[784caroline]

deano
We also belong to the Marriott Rewards program and have taken advantage of many (free) trips to places like Hawaii, Germany, HongKong, Thailand using the "Travel packages" as you described them. WE have a Marriott Timeshare and accumulate alot of points through member referrals and have on one occasion actually traded a week in for Marriott Rerward Points.

In my opinion, the MArriott Credit card is OK if you stay at alot of Marriott Hotels. Otherwise there are drawbacks such as having to pay the $65 annual fee. The MArriott points that you accumulate are best used by far for Marriott hotel stays or the "travel packages" That typically include a 7 day consecutive hotel stay certificate (not a great feature). To redeem Marriott points for airline ticktes...well the points have to be in your airline Frequent Flyer account..not marriotts and that can take a couple of days or weeks and you can lose you seats waiting for the transfer. Using Marriott points strictly for Airline tickets is not a good use of your marriott points...neither is using marriott points for cruise tickets or general mercahndise. You definitely get most value out of marriott points using them for Marriott Hotel rooms or the Travel Packages.
After years of having and using a Marriott Master Card as my primary card, I now still have it, but use the USAA Travel Rewards Master Card which offers me much more flexibility for what I want to use it for.
BTW we intend to use our MArriott reward points to get a travel package to Australlia. USing these points take some planning and some day it would be great to comapre notes on your trip down under!