@Dan Thanks for all of your helpful posts RE this lucrative offer going away soon.
After some thought on this, I booked the Cat 6 + 120K points transferred to Alaska. Some of my reasoning:
- Good chance I will have trouble using a full 7 night certificate at one hotel over the next year. If Marriott keeps the floating certs in place (with some cat adjustments), I don't want to loose too much if I can only stay 4 or 5 days.
- In scenario 3, you mention the possibility of Cat 6 being bumped up to Cat 5 for all stays (including peak). For 30K (10K SPG) over the Cat 1-5 cert, this seemed like a good value if it happens and if Marriott keeps certificates in place. Even if they don't bump it up for peak stays, I still like the value of and extra 5K per night of scenario 2. (
https://dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/another-guess-will-happen-certificates-marriotts-lucrative-milesnights-travel-packages-take-advantage-now/)
-If they simply refund points, then I like not locking up too many points for the time being, so a cheaper cert was beneficial for me.
Side point: We need a wiki to keep track of all the posts written about this :-)