Business Platinum Card from American Express
130,000 MR points
Marriott Bonvoy Eliminates Air & Hotel Travel Packages (Generous Refunds)
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Business Platinum Card from American Express
- Earn 90,000 MR points upon spending $15,000 in the first three months
- Plus, earn 40,000 MR points upon making a purchase in months 14–17 as a cardholder
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- Also, receive a $200 annual travel credit
- Transfer MR points to Aeroplan and other frequent flyer programs for premium flights
- Unlimited airport lounge access for you and one guest at Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, Centurion, and other lounges
- Credits and rebates for business expenses throughout the year with Amex Offers
- Bonus MR points for referring family and friends
- Qualify for the card as a sole proprietor
- Annual fee: $799
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I called and got same answer for getting backing only 45k in points only. I don’t understand this. Although it is clearly indicated in the FAQ for certificate refund point value but can they ignore that? What to do?
Are you sure on the conversion rate of the old packages? I have talked to 3 reps and each say they will only return 45k on the older converted packages. New to site – really nice!
Marriott says so themselves at the FAQ page that’s linked in the article.
thank you – I did not even notice the links in your post
What happens to those ‘up to 35,000’ certs issues by amex and others?
Those remain at 35,000 points, and we’ll soon have the ability to top-up Free Night Awards by up to 15,000 points.
Oh how I miss the Travel packages for the 5-night Certs and a 100k airline miles which were supposedly only for time share members but I never had any trouble obtaining them when asking nicely.
Out of curiosity, how do you have 75-night cert that expires 31-Dec-2023?
Although I already used the one I earned in 2021, I believe it had an expiry date of 31-Dec-2022. Also its not mathematically possible to have requalified for Titanium and to have earned 75 night cert this calendar year.
Careful, some members reported that they’ve had Bonvoy accounts audited and ineligible five-night certificates cancelled.
I picked my Choice Benefit after January 1, 2022, which resulted in an expiry date of December 21, 2023.
correction: 5 night Cert and 120k airline miles
You’re right, Ricky. You’re not the only one with a legacy 7-nighter. Mine’s Cat5 and I’m only interested in redeeming it in Asia. Good luck with that. Sigh…
This is news I can use! PoT’s update today, about refund values, warm the cockles of my heart. My Cat5 7-nighter (renewed about 27 times since issued in 1935, or something) was an albatross around my neck.
A rare reverse Bonvoying. Enjoy those 280,000 points coming your way.
Excellent article Ricky. Love that you clearly mention that travel packages are exempt from peak pricing so you can unlock significant savings when booking peak travel times. So many articles that “tell you everything about Marriott travel packages” fail or barely mention this. I’m waiting on 125K from my US Chase Visa bonus as I was potentially going to redeem most of my points for a Cat 6 + 100K miles. I’m thinking Singapore Air given I have some still and they are relatively hard to accumulate in Canada with the goal being to fly the new suites on the A380 to perhaps Europe. I actually had these new suites booked in 2019 but was “downgraded” to the old A380 suites on a PVG – SIN (although still nice as we got the double bed).
I do think your point on “potentially getting stuck with a certificate” is HUGE. I know many people rushed on the last devaluation to try to game the system prior to the award chart change and got screwed with certificates they could not upgrade or change really. This will likely happen again so people need to factor that in (e.g. in March award charts might make booking 7 nights in a row relatively difficult somehow??). Probably only going to do the above transaction if I can book/redeem the 7 night immediately upon converting.
Agreed, I don’t think the most likely outcome for my remaining certificate is looking very favourable at all. Though I’d push back on the notion that racking up as many seven-night certificates prior to the devaluation was “gaming the system”; it was really the best deal around, since the 120,000 airline miles meant that it would’ve been worthwhile even if you only use the certificate for four or five nights.
Perhaps “gaming the system” was too harsh. My comment was mostly around all the talk about what “old 7 night certificates” would turn into with the new award chart. Many people assumed Marriott would essentially allow legacy lower cat certificates to translate into certain new cats certificates but I remember everyone was pissed when they saw the remapped certificate table and realized that certain hotels they were thinking of using their certificates on were no longer applicable. I unfortunately didn’t have the points at the time to even attempt to do this as my stays are often less than 7 nights.
The other thing that sucks is the timing of this as a 7 night stay is much more likely to occur for most Canadians in the fall / winter season (say a 7 night stay in Cancun or Bora Bora or Maldives) vs say the summer where you might travel to multiple locations to say the US, Asia or Europe. Winter is effectively ending shortly and by the time we sort out where we might go in the upcoming fall/winter (given covid), the new category system will already be in place and if we didn’t already decide where to use the certificate, we may not longer be able to by then!
Finally opened up the original view from the wings article. It’s saying this change is effective Jan 19th, 2022! You should add that to your article Ricky (maybe with a caveat that this is still to be confirmed from Marriott…although given it was released in the T&C, it’s likely true). My Chase points are coming in Jan 21st! Oh the timing. Oh well, guess that seals the decision for me.
Hey Ricky, For anyone with less than 255000 Bonvoy points this program is a non starter, but for analysis purposes using your point valuation, if someone has 330000 Bonvoy points (worth about C$ 2970) , would this not be a good cash out strategy to buy 100,000 Aeroplan points (worth about C$2100) and a 7 night Category 4 hotel stay (worth about C$ 1620 – using 30,000 per night x 6 nights) thus netting $ C$ 3360+ which is more than your initial Bonvoy points value while still retaining the flexibility to book travel later for both the aeroplan and the Marriott stay?
That’s exactly the value proposition of these certificates. You’ve described them in a different way than I have in the article (higher value vs. points saved) but the core idea is the same.
One problem, however, is that relatively few travellers stay in one hotel for seven nights in the first place. Another problem is that even if someone made this move right now as a hedge against the dynamic pricing, we have no idea how the category-based seven-night certificates will be treated once the category system goes away. I suspect we’ll find out more soon.