Good News! Further Clarification On Marriott Lifetime Status
There have been a bunch of announcements/updates/clarifications since Marriott announced the first significant pieces of their new loyalty program.
Each blogger I follow had a bit of a different take on all of the changes. It was interesting to see the points certain folks focused on. I didn’t set out to focus on lifetime status. But, many of you have asked me questions about referred to Marriott’s decisions around lifetime status.
Quick Recap
After I posted about the changes I was able to grab some time with Gary Leff of View From The Wing to get his thoughts. Along with program changes, we also had new credit card strategies to consider for both SPG and Marriott.
At the outset, Marriott had said that only Marriott lifetime Platinum members would be able to earn lifetime Platinum Premier status (to be awarded to guests staying 75 nights per year in the future). This would be a one-shot deal. If you were a lifetime Platinum member via the Marriott requirements by the end of 2018, you’d receive lifetime Platinum Premier status. If not, that path would be closed.
After a bit of consideration, Marriott changed their minds and laid out qualifications for SPG lifetime Platinum members to earn the new lifetime Platinum Premier status. At that time, the requirements were 10 years of Platinum status with SPG and at least 750 nights total at SPG hotels. There was no mention of combining your progress between Marriott and SPG to earn lifetime Platinum Premier status. And, it was still a one-shot deal. Meet the qualifications by the end of 2018 and you’d be in.
That still left one question unanswered. Heck, there may be more. But, there was one question that just kept coming up. Would Marriott allow a combination of achievements between Marriott and SPG to qualify for lifetime Platinum Premier? They hadn’t said “no” specifically on this point. And, it turned out that after a bit more waiting, the answer was “yes”. Marriott announced that as long as you had 10 years of top-tier elite status and 750 nights across both programs you would meet the requirements for this one-time status match to lifetime Platinum Premier.
That covers it all, right? No.
At least half a dozen folks immediately had a follow-up question for me. It had to do with how Marriott would look at folks who were earning elite status in both programs in the same year.
Sum it up something like this, “If Jane Doe has 5 years as a Marriott Platinum and 5 years as an SPG Platinum, in theory she’s met that requirement. What if Jane Doe earned both of those status levels in the same year, say 2015? If she earned both status levels in the same year (2015), does she get credit for 2 years of top-tier status for purposes of calculating lifetime status?”
What’s The Answer?
I reached out to Marriott to get clarification. I got a speedy and helpful reply to my question above”
In this scenario, once the member combines their accounts in August, they would receive credit for two years in total of Platinum Elite status that would count towards lifetime.
Yay! This should make some folks happy! I’m glad to hear that Marriott is using the most generous method to award folks lifetime status.
The post Good News! Further Clarification On Marriott Lifetime Status was published first on Pizza in Motion
Terrible news.. how is ti good news that there will be a billion Lifetime Platinums?
Good news would have been LESS elites and a better program for those who earned it
Ryan, this really isn’t going to introduce a ton more folks. For this specific change to increase the number of lifetime Platinum Premier members, a customer would have had to spend at least 100 nights in hotels over the course of a year. Besides, I don’t think there’s going to be a deluge of upgrades available.
I agree with Ryan. By the time August (or January) rolls around, there are going to be more lifetime platinum premiers than silvers. Its bad enough that seemingly everyone with platinum, plat elite, gold, etc, will be some version of Platinum from August-February, now the lifetime pools are going to explode and they’re never going to be able to undo this. Its like an Oprah christmas special…you get Platinum and you get Platinum and YOU get Platinum!
Christa, I just don’t see it that way. There really weren’t that many SPG lifetime Platinums.
Everyone is elite so no one is elite!
Sheer stupidity. I thought all the SPG people were going to move to Hilton or Hyatt.
I love how people lose their minds over hotel elite status. Yes, staying loyal to certain brands to gain elite status to receive perks makes sense. Yes, everyone likes perks and everyone wants the perks they have been promised. But lets be real, there are about half a dozen more important factors than your elite status that will determine if you get a better room or a suite. How full the hotel is, what time you check-in, what time the guest checks out of the room they have you assigned to checks out, the hotel brand itself (full service Marriott vs a Courtyard for instance), the physical property itself and how many suites and desirable rooms exist, whether or not the property has a rooms coordinator (or just front desk staff assigning rooms), how much the rooms coordinator/front desk actually cares/pays attention to elite status when assigning rooms, all those factors come into play way before your elite status. So while yes, having tons and tons of high elites may keep you from getting a suite or better room, it’s not even close to being the most important factor, not by a long shot.
Elite guy, fold in that occupancy right now is at historically high levels and there just aren’t a ton of upgrades to be had.
OK, I’m still confused. I have over 1,000 Marriott nights and 960,000 points, Can I transfer 40,000 SPG points for Lifetime Plat Status?
Bob, how many years of top-tier elite status do you have between the two programs?
Not sure, but assume I don/t have 10 years, do I qualify under Marriotts old program?
So the thing that throws me for a loop is that, as I recall, Marriott threw out the top tier status for 10 years requirement for LT Plat… so does that reintroduce a requirement? Seems like they’ve really confused things up.
Trevor, this is just for the one-time qualification for LT Plat Premier.
Ed, I’m tracking that, but I *should* have qualified (not 100% sure how to interpret the Marriott website at the moment) for LT Marriott Plat (soon to be LT Plat Premier), but seeing all these various announcements is confusing even me! (or maybe I’m the only one confused?) Specifically, its not clear to me, what rules apply to just qualifying under the Marriott program, as opposed to the combined program approach, have those changed or have they just added more. Seems to me like you can do – Marriott Only (750 nights, 2M lifetime points), SPG Lifetime (750 nights, 10 years of top tier status), or the combined approach… Am I missing anything?
Trevor, the way I’m reading all the various updates I’ve gotten is if you qualified under either of the old requirements, you’re good with at least 750 nights. These new announcements only make it easier, allowing you to combine some elements of both.
Let’s hope its that easy! I suppose only time will tell.