They’d be annoyed because they could have gotten the same redemption with an old cat 7 cert and saved 30k points. No one likes overpaying for things.

The problem is that people view the cat 7 conversion as being expected and the cat 8 conversion as getting screwed, whereas if you run the numbers you'll realize that the cat 8 conversion was actually very fair and the cat 7 conversion was overly generous.

People who had cat 8 certificates didn't overpay, the reality is that people who had cat 7 certificates underpaid.

So while I do understand the frustration from people who could have paid less for the same thing, in the end they've simply missed out on a good deal but they didn't actually lose anything. At that point you're just complaining that the guy next to you got a freebie and you didn't, it's jealousy.

I also understand the frustration from people who upgraded last minute and ended up with the same result, but for those people the upgrade was a gamble on getting a better deal, and sadly it didn't pay off.

And don’t forget about the people that could’ve booked an old cat 8 yesterday and can’t today because lots of old cat 8 properties moved to new cat 6

If people had a category 8 certificate yesterday and were interested in a category 8 property then they should have booked it yesterday. Marriott had made this very clear and this has been extensively relayed on all the blogs.

This is exactly the same as the yearly devaluation: if you book your stay before the devaluation you can lock in the price, but if you wait until after the devaluation to book (because you don't have enough points, or because you don't have a specific redemption in mind yet) then the new price applies.