5 Night Travel Package

[AlmostRetired]

There seems to be a flaw in the system. With the southwest promotion I exchanged a 5 night travel package and 120K southwest points for 235K MR points.

I was thinking about staying at the Playa Largo Resort & Spa, Autograph Collection which is a Cat 8. To do this they credited me 10,000 MRP for the Cat 5 and took out 75,000 to go to a Cat 8. The MRP cost of the Cat 8 in steps was 300,000 MRP. Ordering a 5 night Cat 8 120K SW points from the start would have been 300,000 MRP. There was no penalty for getting to the Cat 8 in steps.

Here is where it gets interesting. My wife and I decided that we may want to stay at the Key West Marriott Beachside Hotel. This is a Cat 9 hotel. To do this, they credited me 75,000 points for the Cat 8 and took out 105,000 points for the Cat 9. The total for the Cat 9 in steps is 330,000 MR points (300,000 -75,000 +105,000). The MRP cost for a 120k SW points and a 5 night Cat 9 hotel package if done originally would have been 345,000 points if I did this from the start. It was actually 15,000 points cheaper when done in steps.

When I mentioned this to Rewards customer service, he was completely unaware that this was the case but agreed that it was. This has all been validated with what is actually left in my account after the upgrade.

BTW, the SW champion pass is working out well. Punta Cana this past April, New Mexico in July, Charleston in July (weekend), Aruba in August, Fort Lauderdale in October (weekend), Key West in Feb (5 night). Marriott used to have a 440,000 MRP package for 4 airline tickets anywhere AA flew, two 7 night hotel stays and a 7 day car rental... we did a London, Paris, Madrid and Malaga trip with the kids the summer of 2001. The SW package is having more value to me than that package.

 

[mas]

No such luck going from a Cat 5 to a Cat 7. They credited me 10k for the Cat 5 cert and charged me 45k for the cat 7 resulting in a 35k charge for the cat 5 to cat 7 upgrade. The straight up charge for the cat 7 5 night pkg is 235k and the charge for the cat 7 is 270 reflecting the 35k difference between the two.

 

[dioxide45]

I think they are crediting you the points to take you to a place where the are treating the transaction like a straight points to miles conversion. So they are considering the 120,000 RR miles to be worth 225,000 points. You paid 235,000, so they consider the hotel cert worth only 10,000 for the category 5. So they refund you for the hotel portion and then charge you for the difference.

• First upgrade from 5 to 8, they credit the 10,000 for the hotel cert, to take it back to 225,000 for the pure miles, then charge you the difference between 300,000 and 225,000. So you pay the additional 75,000 and are now at 300,000.
• Second upgrade, they refund you the difference of 300,000 and 225,000, which is the 75,000 to take it back to the pure miles cost of 225,000. I think the rep then made an error in how they determined the difference in for the hotel portion of the category 9 certificate. They should have been charging you 120,000 points for the hotel portion instead of only 105,000 that they did. I suspect their calculations are all manual for these.

Were you working through MVC owner services to do the second upgrade or through Marriott Rewards customer service?

 

[AlmostRetired]

I think they are crediting you the points to take you to a place where the are treating the transaction like a straight points to miles conversion. So they are considering the 120,000 RR miles to be worth 225,000 points. You paid 235,000, so they consider the hotel cert worth only 10,000 for the category 5. So they refund you for the hotel portion and then charge you for the difference.

• First upgrade from 5 to 8, they credit the 10,000 for the hotel cert, to take it back to 225,000 for the pure miles, then charge you the difference between 300,000 and 225,000. So you pay the additional 75,000 and are now at 300,000.
• Second upgrade, they refund you the difference of 300,000 and 225,000, which is the 75,000 to take it back to the pure miles cost of 225,000. I think the rep then made an error in how they determined the difference in for the hotel portion of the category 9 certificate. They should have been charging you 120,000 points for the hotel portion instead of only 105,000 that they did. I suspect their calculations are all manual for these.

Were you working through MVC owner services to do the second upgrade or through Marriott Rewards customer service?

I was working with Marriott Rewards. I called three times for the cat 8 to 9 upgrade. The first told me it would take 45k more points. They came to that conclusion by looking at the difference between the two levels when ordering a travel package. The second told me 30K by looking at removing the Cat 8 code from my travel package and adding the cat 9. The third time I had the person actually do it and the net difference was 30k points. The process in not manual but done via a computer application with no option for manual intervention. The 15k points is not a big deal normally but it leaves me enough points for another 5 night 120K Southwest travel package in my account.

 

[lll1929]

How do you get the 5 night package? Is it still only available to MVCI owners?

 

[VacationForever]

How do you get the 5 night package? Is it still only available to MVCI owners?

Yes.

 

[StevenTing]

Here is the link for the 5-night stays. You will have to login to the MVC site.

https://owners.marriottvacationclub.com/timeshare/mvco/marriottRewardsOwnerSpecials