The most significant issue affecting Marriott Rewards members when the hotel reward category reassignments happen on March 15, 2012 is the set of hotels moving from Category 4 to Category 5 that will no longer be available for reward nights with the free night certificates earned in the past two Marriott MegaBonus promotions.
The free night certificates received for MegaBonus and the enrollment free night certificate for Marriott Visa cardmembers are limited to category 1-4 hotels. Nearly 100 hotels are rising from category 4 to category 5 and will not be available for reward nights using these certificates after March 15.
Marriott Rewards members sitting on reward night certificates may want to closely examine the list of hotels in this post rising from category 4 to category 5 on March 15, 2012 and decide to redeem certificates for hotel stays prior to March 15. You can book a stay using the certificate for dates past March 15 as long as you make the reservation before the hotel rises to category 5.
Marriott Visa Premier cardmembers receive a certificate good for category 5 hotels with renewal membership. Check out this list of category 5 hotels moving to category 6 to see if there may be a current category 5 property to book your reward night before the hotel rises to category 6 on March 15.
Thanks for posting! Might also be helpful to know which hotels are being downgraded from cat 5 to 4
Ric linked to the PDF of the entire list of moves, up and down, at the top of this page. Click on “hotel reward category reassignments”.
The top post on the Flyer Talk page has the link to the PDF.
I think that this about finishes Marriott for me. The Cat 1-4 certs were almost worthless anyway, and the only two places that I was interested in redeeming them are moving up to Cat 5.
This MR Plat is leaving for Hilton and SPG!
I think this is the rule Marriott decides who belongs to 1-4 and who belongs to 5-8:
Basically if a place is a travel destination they are always in 5-8 and if it is in a remote country side area then they are in 1-4. They don’t look at the quality of that specific hotel, just the location matters, look at how they upgraded so many Anchorage hotels to 5, can it be that the quality of all these all of a sudden increased?
Thanks for sharing this posting! It will be helpful to know which hotels are being downgraded from cat .