Marriott has something called points advance where when making a booking you could select ‘points advance’ and you could make a booking without having your points deducted. Within 14 days of arrival you need to have paid for your booking with points otherwise you lose your reservation. Previously you could use this feature even if you already had enough points to cover the reservation but Jeff Setter notes that this is no longer the case and points advance doesn’t show as an option if you have the required number of points. In addition Points Advance will only show as an option if your booking is more than 30 days out. Personally I think the change makes sense, although it will still be frustrating for those trying to make speculative bookings.
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A new policy to curtail speculative bookings – that has a workaround of creating more speculative bookings, in order to continue on as before, making speculative bookings.
Did someone actually think this idea all the way through? This is the law of unintended consequences.
I’m guessing this will annoy people who want to make way far out speculative bookings but need points on reserve for stays closer to the present that they will need immediate use for. Although a hassle, it should be possible to make a dummy booking to “bank” the points needed in the short term and then make the speculative bookings. Hopefully Marriott doesn’t catch on and start deducting as soon as the banked reservation is canceled. Doubtful as they have enough IT mess to deal with 24/7. And if anything someone could just make more banks to selectively cancel when the short term need arises. Really this just hurts Marriott as now people will be making bookings they know they won’t keep.
Yeah, just noticed this this weekend. I suppose you could book a room or rooms to use your points. Put the room you actually want to use points advance on and then cancel the first reservation
Not as much of a problem if you have status and a P2 you can move your points to.
What’s a P2?
Player 2 aka Spouse/lover/friend