Shortcuts to elite hotel status

  Hotel Strategies

Normally, the path to elite status is to stay a lot of nights at participating hotels over the course of the year. However, unless you travel a lot for work, it is hard to achieve elite status this way.

Fortunately, there are some shortcuts to elite hotel status.

It is possible to get free breakfast at Hilton hotels just by getting a credit card. With other programs, it is hard to get free breakfast, free lounge access, or the possibility of a suite upgrade, but it is easy to get at least some valuable elite benefits.

Jump to

• Credit Cards
• Airline elite status partnerships
• Status matches and challenges
• Ongoing status match programs

Most hotel branded credit cards give you some level of automatic elite status

With the exception of getting Hilton Gold (or Diamond) status from one of several credit cards, it usually isn't worthwhile to get a hotel credit card, just for the extra benefits you get from credit card's elite hotel status. However, the elite status benefits are a nice side benefit of getting one of these cards for other reasons, such as their annual free night certificates. .

Airline elite status partnerships

Elite members of some airline programs are given automatic elite status in partner hotel programs. For example, every United Platinum member gets automatic Marriott Gold status. To receive the benefits, you need to register and link your accounts.

Marriott and United	United Gold elites can get automatic Marriott Gold status, which provides some minor benefits, but no longer provides free breakfast or club access at Marriott. Marriott Titanium members get automatic United Silver status. United RewardsPlus.
Marriott and Emirates	Marriott elites (Gold and above) earn 3 points for every dollar spent on Emirates, on top of any Emirates miles they'd earn. Emirates elites (Silver and above) earn Skyward miles for every dollar spent at Marriott. Emirate Gold elites don't get actual Marriott status, but they do get priority check-in, 4pm checkout, and free enhanced Wi-Fi. Your World Rewards.
Hyatt and American Airlines	American Airlines elites earn 1 mile for every dollar spent at Hyatt, and Hyatt elites earn 1 point for every dollar spent on American flights. Top-tier AA Concierge Key members get automatic Hyatt Globalist status. Lower level elites have access to special status challenges in the partner program.Typically, you’ll need 10 nights within 90 days to earn Explorist status. Executive Platinum members typically also can stay 20 nights within the 90 days to earn Globalist status. If you have high enough AA status, it would be worthwhile to register right before a period where you will be able to stay enough nights to complete the challenge.
Accor Live and Air France / KLM Flying Blue	When you link your Accor live and Flying Blue counts you are eligible for 5 XP and a bonus status night after your first Accor stay and another 5 XP and bonus status night after your first Air France or KLM flight. Members with linked accounts earn both Accor Live points and Flying Blue miles on all their hotels and flights. Program webpage.
Singapore and Shangri La	Singapore PPS club members or Kris Flyer Gold elites get Shangri La Gold status and will be automatically upgraded to Jade with just a single stay. Gold status gets benefits like free fruit and free local calls. Jade members get room upgrades, late check-out, free breakfast, and other valuable benefits. All members will earn 500 Singapore miles, along with their hotel points, when they stay at Shangri-La hotels. Infinite Journeys.

Status matches and challenges

Hotels are obviously interested in winning the business of frequent travelers. To help woo customers who have theoretically demonstrated that they are a frequent traveler by earning elite status in other programs, they will often provide a shortcut to their own status.

These come in two forms. A straightforward status match grants immediate elite status in one program based on your status in another. A status challenge allows you to earn elite status if you stay for a certain number of nights or visits over a period of a few months—usually far fewer hotel stays than would ordinarily be required. Sometimes you’ll be able to enjoy to the benefits of elite status during the challenge time period, sometimes you will need to wait until you’ve successfully completed the challenge.

Hotel programs will often match status that you simply received from a credit card. For example, in 2016, we had Platinum Status from having the IHG Credit card, got Hilton to give us Diamond status based on our IHG Platinum Status, and then got Hyatt to give us Platinum status based on our Hilton Diamond status—all without requiring a single hotel stay.

• Most of the larger hotel companies will only match your status once per lifetime, or once every few years—try to make it count. Wait until you have one or more trips planned where you expect to receive a lot of value from the extra benefits. While official rules will state once in a lifetime, those rules are not always enforced, so you can always try for another match.
• If you are staying with a hotel that belongs to a smaller loyalty program (which you don’t expect to frequently use), it is often worthwhile to try for status match before ANY stay.
• StatusMatcher is a good source of information about whether you are likely to be able to get a status match or not. StatusMatcher is a website where travelers share information about successful and unsuccessful attempts to get their status matched. It helps you see whether a program is likely to do any kind of status matching, and if so, which other programs it is likely to match, and what level of elite status you are likely to get.

Free Atlantis Vacations with Wyndham Status Match

If you can get matched to Wyndham Platinum status (or above), you can get an annual "free" vacation at Atlantis in the Bahamas. You will still need to pay the resort fee ($50 + tax per night and gratuities of $5 per person per night).

That is because Wyndham status is automatically matched by the Caesars reward program, and these benefits come with Caesars Platinum status. Fortunately, it is often easy to get Wyndham to match high level status with other hotel programs.

Ongoing status match programs

A few hotel chains advertise a formal status matching program. In addition, some of the large hotel chains will periodically run various status matching promotions. Even if you don’t read about a specific status challenge program or promotion, one may be still be possible with any given hotel program. You just need to contact them and ask.

	Hilton's current policy is to match status from any other program for 90 days. If you want status for longer, you’ll need to stay 10 nights during that 90-day period to get Gold status and 18 nights to get Diamond status. If you have an upcoming stay at Hilton, you can take advantage of this to get benefits during your stay. However, you can only take advantage of this once. Hilton Gold and Diamond status is pretty useful due to their breakfast benefit but is also easy to get through its credit cards. Hilton HHonors status match.
	Best Western's “Status Match…No Catch” program will match your status from other programs. Best Western status match.
	Choice matches status from other chains. However, you are officially only permitted to status match once per lifetime. Choice status match.

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