In my experience using travel Package certs, you should see the partial travel cert in your reservation as the "payment" method. It should be gone from your available certs. No points should be deducted from your account.

Extending Travel Package
 

Can you advise as to the best way to extend a travel package for another year? I know that I should call the day prior to expiry but not sure who I should call exactly. Does another reservation have to be booked on the horizon?

I just called Marriott Rewards and asked to extend it. I didn't have a reservation booked at that time. 800 450-4442

When I called yesterday, the CSR mentioned if I later found I wanted to cancel this reservation and extend my certificate or upgrade with points to a higher cat, I could call back. I had thought that a cert could be extended only one time for a year, and I already had one extension.

Thank you. I have very few points left and they were not deducted. It just seemed odd that the details list this as two awards--a 5 night and a 2 night. I would have expected it to list as a 7 night award. Maybe that is because 2 nights of the award are falling in the next week. I would have just called them back and asked, but it took me a bit of time to get to an agent yesterday.

Thanks, really appreciate it.

I had a Saturday to Friday 7 day package recently redeemed...and had the same 5 day + 2 day breakout of awards.

Thank you! I appreciate that info.

I think Marriott started this back when they changed to their current award structure where you get the 5th night free on a 5 night award. Before that, Marriott's award structure was optimized on 7 night awards (where the average point costs per night was reduced with the cheapest per night awards being a 7 night award.)

Yes, it's been like this for several years now. It is also worth noting that though the travel package displays as a 5 night cert + a 2 night cert, the certificates still cannot be divided. You cannot use 5 nights at one hotel and 2 nights at another. You also cannot have the 2 night certificate overlap with the 5 night certificate (giving you 2 rooms for 2 of the 5 nights). I know, I've tried.

Trying to get some future travel arranged and want to utilize the travel package. Is there really no way to do this on a Saturday?

From my efforts this morning:

*Cannot do it online

*Marriott Rewards has no weekend hours

*Platinum Customer Service cannot deal with them.

Seriously? Am I missing something? I am not sure the one human that I spoke with understood what I was trying to do as they kept referring to Marriott Vacations.

And on a side note, Marriott's phone "auto attendant" has been programmed to recognize curse works. After blurting out the F word, I heard " I am sorry you are disappointed...transferring to an agent" or something similar. Pretty funny.

If what you want is airline miles, and not a stay somewhere, then yes, you will have to wait until Monday morning to talk to someone. You could have called on Friday, but you waited.

If you want to book a stay somewhere, go ahead and book your 7 day stay using points. On Monday, when you call to get your miles transferred, tell them you want to change your hotel reservation to a travel package. I do this all the time.

If you are unsure where you will use your 7 night stay, when you request the package, just ask for a category 1-5 hotel. That way you are out of the least number of points. If later, you decide to book for a higher level category, then you can do so and pay the difference the travel package points. I do this all the time too.

If you can't use your certificate within the year, then as close to the one year anniversary (without going over!) call to extend the certificate for one more year. That's as long as they will typically allow, one extension. I have personally never asked for more than one extension, but I have asked for extensions plenty of times.

Although I have never tried, their may be Marriott Reward offices in foreign countries/geographical regions that may be open on weekends. I have no experience with this, but due to the time difference, you may be able to find someone in Asia that is open on the weekends or at least their Monday. For the truly adventurous, using skype or vonage woldwide, you can try this:

http://www.marriott.com/help/rewards...mer-support.mi

Just tell them you are traveling and not home. They should all speak English.

Billy

I can wait until Monday. Just wanted to get this stuff taken care of on a non-work day.

Still surprises me that Marriott has no Saturday hours for their reward program...as well as not being able to take care of this on-line...nor reservations being of no help with it.

I'm not sure if the best place for this question, but I'm thinking of combining my points with my wife's to do a 7 day package, mainly to transfer the miles to Southwest for a companion pass (not until January of course). But, I don't have any specific hotel in mind. I agree with the advice above to just book the cat 1-5 initially, but I'm really not excited about any cat 5 options from some quick research. Is there any communal wisdom on sweet spots for the package (at any category level)? Of course one consideration is redemption point value (i.e., cat 6 going for $300 per night clearly preferable to cat 8 going for $200 per night), but also in terms of finding somewhere that's pleasant/interesting enough to merit 7 nights. Any thoughts or advice is greatly appreciated -- thanks!

It's impossible for us to suggest one hotel for you. Best advice we can give you is just get the cat 1-5 certificate if you are unsure and you can always change later. That way if you do find a cat 5 hotel you like, you can stay there. Trying to downgrade a certificate, for some reason, is a lot harder to them.

There are some very nice cat 5 hotels in Asia (especially Thailand). I know that's a long way to fly, but I love it over there, and staying 7 days is never a problem for me.

Billy

Bali Courtyard Seminyak is a great property.