Has anyone redeemed MyPoints for Vacation Miles Awards for Marriott? You can get a $50 award toward accomodations for 2,500 MyPoints, but I want to know how this works. Do you get a certificate that you can just present when paying your bill at a Marriott or do you have to indicate when making a reservation that you will be using this or what? If anyone has done this or has knowledge of how it works I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

These awards aren't that great for hotel stays. I redeemed for two $50 certificates at Hyatt, and you have to make your reservation several weeks in advance through VacationMiles ... and the real kick in the ... is they can't always get the lowest rates available at a hotel.

I haven't redeemed with them yet, but Randy did have a story on "real miles" vs "fake miles" not to long ago. I believe it was in the November issue of Inside Flyer. You may want to refer there.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I wanted to know. I thought I had seen somewhere that you had to go through Vacation Miles for a reservation, but I couldn't find it again and I wasn't sure how that worked. It looks like I will continue to convert to Hilton HHonors points.

I just cashed in a bunch of Mypoints points for Vacation Miles, then converted the vacation miles to the $50 Marriott certificates. I haven't it yet but I'll post my experiences.

When I called them they said that they need 21 days advance notice unless you already have the certificates (mine are in the mail as I speak). They also said that they will get the lowest rates generally available including promotionsl, corporate, etc. There are some rates that require instant purchase and are not refundable; these apparently aren't available.

$50 seems like a pretty good deal if I can get good basic rates. I'll let you know.

Oh, one other thing. I've also been stacking up gift certificates to Marriott. There waere a bunch of promotions at giftcertificates.com this Christmas season that generally allowed you to purchase a $25 certificate for $15. I figure I now have $300 in Marriott certificates that only cost me $180. (I think I get another $25 cerficate in January for free, too).

TravelLover: I also took advantage of the $25 gift certificates for $15 from giftcertificates.com. I have a similar stack of Marriott gift certificates that are pretty much like cash, or by my thinking, money in the bank! It was a great deal.

I made my first three reservations today with Vacation Miles for Marriott stays. So far everything seems fine.

The Vacation Miles offer can be used on all Marriott properties, not just the Marriott hotels. This includes the Courtyards, Fairfield Inns, Renaissances, Residence Inns, etc. I made reservations at a Marriott, a Courtyard, and a Renaissance. The Courtyard was only $59 a night before the $50 voucher.

Vacation Miles makes the reservations, gives you the confirmation numbers, and mails you the vouchers. They are sent by certified mail; that's the reason for the lead time. They like to have three weeks but it sounds like they will do it with a lead time of two weeks if you ask nicely.

The only trick on the rates is that they have to be commissionable. In other words, while my $59 Courtyard rate was a standard rate (and Vacation Miles will get their standard 10%), some other rates (government rates and some of the pay at reservation time noncancellable specials) don't apply.

As I said, so far so good. I figure that in these three cases I got the lowest rate that I could find out on the Marriott web site less the $50 discount so I'm already ahead by $150.

Just a note on the $25.00 GiftCertificate.com Marriott certificates; I amassed $450.00 worth of coupons very quickly in late November and early December. When I tried to redeem another Supercertificate near Christmas, they cancelled my order citing one offer per customer. I don't think I will see the bonus certificates either that they promised as the customer rep that I spoke to seemed to be a bit ticked that I would even dare to ask. Oh well, they'll get over it.
Travelweary, are you converting your vacationmiles for American Airline miles? It wasn't clear by your post, but if you convert to AA miles, you will get 10,000 Hilton points per 5,000 mile redemption, by far better than the 1/1 point ratio when redeeming Mypoints at the Hilton redemption site.

AA miles only convert to Hilton HHonors points at the rate of 1 AAdvantage Mile = 1 HHonors Point, not the 2:1 conversion rate of other airlines.

Beckles, that really hurt. I never did look at the AA/Hilton ratio's before your post. I just assumed, and you know what happens when you assume? Now I might have to look at using the 5,000 vacationmiles towards Marriott stays as long as the rates are reasonable.

General45, you really had me going there for a minute thinking I had cashed in 5,000 MyPoints for 5,000 HHonors Points when I could have had 10,000! I wish you were right about this for future trades, though. Always someone on this board to set us straight though, thank goodness!

There was a promotion last year giving 2 HH points per AA mile. My feeling is that HH may offer some promotions in the future which do the same, since it is standard with other airlines.

PG ~ I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that. They only had the 2 for 1 promotion because AA had just joined the program and they only ran it for the first few months of AA being in the program.

I won't hold my breath. I have stated before that I consider 2 HH points/airline mile a bad deal - not something that I do. But I do feel that HH will offer some parity once in a blue moon.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 01-04-2000).]

I cashed in my 20K MyPoints for 25K Vacation Miles & then 25K AA miles. I had no problems & my Vacation Miles came quite quickly. I was pressed for time trying to make it by the end of the year. Everything went very smooth.