eethan

The devaluation forced me to book far in advance, for the AC Palacio Granada. (Now it's a Cat6 and cannot be redeemed with certificates.)

I didn't redeem certs yet, and the reservation page shows it's now a Cat6. I expect to call in and redeem certs for the award, by explaining that my booking was made when the hotel was Cat5.

Now, I also want to change the dates--shift the whole reservation by a day. Will they allow me to keep the booking as a Cat5 award?

I can also remove a day at the beginning of the stay. Will they let me do so and charge Cat5 price for remaining stay?

LKO

Any change in the dates of your reservation and you'll lose the category 5 designation. It will bump to a category 6 when you change the dates.

CPRich

You redeem at the category at the time of the reservation.

For an existing reservation made before the changes, you locked in the old category.

If you cancel and re-book (which includes changing start/end dates, duration, etc.) your new reservation is at the new category.

So yes on the first part, no on the second.

VickiSoCal

For future reference if booking in advance and intending to use certs (which means 5 for 4 does not apply) it is best to make single day reservations for all the days you might be there. Then you can cancel only the days you don't need and apply certs to the ones you do.

ehallison

Yes, I learned this expensive lesson last year. I booked a 2-night award, pre-devaluation for 60k points. When I had to cancel one of the nights, I was credited 60k and then charged 35k for the single night.