Friday, December 9, 2011

Hotel Status Match Success From Free Status Upgrades

I promised I'd post an update on my progress of hotel status matching using my newly-aquired free Platinum Accor Status and free Gold Marriott Status. Last week, I sent emails to Club Carlson, Omni, Best Western, & Priority Club asking if they could match status to my Accor A|Club Platinum status.

Here's a summary of the responses I received:

Club Carlson: 
"We would like to offer to match elite status that you have, with either 
Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, and Starwood only. We can match 
top level to Gold Elite and second level to Silver Elite. Our newest 
Concierge Elite level cannot be matched, it must be earned."


With that said, I responded back with a screen shot of my Marriott Gold Account & within 24 hours my Club Carlson account was matched to their Silver Elite level.

If you are interested in contacting Club Carlson about their status match program, please send an email to  goldpointsplus@carlson.com with your name, Club Carlson number, and a screen shot of your elite status with one of the accepted hotel brands. Responses are generally very quick.

Omni:
"At this time Omni Hotels does not offer tier level status matches.  Omni Hotels recently upgraded the Select Guest program to include a complimentary membership in GHA Discovery which gives members special privileges at all 12 luxury GHA brands around the world. In addition to earning tier night credits at all GHA brands, GHA Discovery offers an exciting ‘Local Experiences’ benefit.  More information can be found at www.ghadiscovery.com"

I'm not sure if I will be staying at a GHA property anytime soon, but I did sign up for the free status anyway just in case. It only took a couple of minutes to create an account.

Best Western: 
Best western has a promotion called, "Status Match, No Catch" where they will match any status from another hotel brand. You may email, mail, or fax proof of your elite status with another hotel brand and they will upgrade your account. Here is a direct link to the form you would use. I sent them an email containing a screen shot of my Accor A|Club Platinum status, and I was matched to Diamond status with Best Western.

Priority Club: 
I have not received a response yet. I will attempt to contact them again by this weekend.

If you currently do not have elite status with any hotel brand at the moment, please refer to my earlier post about how to get free gold status with Marriott. You can use the gold status as a way to receive elite status with the other hotel brands I mentioned.

Does anyone else have any hotel status match success stories? I'd love to hear!

-x0 Angelina

6 comments:

  1. If not planning on completing the 12 nights in 3 months, you also could have asked for and received platinum status. When I did it last month, no proof of other status was required. To extend platinum status, 18 nights within the same period is required.

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  2. Yes, that is what I did today for me and my wife. It was so easy and like you said Anonymous I probably wont have those stays but why not get the benefits of platinum instead of gold. Thanks for that info friend.

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  3. @Anonymous (x2): Awesome find! Thanks for sharing... wish I could have taken advantage of it too! I'll definitely update the post to reflect the platinum status option too :)

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  4. Do you know if status matches to most hotels are a once in a lifetime offer? I know most airlines are this way. If this is the case, I think I'd plan to proceed more conservatively. If not, I'll match everyone to my Priority Club platinum status!

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  5. @anonymous: I don't think they are a once in a lifetime opportunity because most programs are willing to match to gain your loyalty & it has been pretty on-going. A status match differs from a "status challenge" in which they grant you the status for a certain amount of time (90 days usually) and ask you to complete a certain number of stays in order for you to extend your benefits for the full year or term. With the status matches I did from above, it looks like I will have the status with that program for a while, unless they decided to change the terms of their programs at anytime, of course. Hope that helped!

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  6. Hey :-)

    i just upgrade my accounts (from Free User to Platinum )like you at Aclub and Marriot.

    But now i´ve got a question...
    Have you ever tried to get the "black level" at GHA (Global Hotel Alliance)`?
    I wrote an Email, if it´s possible to match my status from Aclub and Marriot but i got no answer :-(

    Greetings
    C.

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