Marriott is changing their lifetime status requirements January 1, 2013 for the better. In the past, it used to be based on three things: 1) Number of years in the Marriott Rewards program, 2) Total number of accumulated points, and 3) Total number of accumulated nights. Moving forward they got rid of requirement 1 (which is great!) and lowered the number of total points needed over the years.
The new requirements include:
- Platinum Elite: 750 nights + 2 million points
- Gold Elite: 500 nights + 1.6 million points
- Silver Elite: 250 nights + 1.2 million points
The number of accumulated nights can easily be seen on your Marriott Rewards online account, but to find out your total accumulated points you must call Marriott for this information. I was told it included all nights earned, including credit card earned nights, along with all points earned, including bonus points.
While I would easily make gold lifetime status if it were just based on nights (I have 592 nights), my point balance is much lower. My total point accumulation over the past 7 years is 1,034,568. While I have stayed at Marriotts a bunch – I even had an extended stay hotel at one point, my nightly average cost has been around $89/night – which is pretty low. I am sure I can get Silver Elite lifetime status soon, but it will take awhile for the other lifetime status’s to hit.
However, since I was told it includes ALL earned points, there are many ways to enhance that point balance without staying at hotels – credit card bonus offers, online shopping mall, transferring points from Chase Ultimate Rewards (although not a good transfer value!), etc. While this has not been fully confirmed, the rep was pretty confident with me that all earned points count, but the fine print hasn’t been published anywhere for me to double confirm.
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Is there a way to find out the total lifetime points on the Marriott website? Finding total nights is easy, but all I can find are the points I’ve accumulated this year.
@Peter D – you’ll need to call Marriott Rewards to inquire
I called to find out, it was interesting to learn with 350 lifteime nights I only had about 800K total points. I must be staying cheaper than I thought 🙂
I still think the number of points is out of line with number of nights. Considering Plats only earned a 30% bonus up until a few years ago, even if you were a Plat all that time up until today, you would have maybe earned an average of about 14 points per dollar. To qualify for lifetime Silver status with 250 nights, without any additional points from credit cards or anything, you would have had to have spent an average of $343 per night to get the number of points required. Gold and Plat is a little less but still out of line a normal average room rate.
@KevininRI – I absolutely agree. While I’d make lifetime gold with the number of nights I have, I still don’t make lifetime silver due to the number points I have.
I’m in the same boat, 549 nights (enough for lifetime gold) but only 1.162 million points (not quite enough for lifetime silver)
Interesting! Looked at my total nights on the Marriott website which also had the total points balance. I’ve got the nights for Gold but far short on points . . . Oh well, guess I’ll keep on keeping on!
It can be found on marriottrewards.com/lifetime