On the official Starwood/Marriott merger post on Flyertalk there is a lot of interesting information and the official ‘Starwood Lurker’ account is constantly adding new tips, replying to questions and being helpful in general. One thing that has been rumored is the ability to be use your free night certificates at properties that cost more than 35,000 points by paying the difference in points.
Q: If I have credit card free night certificate and want to stay in hotel which requires more than 35K points, can I use my own points to make up the difference? This would be very useful as there often no hotels at a given location that are available for low amount of points.
A; Not currently but we are looking to add this functionality in the future. <added by Starwood Lurker 04Jun2018>
If they did add this functionality then it would make the free night certificates a lot more useful as you wouldn’t be as limited in your options. It’s possible they’d also add an additional fee for doing this and that would decrease the value obviously but at this stage we can only hope that won’t be the case.
Hat tip to Chong786
I wonder how this will affect the Chase Marriott business card with a $99 annual fee and still only has Cat 5 (25k) anniversary certificate?
I imagine it’d work the same as the 35k certs if added.
are the ritz carlton free night certificates going to be converted to points comes august?
Don’t think so
Would be excellent since so many times, they categorize basic hotels as cat 6 to block out free night certs
location… location… location…
Not really. They take places like Portland, Maine and jack the category to 7 and above. You would never find a cat 5 or below in any halfway desirable location in Boston, Chicago, NY, etc. Whereas Hyatt has properties eligible for free nights that are in far better locations.
+1
Side question: I have 1/2 mill Marriott points, should I buy another flight package? @ a cat 6 300k points?
7 Days @ a 6 isn’t what I want to do, I’m hoping they will break the certificate into points if I do this or individual night certificates that I could upgrade with my spare points.
I just confused myself…
Someone smart give me a idea what I should do with my points before August
I use my SPG card for buying material for work and I transferred my wife’s SPG points from her card bonus now = m. 500k’ish points
Wish Hyatt would do that. There are some amazing category 5 properties that I would gladly kick in an extra 5k points where I am using my annual free night cert
Eliminate resort fees. Period.
Then what are all the hotels in Manhattan going to call the extra fees?
I think they call them “urban destination fees”
I’ve always wanted to ask if I didn’t use the gym/pool/whatever, if I could get the resort fees waived.
Please eliminate resort fees on points or free night certificate booking.
I wonder if you have both the SPG personal & biz, would you be able to combine the 2 free nights to put 70k towards a property?
Nope, as per spg lurker , you won’t be able to combine two certificate to stay at higher yoer hotels