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Marriott 5 night package upgradable

Steve Fatula

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This is becoming interesting. I call twice a day this week getting different people. Today I got a person who was willing to do the upgrade. She said that under no circumstances can one upgrade past a cat 6 and to go from a cat 5 to a cat 6 would cost me an additional 105,000 points. I asked her to check and had her look at my recent upgrade from the cat 4 to a cat 5 for 35K additional miles and she said that going from 5 to 6 is not proportional. She said it is the reason she technically isn't suppose to do this. Trying to get to Atlantis for 4 days (wasting one day) some time between 4/17-4/28 and while they have a cat 5 as part of the group of Atlantis hotels, they only availability for points is cat 6 or 7.

Did you get a name or extension?
 

AlmostRetired

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Did you get a name or extension?

The one time they looked up her name and gave it to me, they wouldn't connect me to her and worse then that, when I explained the situation, I was told that the person made the change when they weren't suppose to. Her manager would be told to ensure she will be retrained. I am going to write a letter in support of her (thanks for reminding me). Having a name will serve no purpose other than getting someone in trouble.
 

Steve Fatula

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The one time they looked up her name and gave it to me, they wouldn't connect me to her and worse then that, when I explained the situation, I was told that the person made the change when they weren't suppose to. Her manager would be told to ensure she will be retrained. I am going to write a letter in support of her (thanks for reminding me). Having a name will serve no purpose other than getting someone in trouble.

I agree given what you have just said.
 

Pathways

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Her manager would be told to ensure she will be retrained. I am going to write a letter in support of her (thanks for reminding me).

I see this frequently on TUG, where letters of thanks/support are written after someone has done something 'above/beyond' and is different than the standard 'SOP'. I can tell you in my business world, this more often than not reflects badly on the employee, and I know of one instance of separation.

Many managers are pleased when vague accolades are received, but when it spells out something that goes against SOP or the person has actually overstepped their role, upper management has no choice but to step in.

Tugger's: say your thanks directly, and leave it. I have cringed numerous times when I see a well meaning poster say they are reaching out to someone's employer to give a 'pat on the back', wondering of the consequences. In this case, we have already been told this person will need to be 'retrained'. This requires paperwork, so the comment may have just been a throw away. Please don't draw more attention to it. (again, vague 'they were very professional/helpful' always OK)

Just a thought...
 
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AlmostRetired

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I see this frequently on TUG, where letters of thanks/support are written after someone has done something 'above/beyond' or different than the standard 'SOP'. I can tell you in my business world, this more often than not reflects badly on the employee, and I know of one instance of separation.

Many managers are pleased when vague accolades are received, but when it spells out something that goes against SOP or the person has actually overstepped their role, upper management has no choice but to step in.

Tugger's: say your thanks directly, and leave it. I have cringed numerous times when I see a well meaning poster say they are reaching out to someone's employer to give a 'pat on the back', wondering of the consequences. In this case, we have already been told this person will need to be 'retrained'. This requires paperwork, so the comment may have just been a throw away. Please don't draw more attention to it. (again, vague 'they were very professional/helpful' always OK)

Just a thought...

Worked for IBM for 30 years in sales, managing at various levels.... do something wrong in the company's interest it is a tossup on the outcome....do something wrong in your own interest you get fires....do something wrong that is in a customers interest and you earn a "get out of jail free card". I retired 11 years ago but a minor and this is a minor issue in a customer's favor is not a fire-able offense. If it was, Marriott would have fired many of the MVCI sales reps when Marriott owned it. This being said, you may very well be right.
 

AlmostRetired

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Forgot to mention. I have both an old visa cat 5 certificate for 25,000 points and a new visa
cat 5 certificate for 35,000 put in last month. They took the old cat 5 visa certificate for 25,000 points and replaced it with 35,000 points into my account. I was told they can do this for anyone with an old visa certificate.
 

VacationForever

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Forgot to mention. I have both an old visa cat 5 certificate for 25,000 points and a new visa
cat 5 certificate for 35,000 put in last month. They took the old cat 5 visa certificate for 25,000 points and replaced it with 35,000 points into my account. I was told they can do this for anyone with an old visa certificate.
What is an old visa certificate?

I am not understanding this post at all.

Are you saying that simply upgraded your old Cat 5 certificate for a new Cat 5 certificate? At what cost (points)?
 

AlmostRetired

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B8826292-54AB-4326-98BE-58A8EBB0BA29.jpeg
If you have a Marriott chase Visa card, in years past on your anniversary date, you would get a one night category 5 certificate that was worth 25,000 points because this is what was required for a cat 5 hotel. With the category changes in July a cat 5 hotel became 35,000 points and a cat 1-4 was now 25,000 points. I was under the impression that the old one night visa cat 5 certificate worth 25,ooo points would only get you the new cat 1-4 hotel if you did not book the old certificate by July. They took back the old cat 5 one night certificate and moved 35,000 points into my account in its place. So the enD result is yes they took my old cat 5 certificate from last year and moved points intp my account that would allow me to book a new cat 5 or use for any other use I wanted. The cost was zero.

BTW, you can also see they allowed me to upgrade my old 5 night Cat 1-4 certificate by cancelling it and taking out 35k points to make it a new cat 5. This was done last week.
 
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Steve Fatula

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Yes, you can get a one time upgrade of an old cert. The hard part is getting an upgrade of a NEW cert.
 

Big Matt

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Just upgraded my 1-4 to a 5. The agent deducted the extra points needed and we're all done. It was done in two minutes.
 

catharsis

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Just upgraded my 1-4 to a 5. The agent deducted the extra points needed and we're all done. It was done in two minutes.
to echo TXTortoise above it would be very very helpful to get as much information as possible as to exactly how this was done?

Thanks in advance
 

Big Matt

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I had an old category 1-5. Last September I transferred it to a new 1-4 with expiration of 9/2019. Today I told the rep that the hotel I wanted was no longer category 4 (true statement) since it move up from 4 to 5 recently. Have new one that expires 3/2020. Simple as that.


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AlmostRetired

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I had an old category 1-5. Last September I transferred it to a new 1-4 with expiration of 9/2019. Today I told the rep that the hotel I wanted was no longer category 4 (true statement) since it move up from 4 to 5 recently. Have new one that expires 3/2020. Simple as that.


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I also went from an old 5 day cat 5 to the new 1-4 to a new 5 by adding points. I tried to move from the new 5 to a new 6. After escalating, I stopped when I was told they will upgrade you from old 4 to new 5 only. Once you have a new 5, you can not upgrade to a new 6 or higher. They will also allow one extension so your new cat 5 expiring 3/2020 is an exchange and not a transfer. if need be you can extent it one year anytime before expiration.
 

VacationForever

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Got a new one today. Groan.

Earlier in March, I had reported about moving an old Cat 1-5 to the new Cat 1-4 and they did it on a wrong one - the one with a further expiration. They attached the newly converted Cat 1-4 to a reservation. The agents said sorry, nothing could be done about changing the wrong certificate, a supervisor said she was going to put in 5,000 MR points as compensation. The 5K MRP never showed up and it was not worth my while to hunt it down. Basically I had 2 old Cat 1-5, one was converted to Cat 1-4 in which they attached to a reservation, while leaving the other still sitting as the old Cat 1-5.

Today I logged onto MR system. Another 10K points taken out. Huh? What? Drilled down... The new Cat 1-4 certificate was returned to me as unused with a new date - good for a year. The reservation still has a certificate tied to it. My guess is that 10K was taken out to attach to the reservation. I now sit on 2 unused certificates, one new Cat 1-4 and one old Cat 1-5. Unsure what to do about all of these or just try to use up the "freebie" Cat 1-4 certificate.
 

Steve Fatula

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My long wait is over! After all those calls, whining, you name it, reached the right guy. Recall, I previously converted an old 7 night travel cert into a new cat 4 travel cert, and upgraded at the same time to a category 5. Then I found out where I wanted to stay went to a 6, so for months, been trying to upgrade the already upgraded cert to a cat6, and told repeatedly not possible any more, against policy, etc. I had givem up.

So, 2 days ago, I tried to make a reservation with my cat5 to a place I really didn't want to go, and, the guy messed up by one month on the dates. So, I had to call back and have them undo it, but then they couldn't make the right dates because of system issues.

So, today I called, was told I can't upgrade (I ask just for fun), but she didn't know how to make the reservation and attach the cert, so she transferred me to a supervisor. And it was my lucky day. The guy was super nice and I told him where I had wanted to go (never hurts to ask), and he said no problem at all. Upgraded my new cat5 to cat6, and charged me 40,000 points. I only had the points due to attending 2 presentations in a row in Palm Desert and Newport Coast during the same trip. Made the reservation, and, all is set!!! Very very happy.

He said there is no way to contact him directly. He said anyone in his department could do so via the "old system", and to ask for "Elite Services" when you call. In case this helps anyone. I asked him if it was against the new policy, and he said no.

:banana:
 

klpca

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My long wait is over! After all those calls, whining, you name it, reached the right guy. Recall, I previously converted an old 7 night travel cert into a new cat 4 travel cert, and upgraded at the same time to a category 5. Then I found out where I wanted to stay went to a 6, so for months, been trying to upgrade the already upgraded cert to a cat6, and told repeatedly not possible any more, against policy, etc. I had givem up.

So, 2 days ago, I tried to make a reservation with my cat5 to a place I really didn't want to go, and, the guy messed up by one month on the dates. So, I had to call back and have them undo it, but then they couldn't make the right dates because of system issues.

So, today I called, was told I can't upgrade (I ask just for fun), but she didn't know how to make the reservation and attach the cert, so she transferred me to a supervisor. And it was my lucky day. The guy was super nice and I told him where I had wanted to go (never hurts to ask), and he said no problem at all. Upgraded my new cat5 to cat6, and charged me 40,000 points. I only had the points due to attending 2 presentations in a row in Palm Desert and Newport Coast during the same trip. Made the reservation, and, all is set!!! Very very happy.

He said there is no way to contact him directly. He said anyone in his department could do so via the "old system", and to ask for "Elite Services" when you call. In case this helps anyone. I asked him if it was against the new policy, and he said no.

:banana:
Thanks for the tip. I may be trying to upgrade my existing Cat 5 at some point (see my other post in the Bonvoy thread). I really didn't think that there was a way to upgrade, but apparently they may be softening their position. I sure hope so!
 

ski_sierra

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Normally when I upgraded or downgraded in the past, they cancel the certificate, put the points back in your account and take out the new point amount. There was no cancellation, no points put back in my account and no points taken out of my account. Just two new certificates expiring 3/7/2020. I do not understand how this was done but I also do not understand the theory of relativity but quite happy never the less.

I was also one of the luck ones who was able to get 2x old cat 5 upgraded to new cat 6. But now I can't find places where those would be good use.

I think at this point the best thing to do for many of us is to request them to be converted to points.
 

MabelP

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If I turned a category 1 to 4 five night travel package back into points, how many points would I get? For a category 5?

How much would it cost to upgrade the 5 night certificate to a category 5? Or the category 5 to a category 6?

Many, many thanks.
 
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