I haven't redeemed a Marriott reward in a while but I found out they changed the rules - you can no longer transfer American Express points directly into your Marriott rewards account. This is a bit of a problem since I was counting on using some free nights to help offset the extremely high price of a parade view room at the Marriott Marques during the NYC Thanksgiving day parade ($1600 for the night of parade/ 3 night minimum other 2 nights $600 each!). Staff at the Marques say that Amex rewards for Marriott stay are blackedout for the whole month of November but I could use Marriott rewards for the other nights) I've just applied for a Marriott Rewards Visa (15,000 for first purchase + points I already had in the account = 1 free night). I need enough points for 3 more nights. Any suggestions? Any loopholes to transfer points into Marrriott rewards account?

Based on your not traveling until Thanksgiving, you have some time and therefore some options. Before you do anything though, go ahead and make the rewards reservation NOW. If they are letting you use a standard award for the nights, grab it. I'm positive it won't stay that way for long. Just make sure you check the box stating that you already have a cert. This way the system won't try and deduct the points right now. Of course, you will have to call later (once you do have the points) to order the cert for the reward.

So lets look at some options:

1. You state that you have already applied for a Marriott CC to get that 15K bonus. There are actually three US based Marriott branded CCs: Signature, Business, Premier Signature. And all three will give you a 15K bonus. So apply for the other two.

2. If you really want to play the CC game, you can hold on to each of the CCs for a couple of months and then cancel them. Wait a month and then re-apply. You will get another round of 15K bonuses. If you do this for all three cards, you will have 90K points just from doing this. Note that the Premier card does not waive the annual fee, so you would have to pay for it twice. If you don't want to do that, just cancel and reapply for the other two.

3. Sign up for the Megabonus promotion and spend some nights a Marriotts. Marriott's program is designed to give the most points for BIB (butts in bed). So do that as much as you can. Also, you should check out the Megabonus thread to see what the various offers are within the Megabonus promotion. Then based on your stays, figure out which version maximizes your bonus. Give Marriott Rewards a call and get them to change the promotion to the one that fits your stays the best.

4. If you hurry (as in do it NOW) you might be able to still purchase all the points you need at the cost of only 1 cent per point. So for about $1000 you could purchase 100K points (more than enough for your stay and a lot less than paying for the stay). Marriott is supposed to have increased the points cost, limited the number purchased, and put in some restrictions today. But based on the Bye bye to unlimited purchase of points for a penny each thread, Marriott has been a little slow in updating their points purchases. Right now, the website says that 50K is the max to purchase, but if you actually go and try to purchase, it doesn't look like they have updated that yet. So hurry if you want to do this one.

5. If you get those CCs, use the Premier card as much as you can. (It has the same or better points accumulations as the other two.) Depending on how much you can charge to it before Thanksgiving, you might be able to get some nice points this way as well.

6. Constantly watch this forum and Marriott's website for any bonuses and promos that Marriott might throw out before your stay. You might find another good way to get yourself some points.

Too late. The order form was changed within the last 30 minutes. It now automatically calculates the cost at 1.25 cents per point.