now. UA is not.

This is sage advice. Over and over, I find UA partner award availability with minimal fees. I'm shocked at how seldom I can find what I need using AA miles.

I agree. AA availability is horrible. This leaves AS and UA. It's hard for me to jistify UA as they just had the transfer bonus at the end of last year..an extra 20k ua was nothing to scoff at.

I recommend diversification. I have about 60% Chase (for UA), 20% AS, and 20% AA. UA has been better for me but that could change so I hedge. Except I have only 2% in DL in case I find that one trip where there are better. Hasn't happened yet, but when it does I will be done with DL.

I'm gonna hold off on ordering my next TP for as long as possible and see how it goes.

It's a tossup between UA and AS for me.
Mainly interested in J/F to Asia/Europe from SFO.
Will probably never want to try Emirates due to the large amount of AS miles required; it just isn't worth it to me.

Domestically, I'm covered with the WN points plus Amex Plat GCs and CSR credit.

1. There's really no advantage to accumulate AA miles relative to AS (other than the ability to combine multiple OW partner flights).

2. Award availability (especially to Asia in J/F) is so much better with *A, so UA or AC or NH is the way to go. AC offers bigger transfer bonus often from hotel programs but adds surcharges on its own and a few partners' flights. NH has the best award chart but the program is less flexible and has significant surcharges to some destinations.

3. JL has probably the best award chart (and is distance based), but, like NH, is not very flexible (and passes on surcharges on many flights).

4. KE is also worth considering, mainly for the availability of award seats in J/F on transpacific flights (and a few other sweat spots). Its miles don't expire for 10 years. However, it passes on surcharges on almost all flights.

5. In terms of next significant devaluation, the most likely one is probably AS on the airline side and MR/SPG on the hotel side.

You forget AS also partners with CX and JL. So if you use AA miles to Asia on CX or JL, you pay 70K and 110K respectively, but you only pay 62.5K and 70K for the same destinations using AS miles.

Sure you can only use AS for domestic as it is partner specific. But these days you would need some luck to have convenient AA flights to take you to the CX or JL gateways anyway.

So if you do not mind a position flight, and if your destination is Asia then AS miles are much cheaper for the SAME partners AA have.

As for the devaluation on the CX chart, well AS just added JL a few months ago and the chart is very similar to CX chart. Therefore the AS folks speculate that the CX chart would not be devalued any time soon, despite now it is much cheaper than AA especially in F, especially in the long existing Africa-US route with Hong Kong as stopover.

Finally AS miles is no longer easy to get via churning if you have not kept score on the BofA latest tightening. Besides the bonus is much smaller at 30K a card versus the 60K AA.

UR is fairly easy to get and that is pseudo UA.

Much thanks for your input. What is a position flight?
My guess would be you're saying if I don't mind flying SFO-LAX-HKG-BKK on CX J, instead of SFO-HKG-BKK?
With AS miles, I would have to pay my way for the SFO-LAX leg, correct?

IME, Star Alliance has much better availability than using AS on JL/CX to Asia.
However, I have more experience with UA award bookings that AS.

Any comment on this?
I may have to stockpile AS in this case!

The most frustrating thing is when you *think* you've found AA availability...and then you notice the BA metal and the LHR connection. :mad:

UA is thankfully still no-bull partner redemptions, directly from the United.com site, in *most* situations. (I'm not sure if/where Starnet blocking occurs, but these days I'm usually trying to get 5 coach tickets together, so whatever's going on at the pointy end of the plane doesn't concern me. :o) AA may be a better play for Asia, but these days we're using most miles to visit family in France, and UA still has many more total options to get there and back than AA. (We've used Airberlin once, which was okay but kind of random, and I've never found a single award seat on Iberia - ever.)

Yeah agree. I still like UA the best despite devaluation. The most recent devaluation impacts more the folks who like to exploit it to make like 7 stops in a 2 weeks trip, which is not how I travel typically. But the inability to customize routing to get the airline you want and the hub to transit through is a downer to everyone.

BA award flights as AA redemption search results just give me the angst and drives me up the wall lol