Point transfer - Most ridiculus procedure ever
 

So it appears one can transfer Marriott points to one's spouse. The website says:

"You can transfer your points to your legal spouse or domestic partner at time of reward redemption provided he or she is also a Marriott Rewards member."

Great. It so happens my wife has 82,000 points in her account and we need 90,000 for an upcoming redemption. Simple.

What could possibly go wrong?

So I request a transfer from the Marriott website. Next day I get an email from Marriott:

__________________________________________________ _________

Dear Scooby3597,

Thank you for contacting Marriott Rewards, and thank you for being a valued member since 2005.

Transferring points is an option that can only be done at the time of redeeming points for a reward and can only be done in increments of 1,000 points, up to the cost of the reward that is being ordered. If you are ready to redeem a reward, our office can fax or mail you a point transfer affidavit that the member donating their points needs to sign authorizing the transfer. Upon return of the signed affidavit, the points are transferred and the needed reward is ordered.

Please reply with the following information:

1. Your secure fax phone number or postal mailing address for delivery of the point transfer form:
2. Your home, business or mobile phone number, should our office need to speak with you:
3. The reward code(s) (if available) or description of the desired award:
4. The account number the points are transferring from:
5. The first and last name on the account number the points are transferring from:
6. The account number the points are transferring to:
7. The first and last name on the account number the points are transferring to:
8. Amount of points to transfer, in 1,000-point increments:
9. For Marriott hotel stays, the confirmation number for the reservation:
10. For mileage awards, the airline name and airline account number:

Please note that points cannot be transferred to order a SkyMall reward.

If you would like to make a reward reservation now, you may do so by calling our Reservations department at 1-800-228-2100. You may also book your reservation online at MarriottRewards.com.

We look forward to your reply, and thank you for choosing Marriott.

Sincerely,

XXXXX I
nternet Correspondence Specialist
Marriott Rewards Guest Services

__________________________________________________ _______

OK then. So I reply with all the information they requested, with the exception of item #9. After all, I am transferring the points in order to top off my wife's account so she has enough points to make the redemption. Seems to make sense, right?:rolleyes:

Here comes the reply:
__________________________________________________ ________

Dear Scooby3597,

Thank you for this reply.

I apologize that I am not able to send out the point transfer form with sections blank. I would need to list the specific reward needed on the point transfer form. Meaning the that reservation would need to be booked. You can make the reservation by calling our Reservations department at 1-800-228-2100. You may also book your reservation online at MarriottRewards.com.

When the reservation is booked using reward points, please reply with the confirmation number of the reservation, and I will be happy to send you the point transfer form.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your assistance in resolving this matter.

We appreciate you choosing Marriott when you travel.

Regards,

XXXX
Internet Correspondence Specialist
Marriott Rewards Guest Services
__________________________________________________ _________

Underlining is mine.

What on earth are these people smoking? I have to admit I lost my cool after that email. My reply:

__________________________________________________ ________

That has to be the most ridiculus procedure ever. You are asking me to book the reservation using rewards points, then you will send me the form so I can transfer the points I need in order to make the reservation!



Nevermind. I will transfer points from Ultimate Rewards instead. Now I remember why I have Platinum status with Intercontinental and Hilton, not with Marriott. By the way my spouse's Marriott credit card was cut in half this morning.



Scooby3597
__________________________________________________ _________


Anyone esle has encountered this issue with Marriott :confused:

You can make reservations on points without having the required number of points at the time. Marriott will wait to issue the certificate until you have the required miles, hence why they are asking for a confirmation number. It definitely does seem a bit ridiculous that you have to go through a drawn-out paper process to get the transfer done, though, versus just being able to call the MR line.

You can make/hold a points reservation without having sufficient points then either transfer the points, buy the points , or earn the points prior to the date of the reservation.

Sorry, but think Marriot has one of the most generous points transfer programs out there.

You do realize you can make a reservation on your wife's account without having enough points? Right? Also very generous.

Thank you for pointing that out... Looks like I lost my cool way too quickly :o

I wish they had explained that.

If you look through FT for the various schemes people dream up to beat various loyalty point systems, you can understand why Marriott is careful.

One of Marriott's good points is that they will allow points to be transferred from ANY other account with no charge. The major stipulation though is that only the points needed to order an award will be transferred.

Yes, the T&Cs state this is a benefit for spouses, but Marriott will actually allow any two accounts to be used. I don't know of any other program that generous with transfering points.

I would suspect that given this level of flexibility with transferring points, Marriott has to protect itself AND both of the parties in question. They do that with their fairly long and paper based transfer process.

Personally, I'll take their current paper based process over them not allowing transfers (or even truly limiting it to spouses.)

I thought the procedure was reasonable. My wife needed to transfer points to me recently. The process was done lin literally 20 mins from us receiving paperwork filling out and returning.--and that including upgrading a cat 6 TP to a cat 8 TP cert.

Not as generous as Club Carlson - while I'm just a rookie over there it's my understanding that all it takes is a phone call. Not sure about any limits on the number of points.

Hi guys, is it possible for us to cancel the reservation made by combining points?

Regards=)

Yes and the points will remain where they were transferred. Though it's not clear what benefit this has since you could just procrastinate until you're actually going to redeem the points. At the same time, it's not clear why they bother with this restriction.

Actually, today a rep let me combine points from three accounts. Or at least promised two forms would be sent.

Thats good to know.

Back in the day, I tried to do that once and they wouldn't let me. So I had to play the "dummy" reservation game to get all the points into my account.

Which department/email address should we contact?
 

Hi, guys, I tried to make a point transfer request online. The first email came back to me requesting me to fill in some information before they can send the transfer form to me.

I did and reply to that email. Surprisingly, the 2nd email handled by another agent asked me to contact another department for point transfer:confused:

I resent my information to the email address he gave me but no one replied me after few days:confused:

Anyone knows which subject should we choose for sending them email regarding points transfer?

Calling won't be an option I guess since my location is in SEA.

Thanks a lot beforehand.

No. The program is in place to allow two members to combine points for a specific, existing award reservations. It is not to "top off" an account. Use the program as defined and it's easy. Try to use for something it's not intended for (regardless of "intentions" and it won't work.

You lost your "cool" after an initial follow-up, when you did not provide the information requested? :confused:

That is exactly how the program works, and exactly how it is intended to work. It's a very generous offer, not available with most programs. It gets the combined award you need but prevents spurious transfers for no reason. MR isn't in the business of "topping off" accounts for, let's say, lifetime status or other random reasons.

That phone call to Chase regarding the credit card will be embarassing... :D

Agree.

Cheers.

Question: Transferring Marriott Points
 

I'm interested in acquiring more Marriott points, but I don't stay at enough hotels to amass as many as I would like, and there's pretty much only one CC with a decent Marriott signup bonus.

Upon doing some research, I did find Marriott points are transferable (to pretty much anyone if you do the paperwork, even though the T&C say spouse only).
Does Marriott watch these transfers and close people's accounts if they take advantage of them, or is it pretty laissez-faire?

General program questions should be asked in the appropriate program forum.

Spiff, CC moderator

I've never had an issue transferring points to someone. I've only done it three times, but to three different people.

You can buy up to 50,000 points from Marriott for $625

were you limited as to how many points you could transfer in 1 year?

You will only be able to transfer the number of points required to order a specific award.

Note that the points transfer can only be done when ordering an award that requires more points than you currently have. So you may need to order some "dummy" awards and then cancel them. All points will be placed into the account that ordered the award. Thus the end result is you just transfered points to your account.

With that said, I know of no limitation on the number of times you could do this. Though I would guess if you did it a "bunch" of times in quick succession, someone in Marriott may notice and question it. Though I don't remember ever seeing anyone post here about a problem from Marriott management by doing this a bunch of times.

Thanks for your quick and thorough response! ^

To begin the transfer, Marriott faxes you an affidavit to complete and sign. Does anyone have a printable copy of this affidavit they can post?

This will help many of us make the booking, confirm the transfer, and fax the completed form in one phone call. Less chance of confusion/error while switching between agents.

thats right, keep on publishing in a monitored forum how to violate MR rules so this ability for legitimate usage, like the recently discontinued Taste of gold/platinum, is likewise discontinued for abuse .............

Exactly which rule is being broken here?

BTW, when I did this, the Marriott agent knew exactly what I was doing and even why. I wanted to make sure that the points ended up in the correct account. So the agent made sure to tell me which account should be listed for which part of the faxed points transfer form. Neither the agent nor anyone from Marriott has ever told me that this was breaking any of their rules and/or to not do this.

I am truly sorry you don't like my sharing this with others on FT, but I've always thought of FT as the exact place for this type of information.

read your own posts above to answer your current question............

A slightly different situation (dealing with trying to get points from 3 accounts into one account. Something I hadn't really thought of at the time.) But do note that I do believe the Marriott agent I had talked with was the one that made the suggestion to create a dummy reservation to pull the points and then cancel it to get the points into my account. My biggest concern at the time was making sure that the points ended up in my account rather than the other one. :eek:

IMO, the more you keep publishing how to end run MR rules for other then the allowed purpose the more likely it will be that the ability, like Taste of G/P, BOGOs, TPs that you could split nights in HI/EU, etc., will no longer be available so let me thank you in advance once this ability goes the way of the do-do bird...........

just call them , you just need 5 mins

That would require Marriott reading FT, which it seems they don't really do very much anymore. And it would require thousands of folk doing this to the point that it truly comes to Marriott's attention, which I doubt will happen. Not everyone knows multiple other Marriott elites willing to gift points to them.

Cheers.

you're entitled to your opinion, but how many times did it take the Taste program to be abused before it was CXLed?????

Taste program is a different scenario; it doesn't require gifting of points & paperwork being faxed.

If there are thousands of Marriott elites that have thousands of friends willing to gift them thousands of points (unlikely), then there might be a problem. I just don't see that happening in the multitudes quite frankly. The occasional one to top up; that already happens & is ok w/ Marriott. But I really don't see too many people having multiple friends willing to gift points & going through multiple dummy bookings to get all the points, so yes I consider this something that isn't likely to happen enough to cause Marriott to notice. I don't think it's something I'd ever do (unless hhoope01's willing to gift me some points :D), but good to know there's a work-around if needed.

Cheers.

-1
after an approved LNF is posted and others determine the comparison website it doesn't take thousands of others trying to get an approved LNF for Marriott to shut down the comparison sites posting of lower rates.......when some MR point owners used to use eBay to sell MR-points it doesn't take thousands to get Marriott to shut it down..........

Eh, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Cheers.

I get judges decisions that I (and my Client) don't always agree with, but that's the nature of the coin toss and one just goes on with life, so to respond to your post, +1

Note that up until your post above we were discussing something that is within Marriott's current rules. You have now interjected something I would say is against their rules (i.e. selling points.)

Gifting points does not equal selling points. So I would expect Marriott to shutdown any and all eBay auctions they find.

But I agree that we will probably continue to disagree on this issue. (Though I have agreed with you on other issues.)