A Quick Mid-Year Check On Hotel Status
Some vacation time and a very busy work schedule have kept me from checking my progress on hotel status at the halfway point of the year. Now that I’ve had a moment to catch up, I’m fairly pleased with where I sit at the midpoint. My goal was to retain both Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status and Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum status. I had a secondary goal of keeping my Starwood Ambassador who takes pretty good care of our family. 100 nights with Starwood would be a tall tale along with 25 stays/50 nights with Hyatt.
I’ve been trying to book the majority of my revenue stays with Hyatt because their lifetime status is tied to a spending threshold, not a number of nights. Starwood allows award night to count towards lifetime status, so most of our vacations are going there.
I like both of these programs combined. Neither is the biggest, but both have aspirational properties. Hyatt is strong in some areas, Starwood in others. While some corporate travelers need to have Hilton or a Marriott in their rotation, I’m lucky enough that all the cities I visit for business have either a Hyatt or Starwood.
So, where do I stand?
Starwood Preferred Guest:
I started the year out better than I would have expected. I needed 25 stays or 50 nights to retain Platinum.
I already crossed the 50 night plateau, earning me Platinum for another year. Technically, I had less than 50 nights at the end of June but there’s an award stay from my recent vacation to Italy (stay tuned for all the details on that trip) included in the above numbers.
As far as lifetime Platinum status, that appears to be in hand now. The requirements are 10 years as a Platinum member and 500 nights. As of today, I have 8 years as a Platinum and 466 nights. If I hit 100 nights to retain my Ambassador this year I’ll have the 500 nights completed and will just need to keep Platinum the next two years.
Hyatt Gold Passport:
Similar to Starwood Platinum status, Diamond status with Hyatt Gold Passport requires 25 stays or 50 nights. At the mid-year point, I’m in sight of the finish line.
I have 3 stays in August which will finish up my Diamond qualifications for the year. It will still leave me shy of 50 nights but cover the 25 stays, with another 25 nights or so with Hyatt by the end of the year.
Hyatt’s lifetime status is a bigger challenge. The only thing that counts towards lifetime status is cold, hard cash. $200,000 worth, to be exact, or 1 million base points. As of now, I’m past the halfway point at 550,000. To say that I can see the finish line here would be a gross overstatement, especially considering Hyatt could change the qualifications to be more competitive in the next couple of years. The last conversation I had with Hyatt executives about 6 months ago seemed to indicate this wasn’t on the radar for the next year or two. But, I probably have a solid 3 years worth of travel to hit 1 million base points.
I value my Hyatt Diamond status most highly of all, more than Starwood Platinum. The delivery of promised benefits by Hyatt is exceptional, whereas I still struggle with items like suite upgrades at SPG, even with their new-ish Suite Night Awards. My Starwood Ambassador adds a ton of value and I look likely to hit 100 nights again this year but I’m not sure how many more years I’ll be able to put up numbers like that. I don’t like using words like “always” and “never”, but if I didn’t have my SPG Ambassador looking after me, I highly doubt I’d make the push to 100 nights.
So, there you have it. I’m pretty happy at the halfway mark. I’ve achieved one of my 3 goals, will have Hyatt Diamond sewed up in a couple weeks to take care of another, and have a good path towards 100 nights to achieve all 3.
Lifetime status, something I value highly, looks to be a lock for SPG now, while I still have some work to do on Hyatt. Why is lifetime status so important to me? Simple. At some point, this crazy carousel of business travel will slow down and I’ll be able to enjoy more time with my family. When it does, I want to be able to enjoy these benefits I spent so much time away from home earning.
What are your hotel status plans this year? How is your progress?
Falling behind on Hyatt again this year. Only 9 stays and 16 nights. I’ve got 6 stays planned, but it looks like I’ll have to check in to the Hyatt Deerfield again a few times this year if I want to maintain Diamond. Not a single upgrade, except for the two suite upgrades I’ve burned. Park Hyatt Vienna was definitely the Hyatt highlight. Also, passed my 100th different Hyatt and got a free night, lifetime points are at 354K
We are equal on SPG stays 21, but I’m way behind on you on nights with 29. I’ve been upgraded on 15 out of my 21 stays, the best was probably the St. Regis San Clemente where we got a suite that was selling for 3900 Euros.
Ritz Carlton Rewards I’m at 48 nights, but 30 of those are from conferences (you get 15 night credits per conference.) For some reason, I got a Platinum card in the mail a couple of weeks ago expiring in 2016. I most certainly did not spend 75K on the RC credit card. I’ve got a really relaxed attitude towards the status, I’ve got Gold anyways with the credit card. Platinum is not much difference. Had a couple of nice stays, and was even upgraded twice. The best was probably the Ritz Carlton Vienna where I received a big suite. Great property.
Hilton I’m at 9 stays due to European travel, still have Diamond from last year due to paying a conference with the card. Not trying to renew Diamond, but have Gold through the Hilton credit card. I’ve had som good service at various European Hiltons with good lounges and some good upgrades, but no suites of course.
1) Where on the website can you find out how many hyatt’s you’ve been to (re: tommy’s post)?
2) I used to love Starwood but the lack of honoring published benefits made me switch to Hyatt.
Michael,
1. You can’t. You can ask Hyatt for a list by e-mailing them or calling them, but there’s no spot where you go to get a list. That being said, all of my activity is available in my account summary and I can see all properties listed, but I’ve only been a member for 4 years.
2. This is the exact reason I switched a bunch of business to Hyatt. I had a few stays as part of goodwill for some business I was bidding on and was surprised at how well Hyatt delivered the benefits. Since then, they’ve gotten the majority of my revenue stays.