I'm somewhere in the middle on this one. I see Mike's point perhaps a bit more than the OP's, but I also see the OP saying "Hey, some rules are changing, some people are getting details about a challenge, why can't you at least tell me the specs of the challenge and I'll decide whether to go after it?"

I still believe Hilton has created a bit of a marketing problem for themselves by making all of their published status levels available to people who don't actually stay at the hotels. Most other chains are more than happy to use their low- and mid-tiers for client acquisition purposes, but they keep the top-tier purely for ongoing customer relationship management purposes outside of the unpublished status comps which are statistically rare systemwide.

Therefore, I can see where a 10-year Diamond (who probably held Diamond "the hard way") is saying "OK, everybody willing to pay a few bucks for a Surpass card is going to get the treatment I've gotten by staying in your hotels for ten years. How 'bout a little slack just this one time?"

I know it won't be popular here, but I think Hilton is going to eventually need to add a level above Diamond that is reserved for actual frequent guests of the chain. Perhaps something on par with Marriott Platinum Premier - no easy shortcuts into that status.