Did you make a Points Advance reservation with the intention of applying a credit card certificate to it? Well, guess what? You can’t! Marriott told me certificates are not valid on Points Advance reservations.
Yeah, you read that right. Marriott says you can’t use your credit card certificates on a Points Advance reservation if the property you’re booking increased a category. How do I know this? I made a Points Advance reservation well ahead of the category change earlier this month with the intention of applying a credit card certificate to it once it posted to my account. But, as has been the case with many others, the points required for the reservation changed after March 5. Even though Marriott said this wouldn’t be the case.
Reaching Out to Marriott
As a result of the change, I began an inquiry via Marriott Bonvoy’s Twitter account. That was on March 5; they got back to me on March 20. And as is already obvious, the response was that certificates cannot be applied to Points Advance reservations in which the hotel changed a category on March 5. They’re also unable to readjust the points requirement for the stay. So, this leads me to believe that either 1) Marriott lied to its members, or 2) their IT system wasn’t set up properly and they can’t do anything about it. But this wasn’t a problem in the past, so…
Because of the above problems, Marriott’s solution is to issue me points amounting to the difference between the original award redemption amount and the new one. That’s a pretty dumb way to handle this if you ask me. After all, what’s to say I won’t cancel or reduce the length of the reservation and keep the points? But, hey, that’s they’re problem, not mine.
Certificates are Not Valid on Points Advance, Final Thoughts
I’d like to say the above issues surprise me, but they don’t. Marriott has been a hot mess since the program integration last August with no improvements in sight. I mean, they still haven’t gotten back to me regarding the missing lifetime qualify years in my account, and I submitted an inquiry about a month ago.
But this Points Advance issue, something Marriott promised wouldn’t happen, ended up being even worse than I initially feared. So we’ll see how things evolve over the coming months. I’m not holding my breath, though. Marriott doesn’t seem to think fixing Bonvoy is a priority. They can’t even ensure that their properties are playing by the rules.