SPG Platinum member here - no prior experience with Marriott.

I'm looking for accomodation on New Year's Eve where prices are through the roof and I found a great hotel that was offered for 40,000 points.
At that point, I didn't have any Marriott points in my account yet.

When I clicked the link to redeem the points, the website suddenly told me the rate was no longer available.
But when I searched again, it would still show the award.

So I called Marriott, they checked and told me that indeed no points could be redeemed at that property that day.

A couple hours later, I checked again, clicked the booking link again, and suddenly the booking form came up!!!
It also told me I had insufficient points, but I could still make the reservation, as long as the balance would be sufficient 14 days before my stay.

Being a complete idiot however, I didn't book right away, but found their mention of a "certificate" confusing.
I thought, I'd just transfer points from SPG and then try to book again.

Of course now the hotel isn't even shown in the list anymore, so even the search tells me it isn't available for points.
You wouldn't believe how dumb I'm feeling now...

Is there some chance of the award returning? Maybe it's just blocked from the first time I tried to book, without actually finishing the booking?
Do you have any experience how long that redemption would be blocked?
Thanks.

Ok, the award just came back... Seems like it was indeed my own unfinished booking that had blocked it.
In that case, the duration would have been half an hour.

Can anybody confirm this?

Just book it.

Inventory comes and goes. I doubt that starting a booking removes it from availability, but it's a bit of a moot point.

Coming from SPG, Marriott's award availability will be quite different. One of the things we fear in the merger.

Also note, Marriott allows you to book award stays even when you don't have sufficient points in your account. As long as you have them before your stay (well approx. 1 week before your stay), you're good to go. Marriott will deduct the points from your account automatically when they generate the e-Certificate for the stay for the hotel which typically occurs approx. 1 week in advance. So to put it another way, if you see an award stay available you may be interested in for the future, book it immediately. You can always cancel later if it turns out you don't want it. Don't wait until you have the points in your account because it may no longer be available.

--Jon

What he said. It's one of the bennies that Marriott offers that SPG doesn't. Fingers crossed it stays when the merger is complete.

It's definitely an interesting benefit, but for everybody who has booked an award stay without having the points (and who might cancel later on), there might be somebody who really wanted the room and can't find the award space.

But to the OP, just book the room, then sort out the points later. The certificate system is rather weird, but you'll get used to it - just don't forget you have an award stay booked and end up paying the rack rate or best flexible as a no-show penalty!

How is that different from someone w/ the points booking an award stay who might cancel later on?

Cheers.

Not much admittedly, but you would need to have lots of points to speculatively book five different holiday resorts while you wait to see which destination will have last-minute airline award availability...

Someone with the points can only make speculative award reservations up to limit of their current points balance.

Someone without, can, it appears, make as many speculative reservations as they wish and lock out lots of award availability even though they will never have the means to pay for it. Does Marriott not limit the number of such bookings a member without the points can make ?

Hopefully common sense and courtesy for others will limit how many speculative reservations a person makes. For me personally, I may have reservations for two or three vacation scenarios held. Once I decide on which one I am going to use, typically at least a couple of months in advance, I cancel the others (e.g. to leave plenty of time for the property to resell them). I am not aware of any hard limit on speculative reservations enforced by Marriott. If there is one, my standard behavior must be within their acceptable limits. <OnSoapBox> I much prefer when common sense and general courtesy can guide and limit actions. So hopefully we won't see wholesale abuse of this privilege forcing Marriott to change the rules to prevent it. <OffSoapBox>

--Jon

Not knowing every single Marriott Rewards member I can't say that speculative award booking doesn't occur, but I seriously doubt it's a major problem or Marriott would have axed it a long time ago.

Being able to book w/o having the points at the time of booking has been a competitive advantage for Marriott over the other programs & quite beneficial to MR members. Hopefully it will survive post-merger. I don't often take advantage of it, but it has come in handy a few times for stays at popular properties that book months in advance when I didn't have the points at time of booking but I knew I'd have the points by time of stay. I don't make speculative bookings.

Example, being a voting member of BAFTA (British Oscars for the Yanks reading this), I often attend the BAFTA Awards in London in February. The governors ball post-awards is held at Grosvenor House/JW. GH/JW often gets booked for hotel awards, so I'll snag the stay award several months in advance (even if short points) because I know from experience that award availability just before the BAFTAs usually isn't available (and I'll have the points needed by then). I would imagine that those who book awards for such big nights as New Years Eve in some locales worldwide, Kentucky Derby, Super Bowl, World Cup, Olympics, do similar. Award availability might be available several months in advance but not just before the events, so the ability to book if short points can come in handy.

As Jon says, hopefully common sense and general courtesy will continue to prevail & Marriott will keep this feature/benefit.

Cheers.