Update 11/6/20: Ritz-Carlton upgrade certificates will be extended until August 1, 2021. Hat tip to Travel For Miles.
Original post: Marriott has announced that free night certificates that are due to expire before July 31, 2021 will be extended until August 1, 2021.
Free Night Awards:Â Â Effective December 11, 2020, members who currently have a Free Night Award (FNA) that had [has] an original expiration date in 2020, or which will expire before July 31, 2021, as part of their cobrand credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to redeem it through August 1, 2021. Free Night Awards with an original expiration date prior to 2020 will not be eligible for the additional extension. Members do not need to take any action. The system will automatically update your Account with these extensions on December 11, 2020.
Marriott had previously extended free night certificates until January 31, 2021. Points expiration will also be paused until August 1, 2021. It’s nice to see this extension from Marriott.
Yep, everything was extended to 08/01/2021, including an “ancient” 7-night certificate. Way to go Marriott !
My various FNAs and travel package cert all have updated expiration dates of 8/1/21. This is a pleasant surprise for the TP, which I originally bought in late Aug ‘18 under the old valuation, had converted in Aug ‘19 to the new package category, and would have have expired thus past Aug if not for the covid extensions.
P2s FNAs also extended until 8/1/21 as of today.
On flyertalk, sounds like some people have had their certs extended already. (Not I, alas) Fingers crossed before 12/11
Yes, effective December 11, 2020, members who currently have an eligible Free Night Award (FNA) that had [has] an original expiration date in 2020, or which will expire before July 31, 2021, as part of their co-brand credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to redeem it through August 1, 2021.
You do not need to take any action. The system will automatically update accounts with these extensions on December 11, 2020.
This is the response I get from marriott rep, my free night and travel package has been extended once, so let’s see if they get extend again on Dec.11
Hey
William Charles, I heard that Hotels.com also extended the pause on stamps+nights from December 2020 to March 2021. Can you confirm?
fantastic!! thanks for the note
I’m that guy with a FNA expires Aug 1.
Hope IHG further extends the FN expiring Dec 31th, 2020 to sometime next year.
100% designed to allow old 7 day certs to expire. Marriott trying to dick us over yet again. Just look at how differently Hilton and Hyatt are handling their cert extension.
how so?
How is that them dicking people over? Weren’t these certs all supposed to expire a long time ago? If you still have one, it’s because it was already extended multiple times. You already got to eat your cake. It’s not their fault it took you like 3 years to use the certs that were supposed to expire in what, a year?
Are you a Marriott employee?
They’re dicking people over because now they’re forcing people to use certificates in the middle of a pandemic. So not only were we forced to cancel our vacation plans, but now they’re going to say that our cert expires unless we use it in a pandemic. I guess Marriott calculated that people who have once-extended travel certificates are not customers they wish to maintain. I mean, surely someone at Marriott has thought this through enough to know it would piss off their customers to do this… right? No, they didn’t have to extend them before, but they did – and to not extend them now is an act of savagery, just bolstering the bottom line without giving a thought to actual customers. Golden rule my arse.
Agree 100% that Marriott is dicking the 7 night certificates from the Travel package. They mislead folks when they launched Bonvoy, then again before the merger/devalue with SPG, they shafted folks again after the merger/devalue. Plus they added constraints and complications on those certificates after the Cat devalue fromt he misleading statments.
NOW MARRIOTT JUST WANT TO GET RID-OFF THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF PANDEMIC!
I am not spending a single $$ on Marriott from my own pocket in the future!
great! My marriott card AF just posted, was considering cancelling it, guess I’ll keep it for one more year. Now, I just need to find a way to use my IHG reward night by the end of this year
what’s the point to keep this for another year if the cert is auto extended?
Yeah sounds like the opposite logic.