Interesting... Thanks guys.

My question stemmed from _never_ being able to find cat 1-4's within driving distance for quick weekends away. Little old Gatlinburg, TN is a popular destination for Southern Ohioans and even the FAIRFIELD INN is a cat 5.

After this promotion and with the credit card room, I'll have 4 free nights but not sure where to take the wife for a weekend.

Find a cheap flight to a place you would like to visit, such as Southern California or Washington DC or the Florida coast, and which have some nice Cat. 3 and 4 hotels, and off you go!

theres a Cat 4 Fairfield near Gatlinburg in Sevierville.........theres even a Cat 4 FS Marriott in Knoxville among several others.........
since you stated w/i driving distance, anyone recommending that you fly off to southern Cal or Fla just to use your certs over a weekend isn't worth listening to ............

While the FS Marriott in Knoxville is an easy drive to Gatlinburg in the off-season, traffic is a bear when the tourists are there. It's also not in a very safe area in my opinion. We steer visitors to west Knoxville instead, which would add to the commute.

The Sevierville Fairfield would be a good option in low to medium traffic times.

Sheila

Just completed the current Megabonus 50k points! Bring on the Spring!

I always get the points mega bonus and always switch to the certs. Since I am automatically registered for the mega bonus (Marriott's way for some reason) i do nothing. After i have completed the necessary stays (6 in this case) but before the end of the promo, I will call. The rep sees that I have the necessary stays and puts the certs in my account. They also tell me they will monitor the account just in case i go over the night threshold and points are added to the account. In that case they have told me they would manually deduct the points. YMMV but this has worked for thel ast 3 promos in my case.

Category 4:

SpringHill Suites Indianapolis Downtown
601 West Washington Street Indianapolis, IN 46204

Nice location adjacent to JW Marriott and only +/- 2 years old; walking distance to multiple museums, zoo, theatres, shopping, stadiums/arenas, restaurants, etc.

I called this morning and caught a nice gentleman who was able to switch me to a points bonus. I asked about the Cat 5 offer and he said he didn't have the ability to switch me to that. I asked who gets that offer? He said it's computer generated by marketing and they have no idea who gets it or why. He said he's seen Gold members as well as Plat's get the Cat 5 offer.

Every member who has reported getting the Cat 5 offer on FT has had a non US mailing address.

Interesting point, I did not notice that before. Has anyone else noticed that before? It was right under our noses! Thanks Vicki!

What about the current Megabonus? I kind of remember that most of the FTer who got the Cat 5 offer are from North America.

Cincinnati, OH to Sevierville, TN, according to GoogleMaps, is approximately 4 hours, 12 minutes drive, Cincinnati, OH to Gatlinburg, TN is approximately 4 hours, 35 minutes, while Cincinnati, OH to Charleston, WV is approximately 3 hours, 29 minutes drive. There are FOURTEEN Cat. 1-4 hotels in Charleston or the rest of West Virginia, and ALMOST all of them are less than a four hour drive from Cincinnati. Similar results are probably true for every state immediately adjacent to Ohio, the place of OP's residence, or wihin a 4 hour drive of OP's residence. Yes, I still agree that Cat. 1-4 hotels are often not legendarily great hotels, but they are also NOT BAD, and there are CLEARLY many, many, many choices, all over the place. I used West Virginia purely as an example of choices available to OP.

It is the OP's choice whether to get $59/night value for those certs, or to get $159/night value for those certs* by choosing another location for a higher quality experience with "the wife." If the OP wants a more limited choice, the OP can choose only hotels within a limited driving distance, but if the OP wants a broader choice, for an AWARD stay, then there are literally hundreds of choices, whether OP wishes to drive, or to fly for $$, or fly for award miles, or whatever would make the OP happy and satisfy the OP's wife. There is NO doubt there are many choices, and it is hard to see how the OP is having difficulty with even 5 minutes of research on marriott.com.

*Not a literal range of prices, just used to illustrate the point about prices from low to high as a value received for the certs in question.

I have Cat 5 Offer and my Address is in Asia

I live in Canada and have category 1 - 5 this time around. Megabonuses used to be 1 - 4 for me and the first time I noticed the addition of 5s was the period that just ended.

At the risk of provoking much gnashing of teeth, I can't resist saying - AT LAST, something for non-US addresses that is actually better!

Like I said, that's what I noticed, if anyone can provide a counter-example I want to know, because so far it has been 100%.