I have previously asked the Look No Further team for confirmation that Bonus Bucks/Premium Pounds coupons can be used with LNF rates and received a reply stating a categorical 'yes'.

Funny, I emailed the LNF team last year and asked the same question and got a categorical NO.
YMMV

The above email was received on 15 September 2008.

I believe there may be some innocent confusion on the part of the original Marriott person who said no to the Marriott.com booking. It sounds like that person confused a rate booked online with one paid online.

Prepaid rate - no. Regular online booking - yes.

Extending the concept to a travel agent...

Prepaid to the agent - no. Regular booking by the agent in a valid rate category - yes.

(This last category is perhaps rare: the logical reason to use a third party to book your rooms is because the agent is booking your corporate or other non-public rate.)

I have received a similar email before (confirming the general acceptance policy for a LNF rate). Marriott Customer Service (not Customer Care) also has confirmed this policy to me when I had to contact them about this issue. I do not believe the policy is available for public viewing, and there may be some misunderstanding of what the policy is by some individual hotels, even including many of the Managers.

Jan 2008:

Thank you for your additional inquiry regarding Marriott's Look No Further(SM) Best Rate Guarantee.

Bonus Bucks can only be used on publicly available rates. Because your new rate is a discounted rate, you will be unable to use your bonus bucks for the reservation.

We appreciate your additional inquiry and look forward to serving you in the future.

Thank you for choosing Marriott.


Glad to hear I have a fighting chance now at using the BB.

I received the following today:

UPDATE: Premium Pound Program Suspended 2009

Yes, the rumors are true. Marriott's official statement: "Unfortunately, we have withdrawn the Marriott Premium Pounds from our 2009 portfolio."

Marriott had been considering terminating the Premium Pound Program for some time now as Premium Pounds, whose intent was for use in the United Kingdom, have been and continue to be primarily redeemed in the United States. In the beginning of 2008, Marriott pondered the same issue, but ultimately opted to NOT terminate the program last year.

This year, however, Marriott finally concluded it would be in the company's best interest to discontinue the PP Program.

Originally, April 30, 2009 was to be the last day for the PRINTING of the coupons as they have an eight(8) month exp, which would bring us to the end of the year- December 31, 2009.

However, Marriott has currently suspended ALL production, whereby noone has been allowed to place any new orders. So, it appears that there will be NO MORE PRINTING of PP coupons this year. :(

Bummer. I didn't get many PP but I actually did redeem them in the UK. They'll be missed. Does this mean BB are going away too?

Cheers.

seems like something else is going on
 

1) simply addded the phrase "only for use in the united kingdom" could solve one of the issues,

or

2) instead of 50pp (all) and 100pp (FS), make them 25pp (all) and 50pp (FS), that negates their use in the USA as now BB are worth more,

but

3) if the concern is that employees are smart enough to figure out how to do the currency translation, or know the difference bewteen a British Pound and a US Dollar, that's another issue

BTW
there is/was a Euro denominated version of this cert, I wonder what its status is?

The "Weekend Extra Euros Coupons" i own have a value of 100 € and are expiring Dec. 31, 2009. Havent seen another promotion for € coupons yet.

too funny, these monkeys wait till the PP drops in value to less than 1.40 dollar per GBP.. instead of canning them when they were at a 2:1 ratio.. another instance of monkeys running the Marriott Corporate ship

the loss of these as the sterling drop like a rock is a lot less harsh that it would have been had this happened a year ago

as JesseJ says.. one line such as for use only in abc location would have solved the problem.. but these monkeys are not bright enough to figure it out I guess

Bump - Marriott Concierge, please provides us some insight on this if you can.

Be nice. You can disagree without being disagreeable.

While I'll miss the PPs (and I used them in the UK, Europe, and the United States), nowhere is it written that they had to continue the promotion.

And if they are going to terminate, it hurts (us) less now that the Pound Sterling is on one of its periodic downswings. The last time I redeemed PPs in Europe, I got only about 1.02 Euros per Pound, a far cry from the 1.4 or better a year ago.

I was actually using most of mine in London as well. But...over the years...I've used them in a lot of different countries. To me that was one thing that made them so attractive.

Not sure you have to "rebook" them.

When I intend to use PP or EE or BB at a property where I have used them before with no problem, I usually don't bother with the phone call either. Early in the program (like about 4 or 5 years ago) I did ask at one hotel about this requirement, and the manager told me not to worry about it, that the phone requirement was just to make sure that the rate being booked was authorized for use with the PP.

(Yes, I know - the manager doesn't speak for the Marriott chain; the T&C on the certificate technically could be enforced.)

My practice has been that when planning to use the certificates at a property where I don't have prior experience, I will usually call the number after having booked the reservation and tell reservations agent that I have booked the reservation on-line and wanted to confirm that the PP/BB/EE can be used; the reservation agent would check, confirm that it was an eligible rate, and tell me s/he was making a notation in my reservation that I would be using a certificate, in case the property had any question.

So, what I'm suggesting is that you might be able to call the number and have the reservation's eligibility for PP/BB/EE confirmed without having to "rebook".