What to do with an e certificate for a free night stay in cat 1-5. It seems most of the hotels we are trying to stay at are cat 6. Thus I have 3 certificates that are somewhat useless.

Any thought on how to benefit with these or sell them.

Exchange options?

If you go to this link (note: you MUST be logged in to your Marriott account) you can search by category. It's then easy to search to see if there properties are any you might like to stay at.

https://www.marriott.com/rewards/poi...dType=Standard

Selling the cert is not allowed by either the Marriott/Chase program rules or by FT TOS, & I don't know if it's transferable (is it from Chase or from Marriott)? You're not Coupon Connection-enabled so you can't do a trade there (assuming it's even transferable).

If they are transferable, you might want to give them to family members or friends in the pay it forward/karma thing.

Cheers.

Can you use the E-certificate for a hotel that is a category 6 but the pointsaver dropped it to a category 5. I was looking at the Branson Willow Creek Lodge and notice in November that its only 25,000 points a night instead of 30,000

Sadly I don't think this is the case.

Unfortunately, you definitely cannot do so.

And here in lies the trouble with these certs. Over the last two years, category inflation has made all of them quite useless. While hotel categories have steadily increased, many moving up two categories in two years, the certs have stayed the same.

Megabonus Certs remained at 1-4 or 1-5 and Chase Certs remained at 1-5.

This could be part of the reason why you're seeing wholly points based Megabonuses now.

In order for the Chase certs to regain the allure they had a few years ago, they really need to change them to Category 1-6 validity.

The Ritz-Carlton side of the house has the same problems. Their promotions for Tier 1-3 certificates are almost meaningless to me now, as many properties have moved up to Tier 4 over the last couple of years.

More precisely, "completely" useless. Unless there's a FI near your local airport and you have an early flight. Such a reward.

Disagree.

While not as great as before, FTers have been able to use them & not always at a FFI near an airport.

We've had many reports of them coming in handy, whether domestically or int'ly. Some have gotten great value out of them at locations where normally the rates are low, but skyrocket during certain events (Kentucky Derby, college football games, etc) or even airport locations when rates are high during the week. When ORD shut down a couple of years ago for 3 days, rates at LAX Ren in the week were $239-$279. That turned out to be a good use of the certs for me since I was on a personal trip & couldn't afford the extra spend. We've also had people use them at int'l properties that the properties were nice/they were pleased the categories were still low.

So while they're not quite as good as before, completely useless is not accurate.

Cheers.

Not at all useless, but not as useful as they used to be. The problem here is desirability, those workhouse next-to-the-highway FFI/CY still remain rooted in Cats 1-4, but they're not exactly a dream destination for a couples getaway or necessarily in the ideal location for a family weekend with the kids.

3 consecutive years of relentless category creep has taken a lot of desirable hotels out of the Cat 1-4 area, but for a weekend break, still left options, either thinking flexibly, those less-convenient locations are at least free, and for a few extra miles, you get the break, or just look at what remains.

Here in the UK, it's been particularly depressing to watch almost half the Cat4s become 5s, but there's still some bright spots, we have 6 cat4s and 6 cat5s, all only a 30 min- 1hour drive from some amazing cities, or beautiful countryside, or great attractions, there's still some great weekend breaks to be had. I for one am sad to see the demise of the certs and would like to see their return, especially in a Cat 1-5 iteration which really would catch up much of the devaluation, but if not, my family can still make use of a few Cat1-4 certs...

The Key Largo courtyard was a cat 5 two years ago. When we booked it we thought it was high to use 25000 points. Then it went up to cat 6, and seemed outrageous. Then went up to cat 7, or 35000 points. That's an example of how the cat jump has really devalued the points or the certs.

Fortunately, we found a special rate and booked for $109 for weekdays and $125 for weekend. Otherwise it felt like a rip off at 35000 points.

To Marriott, perhaps that's an unexpected benefit of of the relentless category point / category creep, in reverse, it makes paying cash look like a bargain!

Agreed. I have two certs to use before the end of the year. Every time I wanted to use them the property was a cat 6. Too bad they aren't transferable.

They are not going to see me paying cash again though. Next time I'll pay cash for nearby properties for similar amounts of money. This time I paid, using my credit card's points, thinking I'll get Marriott points. It turned out those are booked through expedia and I didn't get Marriott points. Next time Marriott won't get my business.

I think you'r e saying it backward. You think it's a rip-off at low prices. Presumably during high season when rates are significantly more not so much.

And as has previously been established cats are not just based on rates but also redemptions

Cheers

What backward?

At 35000 points it felt like a ripoff. The comparisons do not need to be made only for high season. People do travel in non high season times too. And in high season time, the rates are not that high either, and still lower than the low/regular season rates of other hotels requiring 35000 points for redemption.