New Marriott Rewards Property Categories and Travel Package Requirements effective Aug '18

[janej]

I am still trying to decide if I should go for Cat 5 or Cat 8. The difference for 5 days is 65k which I have. But some resort did not change points required at all so I could just save some points to use for 1-2 days.

 

[controller1]

No Modifications to Travel Package Certificates from August 18 - September 18

About an hour ago, a Marriott representative posted this in a FlyerTalk forum:

If you currently have a Travel Package Certificate that’s not yet attached to a hotel reservation, you have the following options:

- If you know when you want to travel, make a new reservation or attach your certificate to an existing one prior to August 18, 2018.

- If you are still trying to plan that perfect trip, you can hold onto the certificate and will be able to add it to a reservation starting September 18, 2018.

Please note that you will not be able to modify your certificate for an existing reservation or attach it to a new one between August 18 and September 18, 2018. Please plan accordingly.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

No Modifications to Travel Package Certificates from August 18 - September 18

About an hour ago, a Marriott representative posted this in a FlyerTalk forum:

If you currently have a Travel Package Certificate that’s not yet attached to a hotel reservation, you have the following options:

- If you know when you want to travel, make a new reservation or attach your certificate to an existing one prior to August 18, 2018.

- If you are still trying to plan that perfect trip, you can hold onto the certificate and will be able to add it to a reservation starting September 18, 2018.

Please note that you will not be able to modify your certificate for an existing reservation or attach it to a new one between August 18 and September 18, 2018. Please plan accordingly.

I just received an email from Marriott with this exact text, so sounds like the official policy everyone has been wanting.

 

[StevenTing]

I just received an email from Marriott with this exact text, so sounds like the official policy everyone has been wanting.

It’s still doesn’t clarify anything with regard to transition of categories.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

It’s still doesn’t clarify anything with regard to transition of categories.

Correct. Here is the fine print from the email

*Our New Travel Packages will launch with our new loyalty program on 8/18/18. Certificates purchased on or after 8/18 are able to be used immediately. For certificates purchased prior to 8/18, we are working to convert your package and it will be available based on the new converted values on September 18, 2018."

I think this means they won't be canceling the certificates and returning points as some had speculated. But the "new converted values" could mean good or bad things... I am hoping for good or at least fair...

 

[kds4]

Correct. Here is the fine print from the email

*Our New Travel Packages will launch with our new loyalty program on 8/18/18. Certificates purchased on or after 8/18 are able to be used immediately. For certificates purchased prior to 8/18, we are working to convert your package and it will be available based on the new converted values on September 18, 2018."

I think this means they won't be canceling the certificates and returning points as some had speculated. But the "new converted values" could mean good or bad things... I am hoping for good or at least fair...

I think the meaning is clear for packages that map exactly between the old and new values. For example, a Category 1-5 package accommodation certificate (AC) valued at up to 25k per night will become a Category 1-4 package AC also valued at up to 25k per night. What is unclear is what will become of those ACs that do not map exactly to a new value. Will they go up to the next closest category or will they go down to the next closest category?

I expect it will be whatever change in value is the least impacting on Marriott. In other words, I do not expect to see an unattached 'old' value Category 7 AC (which is the highest current category) get mapped to a 'new' Category 8 value (which will be the highest future category - until Category 9 values are assigned next year).

 

[PamMo]

If you have an existing travel package with Cat 1-5 hotels and you're wondering where to get the most bang for your hotel certificate, you might find this interesting. The Points Guy lists the best category 1-5 hotels for 2018 -
https://thepointsguy.com/2018/03/best-marriott-category-1-5-hotels-in-2018/

 

[ACP]

Also received the email in the UK, the interesting paragraph for me is:
Please note that whichever option you choose, from August 18 through September 18, you will not be able to modify your certificate for an existing reservation or attach it to a new one. Please plan accordingly.
This to me means that there will be no ability to change an existing certificate between the two dates. What it does not tell us is if after September 18 we will be able to extend a certificate or upgrade/downgrade to a different category.
Like many who jumped into buying a number of TP before the changes we are holding onto certificates, it seems that we will now have to wait until September 18 before we know what we can and cannot do.
I would be interested to know what the MRP value if I cancelled the certificates for my certificates and put points back into my account
Interesting times!!

 

[Saintsfanfl]

Also received the email in the UK, the interesting paragraph for me is:
Please note that whichever option you choose, from August 18 through September 18, you will not be able to modify your certificate for an existing reservation or attach it to a new one. Please plan accordingly.
This to me means that there will be no ability to change an existing certificate between the two dates. What it does not tell us is if after September 18 we will be able to extend a certificate or upgrade/downgrade to a different category.
Like many who jumped into buying a number of TP before the changes we are holding onto certificates, it seems that we will now have to wait until September 18 before we know what we can and cannot do.
I would be interested to know what the MRP value if I cancelled the certificates for my certificates and put points back into my account
Interesting times!!

Is that even technically an option now? I didn’t think so. Otherwise people would just keep cancelling certificates and booking more packages to maximize the air miles even further. In the end it would result in a nearly 1:1 mrp to miles conversion. That’s a heavy loss for Marriott.

 

[ACP]

Is that even technically an option now? I didn’t think so. Otherwise people would just keep cancelling certificates and booking more packages to maximize the air miles even further. In the end it would result in a nearly 1:1 mrp to miles conversion. That’s a heavy loss for Marriott.

I spoke with Marriott Rewards in London after I posted and wanted to know the value of "cashing in" the hotel part of the package - although they were unable to gain access to my account (Neither am I) as they are working on the system pending all the changes next week, the agent was very knowledgeable, apparently for a 7 night TP they can go on-line and tell you what points you get back but a 5 Night TP is paper based, so she was able to answer my query - I was told that all I would get back for 1 Cat 1-5 is 10,000 MRP, so there is no point in cashing in.
I advised that I was looking to extend my travel packages post 18th Sept and probably upgrade the Category and she confirmed that I can do that at the moment (prior to 18th Aug) - when I asked about doing this post 18th Sept, she was not sure "The Agent Simply does not know" but at least it was not a NO you won't be able to do that.
I want to travel next September 2019 (I have a 241 BA ticket and lots of BA Avios miles as a result of buying a couple of TP), so will cross the pond and stay at both a MVC and a hotel that is currently Cat 6 but will go to a Cat 5, so I'm going to take a risk and not do anything at the moment, I will wait until 18th Sept then shortly after, call up see if I can extend my TP to Sept 2019 and then see if I can upgrade my 2 x Cat 1-5 Certificates to 2 New Cat 5 so it will be a 1 Cat jump.
Here's hoping. Either way we will be coming over in Sept 19 courtesy of the 241 BA it's just hoping I can use my TP nights at the same time, if not, I will look to stay somewhere in Europe before the TP expires

 

[WBP]

In my opinion, this is another example of what happens when companies merge or are acquired, to become what looks and smells like a monopoly. I don't have data to support the following, but I'd be extremely interested to know what has happened to room rates at Marriott and Starwood hotels, in desirable destinations/markets, post-Marriott acquisition of Starwood. If this is anything like US Airways acquisition of American Airlines, the only thing that I've seen, post-US Airways acquisition of American Airlines, in markets controlled by US Airways or American Airlines, is higher airfares.

In my opinion, the Starwood Preferred Guest program was massacred by the changes to Marriott's (once) brand loyalty program, and I'm having a hard time finding many significant enhancements to the Marriott Rewards program, as spun by Mr. Flueck, of Marriott International, other than an expanse of the hotel network, leading to more hotels to redeem Marriott Rewards points.

Again, in my opinion, the consumer has been screwed, and Marriott International has accomplished two objectives (be they intentional or unintentional), M.I. has decreased their costs associated with the Marriott Rewards program (speculation, based on gut instinct), and the cost of the Marriott Rewards program for hotel owners, has similarly decreased (speculation, based on gut instinct) = increased profit for M.I. and M.I. Hotel Owners.

It will be interesting to see, given the fixed (Marriott Rewards) redemption value of Marriott Vacation Club timeshare weeks, and the diminishing value of Marriott Rewards points, if Marriott Vacation Club does anything to up the ante, on a transaction (exchange of Marriott timeshare week for Marriott Rewards points (= poor valuation of ownership maintenance fee to Marriott Rewards points (in many cases)) to restore some, once economic value to Marriott Vacation Ownership, OTHER THAN increasing/changing the potential uses for Marriott Vacation Club Destination Points (MVC's sales tool).

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[rickandcindy23]

It's not a monopoly because these hotels still have competition from IHG, Hilton, Carlson, and a few other chains.

Airlines also have other competition, quite a bit of competition, which is why companies like Frontier and Spirit exist, to beat out the bigger guys and their ridiculously high airfares, but they took away benefits people need, like a free bag check, free carryon and assigned seats. They also moved the seats closer, so less legroom (2-4" less legroom than Southwest). Then the big guys decided to have a basic economy class without those benefits as well. That just hurts the big guys.

My sister is flying United to Maui to join us next week, and she and her husband do not have seats together.

Southwest is THE competition for the big airlines. And soon Southwest will add Hawaii.

 

[JIMinNC]

Southwest is THE competition for the big airlines. And soon Southwest will add Hawaii.

I've never quite understood the enthusiasm many show towards Southwest. It's always come across to me as something of a cattle car. When we arrived in Los Cabos this past February on American, we had to deplane through the air stairs due to congestion at the jetway gates that Saturday afternoon. We passed these big queues of Southwest passengers standing there on an outdoor ramp, lining up to board two Southwest flights. I've generally seen them as only a small notch above the Spirits and Frontiers of the world. To fly to Hawaii from Charlotte on Southwest will probably take three or more stops - at least one stop to get to the west coast, plus the stop out there to switch to a Hawaii flight. No thanks.

 

[mas]

I've never quite understood the enthusiasm many show towards Southwest. It's always come across to me as something of a cattle car. When we arrived in Los Cabos this past February on American, we had to deplane through the air stairs due to congestion at the jetway gates that Saturday afternoon. We passed these big queues of Southwest passengers standing there on an outdoor ramp, lining up to board two Southwest flights. I've generally seen them as only a small notch above the Spirits and Frontiers of the world. To fly to Hawaii from Charlotte on Southwest will probably take three or more stops - at least one stop to get to the west coast, plus the stop out there to switch to a Hawaii flight. No thanks.

I agree. Whenever I've flown Southwest, I've purchased a Group A upgrade so as to avoid being at the end of the cattle call and being left with only middle row seats. :-(

 

[bogey21]

Southwest is not luxury but it has its economic pluses like no baggage fees and no lost money when you cancel or change a reservation. I flew them a lot back in the day when their Frequent Flyer Program was based on segments. One of the reasons I liked this was that their free Award tickets were easily transferable and thus easily salable in the secondary market. When they changed to basing their Awards on miles I pretty much stopped flying them...

George

 

[lorribarnes]

Good news.. here are the leaked terms and conditions for new Marriott Starwood merger..https://viewfromthewing.boardingare...ed-new-marriott-rewards-terms-and-conditions/

 

[NboroGirl]

I read this today on LoyaltyLobby.com by John Ollila:

Yesterday I wrote about an email that Marriott Rewards has been sending out to some members who has Travel Package certificates sitting on their account attached or unattached.

Marriott Rewards originally communicated that "floater certificates" would be converted to points. This doesn't, however, apply to these Travel Package Certificates. They will be converted to new certs (at what value is still unclear).

After I published the piece yesterday, I received the following statement from the Marriott spokesperson:

While we plan on sharing the full conversation chart on 8/18, I can let you know that all existing certificates will convert to similarly valued categories after that date.​

The problem here is that the "converted values" that the sent email was referring to cannot align 100% because the current Travel Package award chart contains 7 packages and the new only 5.

The accompanying Possible Conversion Chart shows:

Cat 1-5 (25K)--> Cat 1-4 (25K)
Cat 6,7 (30K, 35K) --> Cat 5 (35K)
Cat 8,9, Tier 1-3 (40K, 45K, 50K)--> Cat 6 (50K)
Tier 4-5 (70K) --> Cat 8 (85K)

Looking at the current and the new values, I made an exercise what the conversation chart could be. There aren't that many options in reality. The sweet spot appears to be the current category 8 at 40k per night that they need to bump to 50k (new category 6).

Conclusion: I still don't get it why Marriott Rewards cannot just release the conversation charts that they must have had available for months by now. Cannot be any other reason that trying to prevent people to take advantage of any possible sweet spots and discourage these Travel Package redemptions that actually cost the program money.

So if this Marriott person is to be believed, there won't be points refunded on unused travel certificates... they will be mapped to the new charts, the but exactly how is still a mystery.

 

[bobpark56]

I believe the name on the MR account and the name on the Airline rewards account has to be exactly the same for the transfer to occur. At least they made a point to ask me about it during my recent TP transactions.

Thats what I was told, too...else your airline points disappear into thin air. I tried to contact Marriott Rewards to do this, but got cut off. Will try again Monday.

 

[jpa2825]

60% is more optimistic than I would be. The factor they don't seem to take into account (or they took it into consideration but just don't think it means much) is that breaking 7 night stay certs into points makes redemption much easier / more likely. The circumstance where I need 7 straight nights at the SAME Cat5 hotel is much smaller than the ways I can use 150,000 MRPs! I can't see Marriott being generous and unlocking those handcuffs.

From the article, I think mapping to the new TP Categories is the way they will go because it doesn't unlock them. (Also, there will be so many moving parts that only the most dedicated folks are going to see the "gaps" they created.)

• 1-5, 7 and Ritz Tier 1-3 are easy. They just get converted to 1-4, 5 & 6, respectively.
• 6 goes to 5 and the cert holder "benefits" 5k/nt.
• 8 goes to 6 and the cert holder "benefits" 10k/nt.
• 9 goes to 6 and the cert holder "benefits" 5k/nt.
• Ritz Tier 4-5 goes to 8 and the cert holder "benefits" 15k/nt.
• They will deal with the complainers that call about "I bought Cat7 TP and got converted to the same cert that someone who bought a Cat6 TP did" on a one-off basis.

As previously suggested (link), arbitrage "sweet spots" (if you want to play that game) might be at pre-AUG 18, 2018 Cat6 & 8 (assuming OLD6 maps to NEW5 and OLD8 maps to NEW6). Least risk (to try to pick up a benefit) is OLD9 because it almost HAS to map to NEW6.

NOTE: in order to "unlock" these arbitrage benefits, you still have to find a hotel that matches that category in a place where you want to stay 5 or 7 nights in a row. If you have a NEW6 cert and the best hotel for a place you want to travel is a NEW5, you'll have to figure out if it makes sense to redeem it down and lose that benefit. Under that philosophy, an OLD6 is probably more valuable than an OLD8. If you have an OLD6 and find a Cat7 or Cat8 hotel that works for you for 5 or 7 straight nights, you will presumably be able to use points on the OLD6 cert to reserve it. If you "downgrade," I'm confident you don't get any refund of points.

What will they do for the OLD7 and OLD9 purchasers that get mapped to the same NEW CAT as OLD6 and OLD8? Maybe nothing. Maybe a few points? I don't think you'll see an announcement because then they have to do it for everyone. There will be a great # of such cert holders that won't even know or complain.

My Delta FF account is fairly tapped out. I'm probably going to buy a couple of CAT6 TPs before the deadline just to replenish that account.

 

[ACP]

MVC Owners that are Presidential or Chairmans Level will automatically be Platinum Premier Elite

An extract from the leaked T&C's is very interesting, not sure if this has previously been confirmed

MVC Owners who achieve a “Presidential” or “Chairman’s Club” level of membership through their ownership of Marriott Vacation Club and/or and Marriott Grand Residence Club timeshare interests, or their enrollment in the MVC Exchange Program, and certain other individuals designated by an MVC Entity, may be offered Loyalty Program Platinum Premier Elite status, and are not subject to the Platinum Premier Elite Minimum Requirement to maintain Platinum Premier Elite status every year. ii. An MVC Owner will remain his or her Elite status, provided that such MVC Owner: (i) maintains his/her membership level through ownership of Marriott Vacation Club and/or and Marriott Grand Residence Club timeshare interests or enrollment in the MVC Exchange Program; (ii) is current in all maintenance fees, MVC Exchange Company dues, fees, taxes, and other payments; and (iii) is current in any other payments owed to any MVC Entity. iii. Elite status and any accumulated Points in an MVC Owner’s Loyalty Program Membership Account do not transfer upon sale of their timeshare interest to a third party.

 

[Fasttr]

Just received this email below..... it may be a good idea to take screen shots of your upcoming reservations, unattached certificates, lifetime nights and points, etc prior to August 15th just to be safe during this IT transition.

_________________

Manage your account and reservations before planned, temporary disruptions starting August 15.
While we work to launch our new combined program on August 18, our booking and loyalty systems, sites and Mobile app will be offline for several hours intermittently between August 15 and August 19.

During this period, you may experience disruptions with:

• Contacting Member Support
• Making a new reservation
• Managing an existing reservation
• Accessing or updating your account
• Using our Mobile app
• Using points

If you need to manage your account or access upcoming reservations, please do so as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.

 

[JanT]

NJDave,

Did your wife have to make the call to Marriott to transfer the points from her account to yours or were you able to do it? I need to transfer points from my mom's account to mine and she isn't really up to waiting on the phone for an hour or more to make the transfer. I'm hoping I can call and have them transferred myself.

I need to transfer more than the 50,000 points. I had them transfer the 50,000 points yesterday which gave me enough points for one travel package. I want to transfer 230,000 more points so I can book one more. My wife has 234,000 points left. I have 7,000 left.

 

[Quilter]

If you have an existing travel package with Cat 1-5 hotels and you're wondering where to get the most bang for your hotel certificate, you might find this interesting. The Points Guy lists the best category 1-5 hotels for 2018 -
https://thepointsguy.com/2018/03/best-marriott-category-1-5-hotels-in-2018/

I bought a Cat 6 and a 5 TP about a week ago. It was difficult to decide where to park them. When we finally made our plans I had qualms about the value I was getting for each of them. Today I used this list and Checked the daily rates. They were comparable to the ones I chose.

The value may be calculated on getting a hotel with the highest possible daily rate or you may personally calculate the value by finding a “nice” hotel in the location you want to travel.

 

[Quilter]

Be sure to confirm that your TP are actually attached to reservations you want them attached to.

On the 2 TP's I mentioned above the one in my account was attached but the one in DH's account wasn't. I got through to MR and made sure it was attached. I don't want these reverting to points.

 

[StevenTing]

Finally got my Cat 6 downgraded to a 5 and the Cat 7 upgraded to an 8. Tom about 40 minutes on the phone. Most of it on hold. However the rep was able to reduce the cash rate on one of my stays from $1225 down to $921. Bonus!

One interesting thing when they reissued the certificates is that they show Points associates to it. It’s concerning but it may not matter.