On many airlines (BA and SK come to mind), qualification levels depend on your home country, i.e. how well the airline is represented in the respective country.

I had no problem qualifying for HH Diamond, when Scandics still belonged to HHonors. At that time there were something like a hundred HHonors hotels all over in Scandinavia. Now there are six to seven.

I still try to stay at Hiltons much whenever possible (because of the high quality and despite the NOR-1 program). However, because of the limited amount of Hhonors properties in the cities I visit, it is now very hard to achieve even gold.

Would it make sense for Hilton to lower at least the Gold tier qualification levels (the lowest meaningful tier) in order to achieve loyalty of non-US members? Think of e.g. Brazil, with only two Hhonors properties in the whole country!