Originally Posted by
yurtripper
Except that the thread you link to is full of inaccurate information, with people making grand claims which they're unable to back up. Nobody has yet incontrovertibly demonstrated the veracity of the claim that SPG Golds (matched to MR Gold) will only get Gold... but the notion that it's a locked in certainty refuses to die. And every time this 'Gold from August 1' claim gets called into question, someone who hasn't read any of the previous posts comes along to state the exact same thing... and then inevitably backs it up with the ONLY datapoints that support their claim (a comment made by David Flueck in a TPG video or a Twitter response by a minimum wage CS rep), while ignoring the contradictory statements subsequently made by other senior Marriott execs (including Bob Behrens, who Flueck referred to as the go-to guy for anyone with specific questions about the new program rollout).
What makes it worse is that many people seem to be ignoring the very real possibility that the SPG mapping in the elite status table refers only to *unmatched* accounts (yes, they do exist outside FlyerTalk).
I'd say it's 90% (finger in the air estimate) that SPG Golds who are matched to MR Gold will get Platinum on Aug 1 till early 2019. Likewise, SPG Plats who are matched to MR Plat should get Plat Premier.
But the thing is I would never claim that this a sure-fire thing. We still don't know for sure until it's properly clarified.
I'm inclined to agree, more that on the "we still don't know" front. MR is telling everyone to match accounts now so you can combine your elite balances (nights / points) into a single new profile at some point after the August 1st deadline of the new program passes. The FAQ on members.marriott.com says you'll be contacted to combine the accounts (rather than just matching) "
starting in August.". Starting in August
could mean August 1st, but it
could mean later in August as well. And even if account consolidation was offered starting Aug 1st, they're not going to stop offering it within a day or two.
Without knowing Marriott's backend though, hard to say. It's possible that they have a flag in the database that status comes from a match (on either side) and then the account receiving the match has its status calculated.
I would be inclined to think Marriott's primary concern is getting the new system working properly and lifetime status/nights/points history transferred from SPG to MR (essentially, that yurtripper is probably right, and that there's a good chance SPG members matched to whatever level in MR will have the MR side temp go to the higher tier [gold -> new plat, plat -> new premier plat] for the remained of the year). Then over the period of August-December, getting accounts properly combined, and reconciling any that don't combine properly. Then, dropping the status (if appropriate) of a combined account according to the published yearly/new lifetime criteria put forward for early 2019 onwards.