I've been a Marriott Rewards member for many years.
We used to be able to reserve a reward room without assigning points until a later time.
Why was that taken away?
It was very useful to be able to reserve a room many months in advance knowing you would have the points by then.
But still be able to use your current points for rooms you might need before then.
I really miss this feature.
I know I can get around this by reserving a room using all my points, making a future reservation, then canceling the dummy reservation that used all my points. But that is a pain.
Just seems like Marriott used to be more user/customer friendly.