New Hotel Status Match Offer, Your Premium Rewards Credit Card Is Enough For Top Tier

GHA Discovery is the loyalty program across 40 hotel brands and over 800 properties such as Viceroy, Pan Pacific, Outrigger, Kempinski, NH Hotels, Marco Polo, Anantara and Capella.

They’re just wrapping up one of the boldest earning promotions I’ve ever seen offering up to a 94% rebate on stays (excluding taxes and fees). They’ve been adding elite benefits like breakfast at several brands since the program’s relaunch three years ago. And they now have an exceptionally broad status match campaign.


Kempinski Cancun

Here’s how status is normally earned:

  • Silver: Base level
  • Gold: 2 stays or $1000 spend
  • Platinum: 10 nights or $5000 spend or stays at 2 brands
  • Titanium: 30 nights or $15,000 spend or 3 brands

Here are their key elite benefits:

  • Bonus points-earning: Discovery Dollars earning is 4% / 5% / 6% / 7% based on status level.
  • Late checkout/Early check-in: Titaniums get 11 a.m. early check-in. Platinums get 3 p.m. checkout and Titaniums get 4 p.m. checkout. This is subject to availability.
  • Upgrades: Platinums get a single category upgrade and Titaniums get a double upgrade (subject to availability).
  • Amenity: Platinums and Titaniums receive a welcome amenity
  • Brand-specific benefits: Titaniums also receive additional benefits that vary by brand such as breakfast, airport transfer, or complimentary laundry
  • Breakfast: is a benefit rolling out across brands (not available at all brands) for Titanium members.

Through December 16 they are offering to match airline, hotel, and cruise status – as well as simply a premium credit card. And they’re matching up to their top published Titanium tier. Status will last through the end of 2025. It’s a paid offer through StatusMatch.com, but you get half the fee back in GHA’s rewards currency to spend at their hotels (these ‘Discovery Dollars’ expire if unused after 12 months).

  • Platinum matches: cost $100, rebate D$50
  • Titanium matches: cost $150, rebate D$75

This is a program that has regularly honored status match requests, but that’s been limited to matching from other hotel programs and also required you to have had at least one stay with the program in the prior 24 months. So this is available much more broadly. The offer says it may be once in a lifetime.

There’s an extensive list of airlines and hotels being matched against, even Marriott and Hilton Silver matches to GHA Platinum, and Marriott Platinum to GHA Titanium. A few examples of status matching to GHA Titanium, the program’s top published tier:

  • Airlines: Air Canada 75K and above; American Platinum Pro and above; British Airways Gold and above; United Platinum and above. Oddly, neither Delta nor Southwest are on this list.

  • Hotels: Choice Diamond; Hilton Diamond; Hyatt Globalist; IHG Platinum and above; Marriott Platinum and above

They’ll even match against cruise status and mere credit card possession. Any Visa Platinum or Signature issued in the US, Canada or Europe gets GHA Platinum while any Visa Infinite issued in these regions qualifies for Titanium.

That means, for instance, GHA Titanium is available to anyone with: Chase Sapphire Reserve; Chase United Club Infinite; Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite; US Bank Altitude Reserve; Capital One Venture X; Chase Ritz Carlton; CNB Crystal Visa Infinite and more. (They validate you actually have this card by requiring you to pay the application fee with it.)

My GHA stays are limited. Their U.S. footprint is small. But my last one, at Kempinski Cancun back in June, was fabulous. I always want to stay with GHA Discovery more often.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Thanks Gary,

    Matched my Globalist. It’ll be interesting to see how this program treats it’s highest tier guests versus Hyatt and Marriott..

    I suspect the pool is lower so the benefits and soft treatment will be much better..

  2. So if I am reading this correctly, Titanium match costs $150 but you get $75 back in credit. Correct? Seems like a good deal since several hotels I was looking at for next years trip to Europe seem to be in the program and the $75 should be easily recouped with free breakfasts and possible upgrades. Am I missing something?

  3. “Subject to availability” benefits are not really benefits upon which to count or even be really thankful for being listed as a benefit. More and more hotels nowadays trample on what little remains of the idea of elite status benefits “subject to availability”. Late check-out in particular has become a lot harder to count upon when it’s “subject to availability”, and that is because hotels have upped their game in cost-cutting on housecleaning staffing and also upped their game in monetizing early check-in and late check-out for a surcharge regardless of elite status level. And then that infection of “subject to availability” gaming by hotels spreads across the industry in a market and then from market to market.

  4. Do you think this means that if I use my venture x card to get titanium status with GHA, I can reverse match that to Hyatt Globalist, United Platinum, and the others mentioned?

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