Reward points purchase failure
 

Hello everybody,

Have some problems with buying Marriott Reward points. Have tried several times to buy 40 000 points with different credit cards. Each time got the same message:
Error: There was a problem with your credit card information. Please try again, or try a different card.
Has anyone experienced that?

I haven't tried buying Marriott points, but attempts to buy Hilton and Starwood points (all 3 go through points.com) recently have been met with the same message.

Data points:
- attempts were made from Europe from legitimate IP
- attempts were all within the past, and over a span of, 5 months
- attempts to purchase were from 3 different SPG and 1 HH accounts, all of them in good standing, opened for years, and nowhere near the yearly purchase limit
- tried US-issued Amex and Visa, European Mastercard

My last successful points.com purchase, using the same IP and credit cards as above, was in February 2018. Even then, I was getting this same rejection message on most of my purchase attempts, this since late 2017. Never a problem before that for many years.

My take on this is that points.com, for whatever reason (probably fraudulent purchases using stolen credit card numbers), quietly started blocking purchases from non-US IP's, while pretending the problem is with the credit card, which it certainly is not. They are also using fairly advanced methods to detect use of VPNs with US IP.
I very much resent their approach as the card approval goes through, and the amount remains blocked for a couple of weeks.
They should just clearly announce that points purchase are only available for specified markets.

Hopefully, the problem is just a temporary computer glitch. I would try waiting a day or two and trying again. Maybe they are doing some computer maintenance over the weekend or something.

If that doesn't work, you might have to call Marriott to buy the points. Good luck!