Expiration Date on "Premium Pounds"
 

Very simple question and I know it's been answered in the "Help Using Premium Pounds" thread, but for some reason my browser won't launch that thread, even though it'll open others just fine.

Simply put: if I have a Premium Pounds certificate with an expiration date of "08/11/2005", is that November 8 or August 11?

I know the UK standard is that it would be November 8. I also know an American front-desk clerk would probably immediately interpret it as August 11th and might not be too eager to listen to my discussion of how Europeans represent dates if I'm presenting it on, say, November 7th.

But is there a definitive answer from Marriott as to which it really is?

Thanks. :)

You might be actually better off for them to think that it is August 11, 2005, because the American version of the Certs are not usable until 9/1/05 -- September 1, 2005!

I have no idea if one can use the UK version immediately, or not, or whether it also has an operative date of September 1, 2005!

Now you have me worried. I have Marriott Bonus Pounds that expire 09/05/2005. I have been cheerfully assuming that they are good til Sept 5. Are they, in fact, already expired? I am hoping that since the coupon is good worldwide, that Marriott uses the same date format on them as on the dollar coupon - but that is certainly an assumption on my part.

I just used one a few weeks weeks ago at the Heathrow Renaissance with the expiration date 11/05/05 and was told that it had already expired. When I explained that I assumed that the expiration date was November 5, 2005 which corresponds with how Americans use mm/dd/yy, the front desk manager accepted the coupon without hesitation. :)

My 1 remaining Buck says 11/21/05: Clearly Nov. 21.
My 1 " Pound " 12/01/05: I used such a one in Canada in May, so I read it as Dec. 1, not 12 Jan. Also, it's the new style lavender without the red fancy border.

Thank you, happywanderer and Brendan. I'm relieved to learn that my $190 credit is not so much waste paper!

So my question is....does anyone have a Premium Pound with a number larger than 12 somewhere in the date? If so, that would tell us very quickly what the official answer is.

The reality is that I've been using these things in the US where a hotel clerk probably would never even think about the date format. I'm not terribly worried...curious, more than anything.

[QUOTE=pinniped]So my question is....does anyone have a Premium Pound with a number larger than 12 somewhere in the date? If so, that would tell us very quickly what the official answer is.

I have one Marriott Pounds cert with an expiration of 08/22/2005 and one that states "26 December 2005".

Here U go! Here's a picture of one such!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

but your $190 is now down to $182.15 as of last thursday

I noticed the market for these certificates dipped a little as well. Kind of funny: the only way I knew the dollar was firming up a bit against the pound was because of the typical winning bids for these Marriott certs... :D