You'll need to see the hotel available for a regular award stay if you want to select it as your travel package destination.

Most hotels I've looked at don't allow you to pay extra for upgraded rooms. Ironically enough, I'm at one now that does, it's an Autograph property in Europe. I booked it at the standard award rate and then talked to the GM about upgrades. This property does a one class upgrade for gold/plat, and he offered me a second upgrade for 50 Euros/night. After checking in definitely worth the money.

Hello FTers,

Has anyone had an experience of redeeming a Cat 7 reward while using a Cat 8 cert from the travel package? will the difference in points be refunded?

Thank you!

I have gotten a refund before. Same circumstance. I had a cat 8 travel package and ultimately used at a cat 7 property. I asked if they can refund the difference and they did.

Yes, but I would call MR to have the reissue the cert as cat 7 and refund the difference. I would not count on it happening automatically.

Definitely true. If the cert will work for a specific reservation (i.e. a cat 8 cert will work for a Cat. 7 hotel), then the system will just use the cert with no refund. If you actually want the refund you will need to call in and get a CSR involved to help out.

Thank you for all your valuable inputs, Mr Vker, lexdevil and hhoope01!

in addition, do you have Any experience of deferring the expiration of the cert?

Thank you!

Exactly. I had to ask for it. You described exactly how they did it.

Yes on this too. They will extend it one year from the date you request. NOT tack on a year from existing expiration.

Tried to find this specific question in search but not successful. Sorry if this has been covered.
I want to buy a room+air package. I know I can ask to have more than 50K transferred from my husband's account when getting this award. I want to also purchase additional points to meet the requirement. I read that I am limited to 50K per year in transferred or purchase points. Will this apply at the time I am purchasing this award or am I allowed to go over when purchasing specific award.

thank you

From what I was told, you can "combine" your husbands points with yours when you are redeeming for an award. This is in addition to the 50,000 a year transfer allowance.

I got the Air+Hotel Package 7 Nights in category 5 + 132,000 united points, for the price of 270,00 Marriot points

Does anyone know if it's possible to convert the 7 Night certificate back into points?

Also is there an option to use the certificate but stay at a higher category hotel with paying the $ difference?

You can cash it back in, but you are only going to receive 40K or so in points. You can shift it to a higher category level for 30k points per level, but not by cash alone.

Is this stated anywhere? I just spoke to agent who insisted cannot change back to points (although for 40K I wouldn't do anyway) and cannot upgrade category

Nothing official, but I know I've read multiple people say in this forum that they've done it before, and it is for a pittance of points. Definitely better to use if you can. So I guess you can call my information hearsay, and it may take multiple agents until they allow it.

The way I see it is that a Cat5 would typically cost 30,000pt/night, and at current redemption, a 7 night stay would cost 180,000 MR points (accounting for 1 free night). The travel package basically gives you 132,000 UA award miles for an additional cost of 90,000 MR points. Absolute steal.

As for cashing the certificate back in for a refund in points after the UA miles post, my question is... why? I always use the package for a nice getaway, usually utilizing the award miles to travel to the destination, and the certificate for a week-long stay. This package is perfect... almost too good to be true for the price.