As mentioned in the other thread, did you call back later asking a different agent or just the one?

I spoke to 2 of them, but will try again.

No? May I please speak to a supervisor.

I called back and got a helpful agent this time.

Apparently the way to do it is that you gotta book a reservation at the higher cat hotel (even if you don't have enough points, you can still book), and then they'll attach the cat 5 certificate to it and charge you the point difference. And so it worked.

Thanks guys!

That's why I love Marriott, as long as you have the right agent they will go above and beyond to make you happy.

It's just too bad and frustrating that sometimes you have to HUACA.

Glad it finally worked out for you. Perseverance is a good trait to have when dealing with any rewards program. ;)

Just book the reservation for the new hotel via the website or on the phone and then CALL marriott rewards, not the reservation number. You have to call Marriott Rewards. If you call the reservation number they will say no, can't help.

Upgraded from a cat 5 property many times (as recently as a month ago) and it works just fine.

Billy

That is really weird. When I ordered these travel packages in the past, the MR agent told me specifically that if I wanted to upgrade to a cat 6-9, I could at any time as long as I paid in the additional points to make up the difference. I never acted on it (ended up staying at a RI property), but I know that they left this option open for me.

One thing that could be going on is speaking to MR vs. reservations. Only MR people can help with this. Reservations might tell you what they think the answer is....

https://secure.unitedmileageplus.com/reg/PTM2015/index.html?Mobile=1

There's a promo for bonus miles if we exchange points from hotel programs

Does it work with travel packages? Given that there is already 10 percent bonus miles for reward plus

yes; have done it several times with same promo before.

Unless you have a specific redemption in mind and award seats are available, you wouldn't want to be stuck with a large sum of United miles at this point. They are IMO likely to follow Delta's lead in devaluing to horrific levels for intl business class. When they start throwing miles around it's usually a good indicator a devaluation is in the works.

DL has had "sky pesos" for quite some time and while UA made a significant increase in partner premium cabin rates last year, it's still nowhere near as bad as DL overall.

Thanks!

So do u get 20% on top of the extra 10%?

If we do the redemption for 110k for UA miles we get another 20k bonus ?

As of now biz class redemption rates are already quite high!

Yes, again.
Although if I recall correctly the last time I participated in a similar offer the max bonus was 25,000 miles.