Word last month was that Marriott would be changing the rules for lifetime elite status, removing the requirement for number of years in the program, beginning in 2013.
Now Marriott has posted details of their new requirements for lifetime elite status in their Marriott Insiders forum.
The new requirements are:
Lifetime Milestones
• Platinum Elite: 750 nights + 2 million points
• Gold Elite: 500 nights + 1.6 million points
• Silver Elite: 250 nights + 1.2 million points
The website isn’t up yet, but they’ll be promoting lifetime status (rather than having it as an unpublished benefit of the program) at MarriottRewards.com/Lifetime.
There are no changes to the number of Marriott Rewards points earned during a lifetime to earn status. Instead, they’ve dropped the requirement for 12 years in the program before being eligible for lifetime status. And they’ve reduced the number of nights necessary for each tier level.
- Silver goes from 600 to 250.
- Gold goes from 800 to 500.
- Platinum goes from 1000 to 750.
There was some nervousness around the impending changes, since lifetime status affects a chain’s most loyal members and their accrual over a series of years. There’s always the risk if you increase requirements that you’ll really undercut the efforts of members who have been striving to achieve benefits for a decade or more and just before they’ve achieved the goal. Reductions in lifetime benefits generate some of the most passionate responses.
So it’s good to see that the changes involve publishing the requirements and making the levels easier to obtain. That should encourage members to stay loyal longer.
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
This is dramatic and may alter my patterns. Can anyone advise whether nights earned through “meetings” (ahem) and cc spend/renewal count?
With 675 nights, that automatically puts me at lifetime gold. I am going to assume I’ve earned 1.6M points since I recall a balance of over 1M at some point. This is the friendliest move by a loyalty program in a very long time.
I stopped staying at Marriotts actively about 6 years ago except when visiting my corporate HQ. Now Marriott will likely get spillover beyond 100 nights at SPG to make towards lifetime Platinum.
Definitely a great move on Marriott’s part… I think I’ve got lifetime Silver, almost lifetime Gold already… Definitely good timing, right when I was starting to wonder if Lifetime Plat was worth pursuing over staying at SPG and Hyatt.
@jfhscott – Yes, all nights count.
@jfhscott & Mooper
All nights that count toward yearly status count toward lifetime – including credit card and rollover nights. On the other side: Award nights for example don’t count toward yearly status and therefore don’t count for lifetime.