Obviously, until Marriott announces the specific August start date for the new loyalty program and what the specific spend criteria will be, we won’t know for sure.

I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume, however, that once the new loyalty program starts, anyone with a combined 100 nights in 2018 between Marriott and SPG hotels and the $20K spend will immediately be eligible for an Ambassador. The assignment of said Ambassador may take up to a couple weeks, though—as has been true even with SPG.

For anyone one who reaches 100 nights in 2018 entirely with legacy SPG hotels, they will immediately be eligible for an Ambassador, too. (They won’t need to hit the $20K spend this year if they reach 100 nights under the current SPG parameters.)

For everyone complaining about the delay in notification about the spending parameters to reach $20K, I’d say you should consider that you’re pretty fortunate and lucky that Marriott decided to start the new loyalty program in August—else you’d have no chance to earn Ambassador status until you hit 100 nights and $20K spend in 2019! This (slight) delay in information may bother you, but Marriott could have bothered you far more by not even giving you a shot at an Ambassador for the rest of 2018 and probably the first half of 2019. So any delay that causes you to feel impatient now is more than worth it for the fact that you have a chance to earn Ambassador status a lot earlier than otherwise might have been true. So I’d say suck it up and realize you’re still winning.