So, I started to stay at various Hiltons only in February this year.

I signed up for the HHonors AmEx (with a 60,000 points offer), so I was awarded Silver status. Then I saw the Free Night promotion offer and started to do some hotel hopping as I am hoping to earn at least 2 Free Night Certs.

Today I logged into my account and it looks after only 4 stays (I am actually at 5, but the 5th hasn't posted yet) I have been granted Gold status.

So three questions for those who are more in the know:

1) Why Gold? I thought I had to reach 16 stays to get Gold. Even if they started from the Silver number of stays as a baseline (which I wasn't expecting), this would be additional 12 stays as Silver is granted after only 4 stays. They couldn't have granted me Gold status because of my 60,000+ points, as this was due to credit card promotion, right? I cannot rationalize this, anybody has an explanation?

2) So, if 1) makes sense, how many stays until I make Diamond? Getting greedy...

3) Until when will the Gold status last, is it one year from now or is it until the end of 2010, or the end of 2011?

Below my account acivity.

Account Summary
XXXXXX XXXXX
HHonors #: XXXXXXXXX

HHonors Gold VIP

64,606 TOTAL POINTS

Qualifying Summary what's this?

Stays Completed: 4
Nights Completed: 4
Base Points: 4,027