Chiz

soooooo dissappointed with Marriott, your system upgrade took away our beloved SPG reward and caused us the inconvenience of 1 month blackout, and whatever bugs yet to be discovered. Yet, Marriott felt nothing to be sorry about and comfortably ate the extra points of cat 6 and 8 cert owners, without prior notice or warning. Using peak time points as an excuse is such a strech,(hey, the offpeak points of the next category is the same points) and still stating "no exsiting cert is losing value" when there is still no peak time in effect is simply shameless!!

for this one time event, and only for 2 categories of certs(6 and 8), followed by mass devaluation of the travel package, how could Marriott be soooo stingy pennies?

let's close all our Marriott/SPG/RC credit cards to fight back. Hilton, IHG and Hyatt should be sufficient for any type of travellers. Marriott is getting too big and starts to bully now

yeunganson

There seem to be lots of unhappy Marriott members on the Marriott thread about the conversion. For some unknown reason, some spilling over to our SPG side where we don't have these Travel packages.
I did a quick browse and it seems they all gambled and hope for a windfall and lost on the bet, face some point losses and now unhappy. Some even wanted Marriott to show the winning numbers (I mean travel categories) before merge so everyone can just take as much as they can. If someone made a wrong bet, loses and want a bail out, I wonder... Had they make the "winning bet", I cannot imagine many would say let's book a hotel category in a lower tier as the upgrade was undeserved.

It always felt to me was a ambitious long shot. A few wanted to gamble on the category (and win with windfall or now get a bail out), and then use the travel certs to redeem on the formerly SPG aspirational hotels. I guess SPG members can look back and smile how our hotels are much cherished among former members of a competing program.

For SPG members who just do the most no-tricks straightforward SPG thing - only redeem travel packages if you are indeed have plans to stay in a hotel thus attaching the travel certs with the hotel booked, there are no disappointments. Those SPG members like myself that did a points arbitrage by booking hotels that will require more SPG points per night post Aug 18 are also no disappointments.

Chiz

how is this a gamble? when they announced a big devaluation of the package you are planning to redeem. you are forced to redeem it now. I myself was still saving for enough points when the devaluation was announced and ended up buying points to close the gap. I am sure a lot of others are in the same boat

spgplat21

The chart doesn't bother me too much, except I can't see how they justify not allowing the Cat 4-5 certificate to book Category 8 properties after January. I wasn't looking for a windfall, so I splurged and bought the top package even when people were speculating several lower level certificates might map into the top categories.

My two Cat 4-5 certificates are attached to a Ritz property for next summer, but if my schedule changes in February and I need to shift the stay by a week, it's my understanding I'll be out of luck since the hotel will be a Category 8 property at that time and unbookable with my Cat 7 certificate.

And to be fair, they should refund the points difference where a lower level certificate was mapped to the same level as a higher level.

yeunganson

I don't know what Marriott members and their cultural ways would do in face of those devaluations. That's why I don't comment on this topic on the Marriott thread. SPG side don't have travel packages.

This is just my view as a SPG member looking at a Marriott thing. The gamble part is aimed at Marriott members who have no "highly probable" plans on vacation in a year and decided to redeem travel packages before Aug 18. So they were unable to attach the cert with a hotel (because no highly probable upcoming travel plans). Now the found out they redeemed the "wrong" level that yielded less they wanted it to. Some bet it correctly and can book in nicer hotels than pre-Aug 18. Some bet incorrectly and found out they are locked in to book in categories of hotels they didn't really want to stay in the first place with a slight loss of like 10,000 SPG points equivalent (30,000 MR points) on a 80,000 SPG (240,000 MR) redemption .

This wouldn't have happened if MR members didn't have the fear of missing out. I looked into those Travel packages too and read those point blogs too. I just couldn't see myself needing to stay 7 nights anywhere in the next 6 months so I accepted not getting the best deal. I can't think of a same analogy here at SPG.

A gross proximity analogy would be lots of SPG hotels being devalued post Aug 18 (ie points needed for redemption going way up). As far as I know, most SPG members only redeem those properties if there is some chance of staying there. I haven't heard of any case of just because of devaluation, everyone makes some phantom points redemption booking a 6-12 months out in case they might stay there.

Anyhow, anger towards these travel packages I think Marriott sub-forum would know more than us former-SPG-ers here.

krazykanuck

That thread is about 370 pages ahead of this one

nikespex

I 100% agree with you there. You bought the highest cert - should be able to book any property you wish.

SC Alum

Please correct me if my math is off.

Prior to 18th Aug.

330 points would have gotten me Old cat 6 travel package with 85K most International airline miles. + 30K points which I can get additional 12.5K miles. Total: New Cat 1 to 4 + 97.5K miles.


Post 18th Aug.

330K points gets me Cat 1 to 4 + 110K miles.

Not only do I have more time to redeem my certs because I can convert later, I actually get 12.5K more miles in the new more costly package.

This is however not valid for US airlines + others, where you get 120K miles prior to 18th Aug.

ftlurker2

I haven't looked at the details of the international airline miles, but I your comparison is misleading, just based on the math. Buying a (old) cat 1-5 for 270K would have yielded the same 85K miles and new cat 1-4 certificate as buying the (old) 300K cat 6 TP, so there would be no reason to use the (old) cat 6 as the baseline for comparison. Buying the 270K package would have left you with an extra 60K points, which, according to your same 30K:12.5K conversion factor, would yield the same 110K miles on that airline of your choosing. So, assuming those conversion factors are correct, the only difference for this specific situation with these international airline miles is that you have to save more points and commit to a larger purchase, while the value in transferring to all other airlines drops significantly.

PrivatePilot

Is this true: https://onemileatatime.com/marriott-...kages-refunds/

If so:

1. How will this be handled for certs which are already attached? i.e. the people that listened and attached them?
2. Assume still no upgrades allowed?

UsernameChuck

yeunganson

Well Marriott came out with a bailout of giving those who made a bet on category and lost a partial 30,000 refund and a one category downgrade hotel cert. If I read the Marriott threads, I am still amazed how much more they want.

I maybe a late in realizing what they wanted to do. It's very ambitious.
Here's my basic understanding on it... They want to get some Travel Packages in certain categories before the price goes up - while getting United mileage bonus along with 7 nights of hotel stay. Then hope this bet pays off and the hotel cert can book in one level higher category than pre-merge. Then they want to be able to use points to further upgrade the cert to the highest category. Finally they want to use the 7-night highest category cert to redeem 7 nights at our Starwood's most premium hotels - eg St Regis Bora Bora or St Regis Maldives. So many things have to go right before this can work.

They could have just pay a reasonable amounts of points and redeem through the points redemption pre-Aug 18 and save themselves a lot of agony.

I might have been one of few suckers just do the straight points redemption on a St Regis (Rome & New York) and happy that the 5th night was free....

khlay

Maybe some people want more, but for me, I just want my cat 6 works for up to 30k as original. That means max 30k but limit to cat 1-4 does short change me. Especially who knows when the implementation of high/low season will start? Before my tp expired?
Maybe they should map everything to cat1-4(max 1M). Oh, where is the 1M come from? Based on their devaluation rate, not too far from now.

FrustratedinCA

Not all of us. Some of us just want to be able to use our certs at the hotels we are currently booked at, and not lose those hotels if we change travel dates.

MANY of us would have booked a different Category cert had we been given the information in advance. I, for one, purchased my cert after Lurker told us it would be converted to a POINTS BASED certificate. I assumed it would hold its 40,000 point per night value...which SHOULD have allowed me to book a Cat 6 at low season. I was also assured by many CSRs that I would be able to pay to upgrade my cert, which is not allowed.

And FWIW, I also tried multiple times to upgrade my cert from 8 to 9 prior to d-day...and wasn't able to. "The system was down." I was effectively robbed of my chance to upgrade in time. So, yes, I cry foul on that, and I still hope that we will be allowed to use points to upgrade our certs category to keep the value we originally booked for.

If I'm allowed to pay 30,000 to upgrade my former Cat 8 to a former Cat 9 equivalent to guarantee my Cat 6 reservation if I need to change my dates, I would do it. I'm not asking for a free upgrade. I'm asking for fair treatment based on the lack of communication and the glitch in their system that prevented me from upgrading before the 18th.