Latinpass Web site is down again.

I just finished speaking several times to Latinpass and to Marriott. First, it is confirmed that there is no limitation on the amount of LP miles we can transfer into Marriott miles (I am a Latinpass MM bonus holder). Second Marriott says that there is no limitation on any of their awards per year and that they confirmed when they deposit the miles into your United Account for the 200,000 point award #713 you can use those miles with United as you wish.

------------------
Harvey Mechanic
Los Angeles
[email protected]

dhacker,

I cut this from the Marriott website:

1. Airline partners are pleased to accommodate most requests for redeeming reward certificates; however, Marriott's airline partners do not fly to all Marriott locations. Airline reward certificates are only valid on published flights that have been pre-selected for reward travel. All reward travel must be on the most direct route available. Schedules may be revised and service discontinued without notice on any Marriott partner airline.

2. When making plans for reward travel, please call Marriott's airline partner's reservations number, listed on the rewards certificate, for the most up-to-date information on flight and seat availability and blackout dates. Blackout date information is listed on reward certificates and is subject to change. Reward seats are capacity controlled, which limits availability.

3. To make reservations, the member should call Marriott's airline partner's reservations number and identify himself/herself as a Marriott Rewards member traveling on a reward certificate. The certificate number, the reward code and other pertinent information must be provided at the time of booking, before reservations can be confirmed.

These rules would seem to indicate that the process of booking award travel on the partner airlines using points transferred from Marriott are subject to special restrictions--destination must be pre-selected through the Marriott program, there are specific blackout dates and capacity controls for Marriott rewards, etc.

Are you saying that these rules aren't enforced for UA awards (and maybe AA awards)? But they are for the other partner airlines? Any knowledge of how DL might enforce these rules?

Any help would be most appreciated. I don't have my Latin Pass miles yet (I still have faith!) but really want to make sure I understand all my options when I finally become a Latin Pass millionaire!

stephlac:

Yes, I am saying they do UA (and perhaps AA) differently. They now just put miles into your account to cover the air portion of any award that involves UA. They cover this on under the terms and conditions for air awards, but they left some of the restrictive, certificate related language in place. However, after the miles are transfered, UA apparently won't or can't require you to use the miles in a particular way. Here's the link to the Marriott air award terms and conditions:
http://www.marriottrewards.com/terms/airline.asp

Scroll down to the United section where the first sentence under item #2 is "All United Airlines rewards are valid for Mileage Plus miles, which then can be redeemed for the ticket specified in the United reward description."


[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 09-13-2000).]

harveymech, that is excellent news! Thanks for doing the legwork. Did you ask about whether India would be a valid de3stination?

Thanks dhacker and everyone else for doing all this research! This looks like a great opportunity to use Latin Pass points. Now it's only a matter of waiting to get my million Latin Pass points!
I'd rather fly American as opposed to United. Does anyone have experience doing this transfer to American?

dhacker - I wonder if all this activity has caused problems between LP and Marriott? I have called Marriott Rewards twice, once yesterday and once today; two different people answered.

In each case I was clearly told that you can only transfer points to miles, but NOT miles to points!

Can anyone clarify this issue?

I'm not sure I can clarify it other than to say that I doubt LP would have made an unambiguous anouncement in their newsletter that you can transfer LP miles to Marriott points unless it were true. I can email you a scanned copy of the article if you'd like to see it with your own eyes.

Appreciate your email offer, but I do believe the newsletter goes back aways. Perhaps things have changed. I will give LP a call and see what they say.

Thanks for all the info.

This note is now irrelevent based on Bobarb's post to the LatinPass forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum30/HTML/000084.html

[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 09-14-2000).]

this is really great news, but I have got to say, let's be subtle about this. If it is possible to go through awards to account miles on UA and possibly others, let's try it quietly first and hope it all goes unnoticed. If a ton of rewards are requested and a big noisy fuss is made (remember they are promising specific coach transportation, not miles, as part of the reward, so that is what the 'rules' entitle you to) then changes could be made that will be detrimental. I am not suggesting it isn't appropriate to expect them to do what the program says is valid but I do think it is most prudent to tread gently, especially given that the bonus was terifficaly generous and we don't want to damage partner relationships.

Hi Myriad,

I debated with myself about whether or not to point out this whole wonderful opportunity for just the reason's you state. I decided to just post the new transfer capability first, while I wrote but did not post about the even more interesting details. I had pretty much settled on the fact that the details would come out anyway and that I owed the others on this board too much to hold it back, when vindesante pointed to the details (that I had also found) on the Marriott thread. The standard awards are fantastic even without the back-door features, so I'm not sure how much risk there is. I figure most high-point Marriott Rewards account holders have had this figured out for awhile. I know my father realized immediately after requesting the package for Hawaii that he should have requested something more lurcative. And he is the type that doesn't really pay that much attention to program details.

Another point to make is that these packages come with certs for 7 free Marriott nights that EXPIRE within one year, so most people probably won't spend the whole wad of Marriott points at once anyway (unless they are retired or have the option of taking a 70 day sabbatical!). So I think Marriott will be glad to get the revenue generated by major LP point transfers.

On the other hand, I wonder if Marriott would really even notice the revenue that would be generated by the LP millionaires making transfers, given the relative sizes of the two programs.

Heck, LP didn't even cut off eligibilty for the million miles based on active Flyertalk threads. It took attention from major media outlets like the WSJ and Good Morning America to force a program change.

I also doubt that LP made the deal with Marriott without realizing that the millionaires would be heavy users.

hey Dave, All very good points, I guess I am just a bit too overcautious perhaps, though I would be willing to think FT generated enough of a buzz on the Million mile promo, which led to the press getting wind of it. I am very curious to see, over the next months and years, whether or not the speed with which 'insider/scoop/work the system' info gets out and around and what if any will be the reaction of the FF programs concerned. I do think it is a very real possiblility it will have an effect though to what degree would be difficult to guess.

I guess in the case of Marriott in particular my concern would be with the wonderful hotel/air/car/phone award, which really doesn't offer miles, it is only offers a 'quirk' that may lead to a direct miles deposit. This means that they could change that aspect at any time without any recourse for the member as they WOULD be providing as promised. For this reason I thought it best to sound a note of restraint/caution so that that window might remain open. If someone really puts it in their face (and I am sure you are aware of some personalities on this board that are very 'in your face') regarding this aspect of the award they might be motivated to close the loophole. I agree that the size of Marriot versus LP is likely to minimize attention, but at the same time not that many people in Marriott's program have a million plus points to throw around.

I think part of my incentive for posting at all was also more generic, that FlyerTalk, to me, is spinning a bit fast, and that it is possible (though definitely not certain) that this could have an effect on programs. If something is special/rare and suddenly gets common/plentiful there are often repercussions to that.

My comments are in no way a criticism, just an observation and my addition to the dialog!

BTW, I haven't heard back from you yet RE your kindness on the AA certs.....chocolates?...salmon?.... !


[This message has been edited by myriad (edited 09-14-2000).]

[This message has been edited by myriad (edited 09-14-2000).]

The point is well taken, so perhaps we should at least move the discussion off of The Buzz.

Sorry about not getting back to you, but I'm in the middle of switching ISP's to get DSL and I haven't been into the old mail account much. I'm partial to both Salmon and Dungeoness(sp?) crabs, but please don't feel obligated. I'll email you soon.

[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 09-14-2000).]