With the official merge of the programs on August 18th, much of the Marriott site has been limited over the past few days. Prior to August 18th, you would have had a balance of SPG points and another balance of Marriott Rewards points. As of today, you can combine these points online which will yield a new balance of Marriott/SPG points, the new currency of the combined program. Don’t forget, your SPG points transfer to the new program at a 1:3 ratio.
It is easy to merge your accounts. This is how I did it.
1. I logged in to the Marriott site (the only site now available) with my Marriott Rewards number.
2. I scrolled down and clicked on the box “combine accounts”.
3. I hit the “get started” button and when prompted entered in my SPG account number and password. Note, if your numbers autofill, the site specifically states do not use autofill but instead retype your SPG number.
4. I entered my SPG password for a second time.
5. I then followed the remaining very simple prompts to combine the accounts.
Some notes…
I did this for both myself and Rob. I decided to play a little with Rob’s account and tried to log in at the very beginning using his SPG number instead of his Marriott one. When I did this, the site tried to assign him an entirely new number. I canceled and got out of there. I re logged back in with his Marriott number and proceeded as above.
Now that things seem to be working again on the site, I plan to cancel and rebook some of my existing reservations where the point value has gone down. If you have existing Marriott/SPG reservations that you booked with points, you should check them. If it will now require less points to book your room, rebook them. If they will require more, congrats you got a windfall. I had provided you this information in the past, so hopefully you should know if your current reservations could be booked for less.
There will be a category 8 level in 2019 (right now there are just levels 1-7). Don’t forget, currently, you can book category 8 hotels at category 7 levels. If you have a fancy resort in mind, that will likely come in at a category 8, book it ASAP.
I will be posting more about the updated program shortly. For now, you can combine!