Obtain a Hotel Status – The Easy Way
Usually you need to spend a considerable number of nights at one hotel chain to benefit from extra perks. However, there are easier ways to obtain a hotel status.
- Ways to obtain a hotel status
- Using a newly gained status for status matches
- Why now is a good time to get your status
A mid or top tier hotel status can come in quite handy in some situations. You will often get extra perks like a room upgrade, welcome gifts, dedicated check in lines or even free breakfast already with a mid tier status.
However, staying 40 nights or more at one single hotel chain is quite hard to reach for most of us. Therefor we summarize your possibilities to get such a status using shortcuts, and we show you how you can maximize the benefits you are getting out of your first hotel status.
1. Ways to obtain a hotel status
There are several ways to obtain a hotel status, we will explain the different possibilities here below:
Credit Cards – The easy way
In many countries there exist all kind of travel credit cards, even from hotel loyalty schemes themselves which will get you a mid tier status right away for a yearly subscription fee. Furthermore, you will mostly also collect points for every euro you spent. Many cards also offer you to get their top tier status if you spent a certain amount of money with your card during one year.
The Hilton Visa for example, it is available in some countries and will cost you around 50€ per year. You will become Hilton Gold immediately.
The American Express Platinum is offering mid tier status at many hotels like Marriott, Hilton and others. However, it will depend on the country you live, if and what statuses you will earn. This card isn’t cheap, it comes at the cost of nearly 50€ per month. For the occasional traveler this might be too much to pay for. For frequent traveler the American Express Platinum is a card you should consider to use, as you will have a lot of travel perks.
Buying yourself a hotel status
It is also possible to simply buy yourself a hotel status on some occasions.
For the time being there are 2 different statuses available which you can simply buy.
We have already covered both in previous articles.
This is probably the easiest way to get yourself a hotel status without too much bureaucracy. However, it will only make sense if you are actually staying a couple of nights at these hotels or already have a status match or challenge in mind. Especially Accor Gold has to be considered because of the low price.
Use a status challenge if available
Status challenges are sometimes available without the need of actually already possessing a status at another loyalty scheme.
For now, Marriott offers such a status challenge. You simply have to call them, and you will then have 3 months time to stay 8 nights at Marriott properties to obtain Gold status.
Look our page here for an updated list of status matches and challenges currently available.
Earn yourself a status the hard way
You can still aim for a status simply by staying many nights at hotels. If you really aim her-for, you should at least try to maximize your stays. For example, if you plan a 3-day trip to a city you could potentially stay at 3 different hotels from the same hotel chain to earn 3 stays instead of one single stay on top of your 3 nights. Stays are usually valued higher than nights at some Hotel schemes, like Hilton Honors.
2. Using a newly gained status for status matches
Once in possession of a mid tier Hotel status, you have now many possibilities to use this status to perform a status match or a status challenge.
It might sound tempting to immediately make use of every status match possibility out there, but you have to remember that most of these offers can only be used once.
Therefore, it is better you only perform a status match when you are actually planning to stay for at least a couple of nights at these hotels in the future, to get some value out of the perks your match or challenge comes with
Furthermore, if you perform such a status match only once a year, you will be in possession of a hotel status for a longer period of time and are thus open to more arising opportunities to match later on. By doing this, you will also have the possibility to match your status when you really need it in the future instead of waiting your opportunities.
Right now, many status challenges or matches are available like for example with Hilton or Best Western.
Look our page here for an updated list of status matches and challenges currently available.
3. Why now is a good time to get your status
Due to the Covid-19 situation, many hotels are currently extending the validity period of their statuses. This means that you can easily obtain a status for up to 24 months, in other times you would only have gotten the status for 12 months. By having one status for a longer period of time your possibilities increase even further.
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